Please advise! UK Subaru on brink of death!

Please advise! UK Subaru on brink of death!

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angry-stu

Original Poster:

3 posts

69 months

Tuesday 17th July 2018
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Hi All,
Am looking for some pearls from Scooby owners on what to do with my ex-love.
Some backstory (bare with me...)
Bought a lovely GC8 T-plate Impreza turbo in mica blue with 143k on it a few years back as a 'weekend car'. Paid £2.5k, it had all the papers and drove great, life was good and I loved it to bits.
I put it into a local garage after a while as I had an urge to take it round the Nurburg with a view to having it fully assessed and a look at what it needed to be fit for purpose, and mainly SAFE!. Got a bill for £500, mostly suspension and brakes work. Germany never happened.
Then it flew through an MOT.
After caving in to endless pressure from the Ministry Of Nagging I sold it to a friend, for £2.5k, who agreed to care for it and keep it reasonably standard (I'm a bit of a purist and not the 'Max Power' type).
He put it in for MOT a few months back for it to fail big time. Rear suspension turrets rotten.
No great surprise to most experienced Scooby owners, but quite a surprise to him, and me.
Firstly because the repair bill is obviously quite hefty, second as no mention was made of this when the above garage had it and no problem with previous tests. Their words were; "this shouldn't have passed a test for years".
Trouble is it gets to the point where my owner mate is sorted to do the work after being SORN for a while and the (very good) experienced bodyshop it goes to ramps it and does some exploratory work only to report back that it's entire arse is hanging off!
Pretty much the entire back quarter would have to be rebuilt anew due to rot - bill estimated between £5-6k.
Sad face.

Now I'll get to the point!;
the car has.........
-a full Hayward & Scott SS exhaust system
-OZ Racing alloys (in decent nick but not perfect) in silver NOT GOLD! I think they are Superleggera's.
-Official PRODRIVE RECARO front buckets - a RARE AS HELL optional extra back then - in great condition, no rips, holes etc.
-an engine that runs perfectly with uprated injectors and an STi intercooler

Other factors are that the car needs to either be sold or go to scrap within the next couple of weeks as storage will be an issue.
Trying to find the right balance of convenience in the sale/disposal vs. recouping as much cost as possible would you....

-sell the whole vehicle 'as is' in the hope that some loon will "invest" in it - if so how much for???........or
-strip out the exhaust, wheels and seats (and possibly the engine), sell them separately ( the seats alone are worth a chunk of cheese) making potentially more £££ and then scrap whats left????
or
-something else??!

Thanks for reading. If you are genuinely knowledgeable enough to help me and my buddy would really appreciate.
We both loved this machine and are pretty emotional about it's sad demise, plus a bit angry that we've been duped by previous garages about what we were driving. Couldv'e been worse though!....I could've taken it round the Nordschleife when its arse fell off and died.

vxr2010

2,565 posts

159 months

Tuesday 17th July 2018
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If it’s that wrotten then break it you will make more money , even if you did like it it’s not worth spending money on it as it beyond economical repair

angry-stu

Original Poster:

3 posts

69 months

Tuesday 17th July 2018
quotequote all
No I wouldn’t be willing to pay to repair it and neither would he!
It’s simply a question of whether to sell as salvage or strip it down as above, or if there’s another option?

maturin23

586 posts

222 months

Wednesday 18th July 2018
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You either need to take a long term view - get it repaired properly and pay more than the car is worth now in the expectation that you'll either get your monies-worth from driving pleasure or values will increase over time (which I think they will), or take the short term approach and sell it as spares/repair or break it.

To give you an idea of UK Turbo values I've recently bought an absolute minter of a MY00 - totally standard, been garaged and waxoiled all its life, maintained without concern over cost and the rear body is rust free. I think I overpaid at £4500.

I might have bought it off your pal as a spares car had I not recently bought a new H&S system! If you do break it let me know.

TroubledSoul

4,599 posts

194 months

Wednesday 18th July 2018
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You'll make more in bits, definitely. It can take a while to take a car apart though. Make sure you take some decent videos of it running for potential buyers if you won't be able to let them see and hear the engine running in the car.

angry-stu

Original Poster:

3 posts

69 months

Wednesday 18th July 2018
quotequote all
Yes I think I’ve settled on it making a lot more broken down, especially given those seats with the unmarked rears and door cards will fetch well. It’s been trailered to a site where it can wait to be stripped. Great tip about vids of the engine running though...thanks!