white male consumer

I’ve mentioned purchasing a Subaru before in passing, but consider this posting its interweb premiere.

I was looking for a second vehicle for winter duties and whenever the MINI might be decommissioned. I watched Saabs, BMWs, and Subarus in my price range, and eventually decided that the all-wheel awesomeness of a Scooby would be my best bet. Monitoring Craigslist and a few Subaru forums, one eventually popped up, in my price range and more car than I was expecting to get. This was toward the end of September. My, how time flies. Original, one-owner car too.

It’s a 2004 WRX hatch, generic silver, manual, few mods, peeling clearcoat and plenty of dents. 135,000 miles when I purchased it, a few thousand more now. I was told that the turbo would need to be replaced, but the oil consumption has been so little the past two months, I am in no rush to do the work. I did replace both front CV joints, however, after finding one with a blown boot. I went with Raxles, since they were available for this car.

Modifications include but not limited to at the time of purchase (I don’t expect to do much more with it):

• Complete turbo back exhaust, Helix downpipe, SPT catback (sounds real nice like)
• Dyno tuned at DentSportGarage, on an AccessPort V1, according to previous owner: 235whp, 240wtq
• short shifter, shift knob, miscellaneous crap, terrible Alpine head unit
• 2003 WRX front seats that slightly mismatch the stock rears (blue/black vs. all black)
• dents, scratches, peeling clear coat
• Cusco rear swaybar, sedan (larger) front swaybar, Kartboy endlinks all around
• Cusco rear strut tower bar (for hanging laundry)
• STi springs on factory struts, with about 40k miles, rear raised slightly with spacers
• sedan control arms up front pull out the wheels and create some camber
• brake master cylinder brace (for what?)
• newer brake components except for front pads (going to be replacing the current Hawk HPS, they kinda suck)
• STi HID headlights (pretty great lighting)
• rear fenders rolled (can’t tell the difference)
• heavy duty front skid plate
• tow hitch with proper wiring and 1-7/8″ and 2″ hitches
• Rota GForce 2′s in 17×8 with 245/40R17 Hankook Ventus V12 Evo K11
• RS 6 spokes rattle canned black with Blizzak WS50
• Yakima bike rack

blah, blah blah. The car eats a little oil, but the timing belt and water pump were done at 100,000 miles, and a recent compression test looked good. Oh, the passenger-side rear door is fugged and doesn’t open, courtesy of a poor repair job following an accident. It’s on my to-do list, more PITA than difficult work. Have I mentioned that the car has been in at least three fender benders that I know of? Title is still clean. Mechanics are solid. I can handle a few dents.

So how does it compare? To the MINI? Hard to say.

The WRX definitely pulls hard and strong. The old butt dyno cannot definitively say which steed is faster down a straight line. The WRX is more peaky compared to the very linear MINI, but there is definitely less drama from a dead or slow start with four wheels powering things compared to two. I never realized how obnoxious the torque steer has become in the MINI with wide tires and too much POWAH. The MINI is happy to coast along at much lower RPMs than the WRX. Once that stinker has the turbo spooled up, however, it’s like “woh.”

The MINI feels demonstrably more proficient around the twisties, but it’s hard to tell, again, concretely. The Coop is definitely the better autocross car, with all the work I’ve dumped into it. It corners flat as a pancake, but on the other hand, the Subaru puts the fun back in gunning the throttle mid-corner. Whereas the MINI just gives you massive understeer in that situation, the Subaru clamors for more.

And in terms of ride quality, the MINI can’t hold a matchstick to the Subaru, with its softer spring rates and longer wheelbase. The only downside is that the Subaru doesn’t have heated seats, or as good a sound system as the MINI. Of course, that problem is probably just a subwoofer swap away from rectifying itself.

Subarus get bad raps for being understeering pigs, but the previous owner worked things out for me. The car used to autocross frequently with New England Region SCCA, and has seen track and rallyx in its time too.

I narrowly wussed out of attending a Rallycross this past Sunday, Nov. 14, down in Red Hook. I might have been able to fit it in around my weekend work schedule, but the potential for a mechanical failure or some unforeseen consequence put the damper on my attending in the end.

I definitely plan to make it to some events next year. I’m also eager to autocross the Subaru a bit too, just to get the feel of a new vehicle.

Meanwhile, the MINI can move further and further toward “dedicated fun time car.”

The Subaru is slightly more than the MINI to insure, on the scale of about $200-250 more a year, through Liberty Mutual, with the same coverage.

Here is where you’ll be able to follow all of my Subaru photo uploads on Flickr.