One of the most beloved rally efforts in modern times? Subaru’s, with the brand sweeping the FIA’s world constructor titles from 1995 through 1997. Only the Lancia Delta has more WRC wins than the Subaru Impreza.
The collector world has started to take notice of these rally-ready…
I love my '04 STi and I picked it up with 9 miles on the odometere 05/31/03 and I've put 72,741 miles on it since. While the body has sufferd a bit as a daily for a decade, or so it's still a kick in the pants to drive.
It looks like this is a recent article so I'll comment. While the cracking piston lands and head gasket issues were said to be lesser on the 04-07 STI, I'm here to say that the head gasket was leaking by on my '06 in the 80,000 mile range and the motor needed replacement just over 100,000, scoring on driver side cylinders. The motor had a mild tune, stage II or less. Always on a quality synthetic oil. (The coolant never got in the oil, the failure was pressurizing the radiator and pushing coolant out of the tank.) Of those miles, probably 98,000 were mild driving, and the rest were weekend autocross.
The body suffering has mostly been the front and side aero getting broken and blackened by course cones.
The WRX manuals were fragile. I know of two immediate friends whose transmissions failed.
The head gaskets are still a notable problem. You can document this by reading up on NASIOC or IWSTI message boards. Other problem areas: fuel tank vents crack leading to OBD vapor recovery system alert (requires full rear end removal to drop the tank), typical radiator tank cracking, harmonic balancer rubber failing leading to belts jumping off, power steering hose failure.
Still, a fantastic car, and amazingly they are still competitive (not me, 
but the car model) at the National SCCA level in STU class despite not being able to fit the widest tires allowed. The later STI's have stiffer bodies and better basic handling pre-modification, but suffer a couple of hundred pounds weight to get there, and Subaru to its discredit has never significantly upgraded the engine.
UPDATE: the new motor blew another head gasket at 168000, so only around 65K on that one. Same thing, leaked across to coolant tank but I knew what to look for. Put in the "cylinder 4 cooling" mod while we were working on it, and doing one new valve & guide. Same usage, 1 or 2 weekends a month hard for 10 minutes, easy the rest of the time. Gaskets have been the generally recommended Subaru set, with ARP studs.
Small price update: Mecum got $77,000 for a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STI at its recent Kissimmee sale.
I didn't grab a photo, but we walked past one in the parking lot at this weekend's Roar Before The Rolex 24: blue with the gold wheels. Still dig that car. Also glad to see people driving them.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Not to mention the sound. I'll always turn and look when I hear that burble.
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