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| Our STI on the day it left |
I did very much enjoy my time owning and driving the STI. The GR chassis hatchback is a nice size, and the layout is roomy and practical to live with. It's not exactly a beautiful car, but after modifications (bigger wheels, a little bit of lowering, coloring the tail lamps, and some other details) I think it looked tough and at least purposeful.
Once we upgraded the turbo, the power was more than ample. Honestly, it was more than I could use in normal daily driving. Holding the gas pedal down for more than a few seconds felt like tempting fate and inviting arrest. Don't get me wrong, I love horsepower. I probably should have taken it out to the track to really explore the car's performance capabilities.
The handling was excellent, and the ride was compliant (despite the low-profile 19" tires) thanks to the adjustable Cusco dampers.
A few posts back I talked about cracking pistons on 2008 model year cars, and mentioned that our car had not suffered this fate. Well...now it has. Our car left us with a little over 8,000 miles. By 13,000, it had a cracked piston that led to rod bearing failure, and required the replacement of the short block. We did that repair and when we last saw the car it had headed out to the west coast, running fine. I guess I'd suggest that if you are in the market for a used 2008 STI car, at least be prepared for the possibility of engine trouble. Most of the cars on the road by now have far more miles than ours did, so any problems that were going to crop up have probably already happened.
The reason for selling the STI was so we could get a Subaru BRZ, which we did acquire, and promptly started modifying. You can follow that car's progress on its own blog.
That's probably going to be it for this blog, barring news or updates from the car's current/future owners. If you do own the car, feel free to drop us a note with photos. Tell us about your adventures and how the car is doing.
