Buying a New or Used Subaru WRX and STI

Start Buying a Subaru With the Job

Write down what the car has to do, then rank the list. A shared car gets both people’s list. There is no single vehicle that is fast, quiet, easy to live with, and ready to haul plywood and clients, so the ranking is where the compromise goes. If it is only your car, buy the one you want. If it is both of yours, the second driver’s list is part of the budget.

The ceiling comes second, and it is not the sticker. Tax, license fees, and dealer fees sit inside it before you look at fuel or miles per gallon. Insurance is the other number that can knock a car out, so price it as soon as the list is short, even if that means another call to the agent. After those two filters, a few manufacturers and models should be left. Five cars is the top of the list this FAQ wants you to drive.

Sit in each car. Open the doors and the trunk. Bring the thing you actually haul — clubs, skis, a ladder — and see if it fits or if you need a rack. Move the switches. Then drive it. The drive is for the ride, the brakes, and a pull from about 40 to 60 mph. A published 0–60 time is not the test. After the same loop in each car, the choice is the ranked list, the ceiling, and how the car felt. A forum cannot make that call, including WRX against STI against a Legacy GT. The variables are the buyer’s, and two people who have owned all three of the cars on a short list are rare.

Factory options are a sit-in decision too. The same navigation works in a different Subaru on the lot, so use whatever car has the button. Aftermarket versions of many options are cheaper, and some are better. The factory piece is the one with the factory warranty, and some people want it built in rather than stuck to the glass. That choice is personal. It is not a rule that one side wins.

What the Car Is Worth

Kelley Blue Book and NADA are the guides. They are not the check. The FAQ’s own picture of the gap is a car every calculator calls $7,000 that still sells for $5,000. One owner in the thread found NADA closer than Blue Book, and Blue Book hard to match on the market, and had an insurer that valued cars from NADA only. Use the guides as the yardstick. Do not treat either one as the price.

A modified car usually adds nothing, and the modifications can hurt the number. Ten thousand dollars of parts is not ten thousand dollars of price. The FAQ’s ceiling on a normal return is about 10 percent, and it calls modification a poor investment. Cars that sell over book are famous trophy cars or real race cars, the kind with tens of thousands of dollars in work. A stage 2 daily or a large single-turbo build is not that car.

A strong trade-in still has a cost. The store often makes that money back by staying close to sticker on the car you are buying. A no-haggle buying service, the kind that writes a quote you can hold for about 30 days, is the comparison. If that written offer beats the trade, sell the old car there and negotiate only the new one. A private sale — an ad, an auction site, a classified — is where the higher price usually is, along with tire-kickers, title and registration problems, buyers who assume a warranty you did not offer, and payment trouble.

New price versus used price

On a new car you can get close to what the dealer paid. On a used car you cannot. Used inventory comes from auctions and from trades, and a book of auction averages is not the invoice for the car on the line. The FAQ’s example is a used Forester a buyer starts at an $8,000 auction average when the store had paid $10,000 to get it in trade. That buyer looks like a tire-kicker. Start from Blue Book or NADA, then move for condition and miles. Paying over the guide can still be fair when the car is the clean one. Arguing down from the retail guide is the path both sides can follow. Arguing up from an auction average fights a number the store may never have paid.

The guides also miss cars people want more than the average, and they miss a short swing in what buyers are chasing. The FAQ’s old pictures of that were a New Beetle and a Mini that held value, and a year when efficient cars sold over book while trucks and SUVs sold under it. Those are examples of the miss, not a current market. A printed “dealer invoice” misses the same kind of thing from the other direction: holdback, incentives, and numbers that change by region and by month. The FAQ’s sample of a site invoice, $21,345, is the kind of figure a dealer can look at and reject. It is not a Subaru price.

What Changes on a Subaru

The buying steps are the same as any car. Three Subaru-specific points are what this thread would actually answer.

• Modifications. Budget the car as the book car. Plan on about zero back for the parts, and on the chance the parts make it harder to sell.
• Which model. WRX, STI, and Legacy GT are not a question a stranger can close. Insurance, price, and how you will use it decide it. Sit in them.
• Two problems the FAQ would name. Fuel-rail leaks on the 2002 WRX, and head gaskets on the 1999–2002 2.5L naturally aspirated engines. The same post treats everything else as a one-off or a bulletin, and tells you to catch it with the inspection and the dealer history.

That list is the whole model-specific content of the packet. It does not survey later turbo engines, and it does not say a newer WRX or STI has no pattern failures. Reliability write-ups put Subaru in the top tier often enough that the FAQ calls a top-five ranking a regular result, with the limit that each publisher uses different data. A high rank is not a promise for the car in front of you.

A technical service bulletin is a written common fault and a written fix. It is not a recall, and a dealer does not have to perform it. If the car is showing the symptom, ask. If that store says no, ask another. The worst case in the FAQ is paying for the repair yourself.

Miles are the wrong worry if the inspection and the records are clean. The FAQ’s line is that modern cars last well past 100,000 miles, and that on a brand sitting in those reliability lists, 100,000 is a young engine. Price, financing, maintenance history, and the inspection outrank the odometer. A seller’s claim of “regular service” is not the history. Dealer-performed warranty, recall, and maintenance visits can be pulled with the VIN. Work done at independent shops lives on receipts. The owner site that tracks Subaru maintenance can be edited by the account holder, so it is not a complete record.

Check a Used Car

Used is how you let someone else take the first depreciation hit. Certified cars cost more than the same car without the certification. In this FAQ they are brought back with factory parts, they carry a warranty as good as or better than a new-car warranty, and a lot of them are off-lease or traded every year or two.

Anything that is not certified needs an independent pre-purchase inspection before you buy it. The shop can be a dealer for that brand or a mechanic you already trust. It does not have to be a Subaru dealer. The inspection this thread describes is paint, bodywork, leaks, and rattles, and an experienced tech can do that on a Subaru. A relative who “is good with cars” is not that tech unless he is actually a working technician. Most of these inspections ran about $100 in the FAQ. Ask for a compression check by name. It speaks to the engine, and it is not always part of the normal visit. When someone in the thread asked for a longer list of tests, the FAQ author stopped it there: take the car to a shop, ask for a pre-purchase inspection, and read what they find. Extra tests exist. They are extra.

A history report only shows damage someone reported to an insurer. It will not show an unreported flood car. That is what the inspection is for. The FAQ treats the report as a lock that keeps honest people honest, not as proof the car is clean.

A modified car from a private seller can be a fair buy. People who modify either look after the car or they do not, and a private sale usually makes that obvious. Use the same inspection. A modified car on a dealer lot is a different bet. The store is selling turnover. Expect “as is,” or whatever factory warranty is left, and no way to meet the person who did the work.

A private-party purchase follows the same used-car rules. The loan is the part that gets harder, because a bank or credit union may add its own conditions. Buying from far away follows the same rules and adds scams. An overpayment check, a buyer or seller overseas, someone who wants an “agent” to handle it, and Western Union or MoneyGram are the patterns the FAQ tells you to refuse. It named escrow.com as eBay’s escrow partner at the time, and it did not extend that trust to other escrow brands.

1. Read the VIN at a dealer. Warranty, recall, and dealer service either exist on that record or they do not.
2. Book the inspection, with a compression check. Leave if you cannot take the car to your own shop.
3. Price the insurance before you fall in love with a salvage title or a project. Those two are later in this guide, and the insurance answer comes first.

Get the Price

The dealer makes money. The goal is a price you can live with, not a story about beating the store. On a new Subaru, the FAQ’s easy number was about 2 percent under dealer invoice through Subaru’s VIP paperwork. That path wanted a partner-group membership about six months before the purchase. The same post described a faster route through a $500 charity donation that it said still left you ahead. Both are the write-up’s rules, not a promise that today’s program matches them. Read the current terms before you count on either one.

Other paths in the FAQ, if VIP is not yours:

• A buying service through a credit union, a club, or an insurer. You approve an offer, then you pick the car up. The haggling already happened.
• Email or fax several stores. Name the car, name the price you will pay, and say you are ready. Take the best match, or tell the next store the number you already have and ask them to beat it. Free services are a fair second ask when the price will not move.
• The store’s internet desk. Same conversation, one dealer, if that dealer publishes the contact.

Time is on your side. If the deal is wrong, leave. You may get a call. You may start over somewhere else. A salesperson who says the incentive ends tomorrow may be describing a real window — cash back and special rates do start and stop, and the people on the floor do not control the next one — so check the manufacturer’s site instead of trusting the urgency. “Three other people are coming back for it” is pressure. One buyer in this thread still negotiated a 2014 STI hatch that was nearly gone, because they were in the store and they had a number they would not cross. A factory order has no fixed wait in this thread. It varies.

The in-person version of the same idea, from the thread’s haggling notes: start under invoice and move up, instead of starting at the sticker and moving down. Say the out-the-door number you will pay, because tax, title, document fees, and anything else still have to land in that total. Ask for the person who can actually move the price. If the worksheet on the desk is four boxes and the question is “what payment do you want,” stop. That sheet is for someone negotiating a payment. You are negotiating a total. Mention a trade only after the car’s price is settled, then watch the trade number, because that is where a low offer shows up. Your way out of a bad hour is the door.

Cash does not buy a lower price. A blank check from the credit union is a way to finance with them, not a signal the dealer will fold. Late summer and December are a repeated rumor about easier deals, not a rule. The FAQ’s view is that a salesperson is trying to sell the car on every day of the year.

Financing and the Finance Office

Price the money before you sit down. Manufacturer-backed financing is often the lowest rate, and the terms are usually online before you walk in. The dealer’s own bank list is often more expensive. The FAQ’s figure for the quiet part of that arrangement is about half a percent paid to the dealer for sending them the loan. Credit unions, in the same write-up, tend to beat banks on rate and on who they will approve, and it varies by region. Compare them on the lenders’ own sites.

Weak credit closes a lot of bank and credit-union doors. A dealer may still have a high-risk lender who will write the loan. The rate is the expensive part. The FAQ’s exit is to pay it off early or refinance after a year or two.

Pull the report from the official site the FAQ names, AnnualCreditReport.com, and dispute entries that are wrong. A score runs from about 300 to 850, higher is better, and there is no single cutoff every lender uses. Below 700, the FAQ says to improve the score before you shop. The paid score is a separate purchase from the free report.

The finance office is a second sale. Extended warranties, maintenance plans, paint protection, sealants, and window etching get sold as a small monthly amount. Multiply that amount by the term. The FAQ uses 60 months to show why a small monthly number is a large total. Consumer sources cited there routinely advise against those add-ons. You can refuse all of them and buy an equivalent later, often for less. If you do want one, the price on the menu is negotiable, and other items get thrown in. Paint protection and VIN etching are the two the FAQ treats as the empty ones.

Gap coverage is the add-on the FAQ keeps. Its picture is a $30,000 car that is totaled, an insurance check for $24,000, and $6,000 of loan left with no car. A large down payment makes that gap unnecessary. Without one, the FAQ wants the coverage for about the first two years, until the loan has caught the depreciation. Dealer or your own policy both work, and the FAQ calls the rate cheap. One buyer in the thread was quoted about $200 to $400 through a credit union and more than $1,000 at a dealer for what he considered the same coverage, and he said both the price and the rate move with region and with credit. Shop it. Do not treat those two ranges as a national price.

After you own it, a breakdown is not an automatic return. Lemon laws and any courtesy return window are different in every state, the rules are narrow, and few cars actually go back. Look up your state. This thread does not pick a winner.

Salvage Titles, Rentals, and Leases

A salvage title can be cheap and still be a mistake. Call the insurer before you negotiate. Many of them will write liability only, or they will not write the car at all. Even an honest seller may not know every problem in the repair. The FAQ’s line is that you already know if you are a salvage buyer. If the car is not a parts car, and you do not already work on this kind of repair, leave it.

A car with a blown engine, a bad transmission, or a no-start falls into the same split. Either you already understand the repair, or you are guessing. Guessing is the one to walk away from.

• Former rental. The FAQ says no. A reply from people who worked rentals and stores agreed: most of the drivers and most of the staff are not careful with the car.
• Off-lease police car. The FAQ ranks this worse than a rental.
• Dealer demo. The FAQ says no. Some executive cars are driven gently. Some were used hard. You will not know which one you have.

A lease

The FAQ author calls a lease a loss for most people. You are responsible for the body, the maintenance, and the engine when you turn it in. Have it inspected six months to a year before the end, so the repairs are not a surprise on turn-in day. A lease that caps miles is a bad fit if you drive a lot. The overage is expensive. Negotiate the price of the car the same way you would if you were buying it. Insurance minimums change under a lease. The dealer has the contract’s numbers. The FAQ’s 2010 ballpark, which is not a current policy, was $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident for bodily injury, $50,000 for property damage, and comprehensive and collision with a deductible of $500 or less.

A reply in the same thread treats the lease as a way to defer the cost, with a buyout, a return, or a trade when it ends. That reply’s fit is a car that holds its value, that you will not modify, and that you do not want to own out of warranty. The two views can both be true. Match the mileage cap, the residual, and whether you will modify the car. Do not use the FAQ’s “most people lose” line as a ban, and do not use one person’s good lease as a reason to sign.

FAQ

Where do I start when buying a Subaru?

Write the job, then a ceiling that includes tax, license, and dealer fees. Price insurance before the list gets long, and drive five cars or fewer.

How much is a modified WRX or STI worth?

Start from the book value of the car. Expect the modifications to add nothing, and sometimes to lower the price. A 10 percent return is the FAQ’s “lucky” case, not the plan.

Should I buy a WRX or an STI?

This thread will not choose. Compare insurance, price, and how you will use the car, then drive both.

Does a Subaru dealer have to do the pre-purchase inspection?

No. Any experienced technician can do the inspection this FAQ describes. Ask for a compression check by name, and do not buy from a seller who refuses the visit.

Is 100,000 miles too many?

Not by itself. The FAQ treats that mileage as young when the inspection and the service history are clean. The odometer matters less than those two.

Should I negotiate the monthly payment?

No. Negotiate the out-the-door price. A four-square sheet and a finance menu both turn the conversation back into a payment.

Do I need gap coverage?

If the down payment is large, the FAQ says no. If it is small, yes for about the first two years, from the dealer or from your own policy. Shop the price.

Is a salvage-title Subaru a deal?

Only after an insurer agrees to cover it, and only if you already understand salvage repairs. Many companies will not write more than liability, or will not write the car at all.