i am involved with cumbrian scoobs and tyne tees scoobs and with over 100 members everyone has the same problem petrol consumption/running costs

i get 20-24 mpg im not too bothered as we are a 3 car family and i only use the wagon for fun but thats the main reason scooby owners look for other cars running costs

im not too bad insurance wise

Greenwagon

You sound to be thinking exactly the same as I was 7 months and 11,000m ago when I traded in the Blue Wagon

Originally posted by rich1068 in this post

As Nick is inferring, are ex-Scooby owners on here trying to make themselves feel better by knocking the Impreza? Or, are they really not that reliable, comfortable, well screwed together etc even in standard form?

Rich, I'll try to answer that as honest and balanced as I can.

Yes, Subarus are as reliable, comfortable and well screwed together as any other Japanese car. For instance, the Legacy I had was absolutely bullet-proof. The same goes for the Forester (which led this year's Dutch JD Power equivalent) and most Imprezas (which came in second). I know many old-style GT Turbos and WRXs that have had absolutely no problem, with only the MY99/00 cars suffering from a bad batch of MAF sensors that led to quite a few unintended blow-ups, enough to at least dent its reputation.

The reason for the turbo Impreza's further decline reputation lies solely with the cost and maintenance of performance upgrades. That's what hurting the car's running costs and/or reliability. The old car was a cheap middle-class car which would run faultless with the normal 2-litre engine but now had a hugely powerful turbo engine booted in, which most buyers subsequently wanted to make even more powerful. In order to achieve that safely and reliably, you needed to modify the entire car, which some did, to the detriment of their wallets, and some didn't, to the detriment of reliability, and as a consequence, their wallets too.

The new car is better built, and I can't imagine reliability being an issue in standard form, nor in upgraded form, but the new car is lots more expensive too - at least over here in Holland it is, with Subaru having played the "premium brand" card much too soon.

I think the Impreza initially did well in the JD Power surveys because of its huge original VFM. OK, you had rattles, fuel thirst, the odd reliability niggle, but hey, this was a dead cheap performance car which was huge fun to drive too. It's no surprise that the Impreza has dropped down the JD Power ranks quite sharply as soon as the WRX owners were polled, as the VFM is not quite there anymore.

In surveys such as the Dutch customer satisfaction which doesn't poll owners of a particular year, you see that the Impreza (now with a mix of GTT and WRX) is still up there with the best through possibly a blend of VFM (GTT) and reliable ultra-performance (WRX).

As far as the high customer satisfaction ratings for Subaru as a brand are concerned, much of that will be down to the Legacy and the Forester too. Apart from the design and the slight fuel thirst of their boxer engines, there is nothing you can fault these cars with. They are just superior in class, reliability and handling-wise. (And then there's the new Legacy, which IMHO is gorgeous. Which is a first - a gorgeous Subaru!)

Personally if I had the money rather than having my oct vrs, id buy a 2nd hand bottom of the range diesel fabia and a sti version 6 for the weekends. The other night i was racing a version 7, heading towards a big roundabout, and didnt trust the car taking bends at speed. While the scoob just went round it like rails.

Mattijs

Re the new Legacy - are you getting the Turbo version over there ?

As usual, the plonkers in Subaru GB marketing (International Motors) are not bringing in the Turbo version ' for at least a couple of years', only the 2.0, 2.5 and AUTO-only 3.0 !

The last official Legacy Turbo we had in the UK was the 4cam Turbo which ended in 1995. Madness !

They must make a lot more profit out of the Impreza here, as the old excuse used to be that they were limited on how many Subarus they could bring to the UK (true) but not any more.

How much are they in Holland by the way ?

Rob

Rob,

Well, if you privileged LHD people don't get the turbo, we sure as h@ll won't! Just as we didn't get those Supras, Skylines, RX7s, etc. that Japanese manufacturers just couldn't be bothered with to make RHD versions of.

The WRX is approx. 30,000 euros over here, but we are thwarted by a huge luxury tax - the biggest in the EU - which forces manufacturers to strip down their cars to get the net price down, and if they don't, the cars will usually have the highest consumer price in Europe. (The net price, however, is very attractive to non-Dutch EU citizens...)

BTW, the old WRX used to be 34,000 euros without aircon and a rear spoiler, so Subaru NL have already realized they were a bit quick on the mark with their premium-brand strategy. (Which was proven by rapidly falling sales since 2000. 2003 is the first year since that they are selling more cars than the previous year, and still only by a small margin.)

Originally posted by Dutch4x4 in this post

The old car was a cheap middle-class car which would run faultless with the normal 2-litre engine but now had a hugely powerful turbo engine booted in, which most buyers subsequently wanted to make even more powerful. In order to achieve that safely and reliably, you needed to modify the entire car, which some did, to the detriment of their wallets, and some didn't, to the detriment of reliability, and as a consequence, their wallets too.

The new car is better built, and I can't imagine reliability being an issue in standard form, nor in upgraded form, but the new car is lots more expensive too - at least over here in Holland it is, with Subaru having played the "premium brand" card much too soon.

I think the Impreza initially did well in the JD Power surveys because of its huge original VFM. OK, you had rattles, fuel thirst, the odd reliability niggle, but hey, this was a dead cheap performance car which was huge fun to drive too. It's no surprise that the Impreza has dropped down the JD Power ranks quite sharply as soon as the WRX owners were polled, as the VFM is not quite there anymore.

A new STI will set you back the best part of 24 grand - over 50% more than a new VRS (so "dead cheap" doesn't seem to apply any more). It may well be 50% more car - I don't know, never having been in one, but hordes of drivers seem to be voting with their wallets now and switching to Skoda. Hurrah! (or something)

Just dug up the Dutch Legacy announcement and there it is: "Subaru will market a 2.5-litre turbo for the US sometime next year, with a 280 hp 2-litre turbo coming over to Britain (and probably/hopefully later to the rest of Europe as well). This unit will replace the Japan-only 2-litre twin turbo."

So how does this compare with Subaru UK's announcement, as mentioned by Fabpreza? Is the above simply wrong or has the importer come back on an earlier decision?

Interestingly, the 250 hp 3.0 H6 will indeed only be equipped with a five-speed auto box, but... it will be one that can also be handled manually (so sequentially

Originally posted by ncarring in this post

A new STI will set you back the best part of 24 grand - over 50% more than a new VRS (so "dead cheap" doesn't seem to apply any more). It may well be 50% more car - I don't know, never having been in one, but hordes of drivers seem to be voting with their wallets now and switching to Skoda. Hurrah! (or something)

24 grand would be 35 euro grand? Not bad, considering the fact that the STi costs 45 euro grand over here... :eek: Still a huge bargain to us!

But how much does a standard 225 hp WRX (so not of the 265 hp STi kind) cost in the UK? That's a more honest comparison with a chipped vRS or 4x4.

Appears to be

Yep, that's the one.

Hmm, the standard WRX is 30,000 euros over here, so it seems ridiculously overpriced in the UK, certainly compared to the vRS (is that 15,000?).

The STi is only 1.12 times more expensive with you, while in NL the WRX is 1.5 less expensive than the STi. Compare our vRS price too at 27,000 euros, so just 3,000 euros less than a standard WRX.

I can now see why you would swap to the vRS!

A vRS can be had for around 14k I believe if you shop around. I didn't know where to look for Scoob prices so that is just the list price from Parkers. It may be that bargains can be had on those also. However the 50% differential is still there. Scoobs ain't cheap - is all I'm trying to say.

Edit: it's possible that the STI price I found was an old one, too, and that it'd actually be more now.

Edit 2: Trade-sales.co.uk have a 2.0 WRX for

The trade sales Impreza may well need some extra money spending on it to bring it to UK spec. So on top of that price you should add

So an RS is in fact 1.5 times cheaper than a standard WRX? I agree, that's an amazing difference.

I can understand why you must have been thinking why I was comparing a 4x4 with a WRX! At 26,000 vs 30,000 euros you will see why that was a more honest comparison to the one that you'd make in the UK.

So...

RS, UK: 15.3 grand, NL: 27.1 euro grand

4x4, UK: 16.3 grand, NL: 25.9 euro grand

WRX, UK: 21.4 grand, NL: 30 euro grand

STi, UK: 24 grand, NL: 45 euro grand

So much for EU price policies...

I think David Hendry imports all of there Scoobys and provide their own warranty.

They're doing the new Legacy Turbo....looks real nice. Before we gotour previous Octy estate I looked at a twin turbo Legacy estate from Park Lane in Alton......full leather, electric everything, 7 seats and tiptronic gearbox. Nice........insurance was almost

Well my reasons for changing from the scoob was basically running costs, as with most things i couldnt justify the performance/

yeah I think if I had a lot of Dosh I would have bought another scoob, yet I am realy looking forward to getting the Tavia rs. I may well get another Scoob as a weekend racer but I keep thinking that with the Tavia as a daily driver a second car can be unpracticle so may as well get a megabussa or something realy daft like a road going radical (they do a road version of the turbo

Guess I should join in the thread. Though I'm in a remaped Furby RS.

My Scooby ownership goes back to 98, and Ive owned 9 of them. In fact every variant there is almost, except the 22B. Might not of owned a Tavia RS, but have also owned the Cupra R so have a pretty good idea what a remaped Tavia would be like day in day out.

My reasons for change are not due to the running costs or such. My last car was an MY03 std. I also had a PPP version earlier in the year. I bought my 3 month old MY03 for 17k (UK main dealer car), so cost wise they are pretty good value. Fuel wise it was worse than a 1.8T car to the tune of about 3/4mpg max. Never had any reliability problems with any of my cars.

Running cost wise, I think people on here are comparing their costs of a 2/3 year old Scooby to a brand new Tavia. The Scooby now has 10,000 mile service intervals. My Insurance wasnt that expensive

Originally posted by Fabrs in this post

This isnt true. IM actually asked for the Turbo and it was blocked by the continental dealers who cant see the demand. Hopefully the new Special edition Impreza might suprise a few people when they announce it.

Jonathan

Interesting as it was my dealer that I quoted !

I can't quite understand that, as the factory is making for a domestic RHD market , so how would continental European (LHD) subsidiaries be able to block RHD production destined for the UK?

Call me cynical but the Legacy GTB Turbo was brought in for I.M / Subaru GB directors to run as their company cars at a time when the reason they quoted for not putting it on sale in the UK was import quotas forced on it by the 'Gentleman's Agreement'. ie they could make a better margin per unit by continuing to sell as many Imprezas Turbos as they could.

I do hope the latest Legacy Turbo does make it to the UK though, even if it is 2 years.

:(

Originally posted by Fabpreza in this post

I can't quite understand that, as the factory is making for a domestic RHD market , so how would continental European (LHD) subsidiaries be able to block RHD production destined for the UK?

Good question - can't fathom either how that would work!

But are you really sure that it won't come to the UK? As I said:

Originally posted by Dutch4x4 in this post

Just dug up the Dutch Legacy announcement and there it is: "Subaru will market a 2.5-litre turbo for the US sometime next year, with a 280 hp 2-litre turbo coming over to Britain (and probably/hopefully later to the rest of Europe as well). This unit will replace the Japan-only 2-litre twin turbo."

So how does this compare with Subaru UK's announcement, as mentioned by Fabpreza? Is the above simply wrong or has the importer come back on an earlier decision?

Interestingly, the 250 hp 3.0 H6 will indeed only be equipped with a five-speed auto box, but... it will be one that can also be handled manually (so sequentially