Hey guys, My name is Stuart and I am a new WRX owner. I picked up an 05 Wagon from Chicago just a bit ago, couple of things I love and a few things that make me want to strangle someone I come from the VW world, mostly older Rabbit stuff and Diesel so this is my first "fast" car in a long time. I found the car on Nasioc and flew down to get it. Car was said to be bone stock and adult female owned, dealer installed Sunroof with "limited package", with receipt from a Subaru dealer of a complete longblock rebuild under warranty at 60K miles. Car now has 128K and 0 rust and very minor door dings, it seemed perfect so I jumped on it asap. Well, the deal was a little too good to be true, turns out. Right away when I got to the car and fired it up for the first time I learned the truth, it had been tuned just a little. Nothing scary but I was mislead from the onset so Im already on edge. It has a Prodrive Cat-back and a kartboy short shift (both things I would do but I didnt want to buy a "tuned" car). I start to wonder what else has been done. I mention my concern to the seller and he assures me that those are the only mods and he knocked a couple hundred off the sale price. As long as the car is quite, drives straight and pulls well the deal is still on. I take it out for a drive and it does drive very, very well. Deal made and I start to make my trip home. I get 15 miles away to grab some food and when I fire the car back up and flip on the lights I see that half the cluster has no lights. No big deal, that sort of thing happens, 3 $9 bulbs from the dealer and 15 minutes of my time and we're back in business. Skip forward 2 days and I go out first thing in the morning and upon initial start-up it makes a wonderful groaning sound, i figure its dead cold and dont think anything of it. Then the steering gets progressively heavier as I go through my day. Great. I jump on the Intrawebz and find that powersteering pump failure is hella common and the repair is a new pump, rebuild from NAPA at $150, perfect. But while Im under and around the car I smell a hind of hothothot coolant, turns out the turbo drain line is leaking ever-so-slightly onto the up-pipe, not a hard fix but just one more little thing I didnt want to do on my new daily. Talked today with Nuke and Fuji, cool dudes BTW, and a bit at Grimmspeed. Learned a ton from these guys and they all gave me some good pointers. I dont really want to spend a bunch of money of go-fast goodies as this will be a DD and it already covers ground unlike anything else I own, but as I replace and repair finding some good aftermarket stuff will be in the cars. Stock turbo and fuel but exhaust and tune this spring. couple of pics... Video clip of the exhaust
Looks clean, nice find! Sorry to hear about the random nonsense that you've been finding. It is 8(almost 9) years old, so some of the little things are soon to be inevitable. Good luck and ask any questions that you have! Welcome to MNSubaru!!! -Josh
Looks nice! I miss my old peanut wagon . Those all sound like pretty standard fixes, hopefully you don't run into anything else too soon. Also welcome over from the dark side, I went through a couple 82'-84' rabbit projects back when.
Mud flaps are in the plans for sure. Been reading some DIY on making my own, should be a fun winter project. Anything you guys recommend to replace, repair or look into ASAP? Anything specific about the 05 or even the 2.0 that I should be aware of? Common failures, best oem replacement mods etc.
Welcome!! Have you you checked on recalls yet? Those have a few. If you get me the vin. I can check for any open ones
Replace the catted up pipe if it hasn't been already. That should be the first mod done on 02-05 wrx's in my opinion.
Thats what Grimmspeed said as well, that cat is prone to failure and throws debris into the turbo and something about an EGT probe there as well... Spudd, Im PM you the vin and if you could check for me that would be amazing. I know there is a fuel system/Evap issue right now as I cant put more than a 1/4 gallon in without tripping the auto stop (crazy frustrating) but Im not sure if that was covered at all. Im going to pull the system soon anyway.
