An essential purchase (Subaru Impreza 2.0Turbo)

Name: Nick555

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Product:	Subaru Impreza 2.0Turbo
Date:	09/11/01 (659 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Handling, Reliability, Performance

Disadvantages: You'll drive too fast

I bought my Scooby from new in Jan 1999 & kept it for nearly 3 years. One test drive sold it to me, it's a reasonable price for the level of performance & it's cheap to run - apart from the 20mpg on super unleaded & new tyres every 6 months! However, it's VERY reliable!

An essential purchase for every enthusiastic driver!

Interior
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The seats are excellent, very supportive & good over long distances too. The cloth material covering has got little loops in it, so be careful that you don't catch it with zips. I pulled a loop with the ring binding part of a road atlas. The interior is cheap plastic which scratches easily (with a thumbnail) & is generally very uninteresting. However the steering wheel is excellent, as is the driving position. The drivers seat is very adjustable, so you can get a perfect position. Don't worry about the interior too much, the money on this car is spent on the engine & handling - not on the interior or looks.

Bodywork
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Good quality painting, but very thin coating with a light grey undercoat. If you get a dark colour car, you'll see stone chips very quickly. The paint chips very easily. Alhtough I initially felt that it looked like a Noddy car, I did find that after a few months of cleaning it, I came to more appreciate the lines of the car. I had a dark blue mica with gold wheels & EVERYONE stared at the car. All types of people often came up & said what a nice car it looked & I never felt that the car was at risk of being "keyed" as would say a BMW. There was also no trouble on the road as other car drivers always gave a certain amoutn of respect to the car.

Driving
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The standard exhaust system masks the boxer engine sound, so go for an aftermarket exhaust to get the full boxer beat. If you've been used to powerful cars, t
he Scooby isn't THAT fast in a straight line & you can be caught out if you're offboost. However, where the Scooby really scores is it's superb handling - the best of any car I've ever driven. You can completely trust this car - go into a bend too quickly & the car will handle whatever driver input you put in. The brakes also are excellent, although they can overheat on an extended very quick run. You can fly along in this car, it feels stable at very high speeds. You can approach bends very quickly, position the car, dab the brakes & then rocket around - it's the velocity that you can retain though a bend that makes it unbeatable. You look in your mirror & it's as htough the cars behind you have stopped!

Servicing & maintenance
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Cheap at £100 to £200 per time at 6,000 intervals. It was very reliable & any small problems that you would ignore in another car were immediately fixed under warranty. The expensive things are tyres - my Bridgestone SO2 PP's lasted about 8000 miles at £100 per tyre & fuel, I used super unleaded & got 20 mpg (better on a long motorway run). Insurance is also getting more & more expensive.

Safety
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Airbags, excellent brakes, good ABS & perfect steering response makes this car suprisingly safe to drive. The car can put a wheel on the gravel on the inside of a bend & not spin. Here's an example from my French trip 2 years ago. I was tearing along the fantastic French roads & I was approaching a right rend (driving on the right side, remember) & a coach was approaching the bend from the other way. Normal for French drivers & unexpected by me, the coach put it's 2 offside wheels over the while line forcing me to put my 2 inside wheels on the rough stuff on the inside of the corner. I was going very fast & the Scooby handled the change in surface with no problems. I was careful of coaches after tha
t!

Watch out though, you will drive fast, cars will pull out of turnings in front of you, & you'll start overtaking 3 or 4 cars at a time on the road. It's not magical, you can still crash it - be careful - take a fast driving training course, it will help.

Summary: