150,000mile impreza wrx wagon. Too many miles?
Discussion
Hi everyone,
Im looking at swapping my old landy for a subaru. My dad had a classic shape when I was young and I loved it (so did he). I have 2 dogs so id need the estate. Ive found a 2005 wrx wagon with 156000 miles. It has fsh but has a couple of marks but no rust.
Should I be concerned about the mileage? It is only up for £2500.
Thanks in advance!
Im looking at swapping my old landy for a subaru. My dad had a classic shape when I was young and I loved it (so did he). I have 2 dogs so id need the estate. Ive found a 2005 wrx wagon with 156000 miles. It has fsh but has a couple of marks but no rust.
Should I be concerned about the mileage? It is only up for £2500.
Thanks in advance!
The timing belt is done every 50k on the WRX so it's due one of them. That's a £400 job (£409 when I had mine done today), so factor that in. Also you'll have to live with ~25mpg, which is a big shock to a lot of people. Other than that, check it out on www.mot-history.net and enjoy :-)
I bought an '02 WRX Wagon for £2k with 120k and very limited service history. It hadn't been messed about with (all stock bar PPP from new) and appeared looked after. That was last October, since then I've have put 33k miles on it in just over 12 months. No issues to report.
In fairness, it has had a lot of new parts over the last year: complete suspension refresh, new brakes (AP 4 pots, discs, pads lines etc) however, I knew the suspension and brakes were tired when I bought it and budgeted accordingly (and the APs were only fitted because I got a good deal on them second-hand).
Everything else has been preventative maintenance and service items: battery, all fluids (gearbox, diff, coolant, brakes, clutch), air filter, cabin filter, fuel filter, plugs, belts, oil+filter change every 6k etc. All these parts will need replacing at some point even if you spent £4k on an 80k car, so I'd rather pay less on the sale price and put the money towards getting everything done myself. That way I know that everything has been done properly and with quality items.
I haven't experienced any big ticket items: gearbox, clutch, diffs or any engine issues. Coil packs are fine, turbo is fine etc. Uses a bit of oil, maybe 500ml every 1k but I just check it every couple of weeks and top-up where required. Compression is fine across all cylinders. So I don't think mileage is an issue at all, it's how the car has been driven & maintained that is important. However, you'll never really know this when buying a used car. I've seen lots of Subarus that have had very costly and sometimes catastrophic failures at half the mileage of mine.
If you do get an older, high mileage car, there will be plenty of tinkering to be done in order to keep them in good condition. Mostly this is just service items and preventative maintenance as above. This was one of the reasons I wanted an older car - I get bored if there is nothing to do
Imprezas are very easy to work on and any half-way competent enthusiast should be able to do the vast majority of work on them. If you don't like getting your hands dirty though, it could prove expensive if you have to take it to the garage every time something needs attention.
In fairness, it has had a lot of new parts over the last year: complete suspension refresh, new brakes (AP 4 pots, discs, pads lines etc) however, I knew the suspension and brakes were tired when I bought it and budgeted accordingly (and the APs were only fitted because I got a good deal on them second-hand).
Everything else has been preventative maintenance and service items: battery, all fluids (gearbox, diff, coolant, brakes, clutch), air filter, cabin filter, fuel filter, plugs, belts, oil+filter change every 6k etc. All these parts will need replacing at some point even if you spent £4k on an 80k car, so I'd rather pay less on the sale price and put the money towards getting everything done myself. That way I know that everything has been done properly and with quality items.
I haven't experienced any big ticket items: gearbox, clutch, diffs or any engine issues. Coil packs are fine, turbo is fine etc. Uses a bit of oil, maybe 500ml every 1k but I just check it every couple of weeks and top-up where required. Compression is fine across all cylinders. So I don't think mileage is an issue at all, it's how the car has been driven & maintained that is important. However, you'll never really know this when buying a used car. I've seen lots of Subarus that have had very costly and sometimes catastrophic failures at half the mileage of mine.
If you do get an older, high mileage car, there will be plenty of tinkering to be done in order to keep them in good condition. Mostly this is just service items and preventative maintenance as above. This was one of the reasons I wanted an older car - I get bored if there is nothing to do
Imprezas are very easy to work on and any half-way competent enthusiast should be able to do the vast majority of work on them. If you don't like getting your hands dirty though, it could prove expensive if you have to take it to the garage every time something needs attention.Gassing Station | Subaru | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff