RE: Goodbye STI - Subaru calls time on the WRX
Discussion
Heres the thing that gets me. This is the runout model, and basically £5k more than I paid for mine a year ago, but its not even specced up to the level of the US premium model. This is the best of the current model we've had, the final hurrah, and Subaru still couldnt be arsed getting parity with their other markets.
The marketing materials that were sent to me and others sing a lot about new stereo, new interior stuff blah blah, but its exactly the same gear as my 2017 model. The only differences I can actually see are the front bumper, wheels, brakes and black trim. Five thousand pounds.
I love mine and its a great car, but christ, thats a steep increase for a whole lot of nothing. For my money the revised grill is less attractive, too.
The marketing materials that were sent to me and others sing a lot about new stereo, new interior stuff blah blah, but its exactly the same gear as my 2017 model. The only differences I can actually see are the front bumper, wheels, brakes and black trim. Five thousand pounds.
I love mine and its a great car, but christ, thats a steep increase for a whole lot of nothing. For my money the revised grill is less attractive, too.
Edited by Falsey on Thursday 16th November 19:46
The car is 6% more expensive to import to the UK than it is to import to the USA because of the EU tariff of 10% on Japanese produced cars. USA import tariff is 4%. Then the UK sale has 20% VAT applied, USA sales tax varies state to state but 5% is a rough average.
That's why we get lower spec cars compared to the USA.
That's why we get lower spec cars compared to the USA.
Falsey said:
Heres the thing that gets me. This is the runout model, and basically £5k more than I paid for mine a year ago, but its not even specced up to the level of the US premium model. This is the best of the current model we've had, the final hurrah, and Subaru still couldnt be arsed getting parity with their other markets.
The marketing materials that were sent to me and others sing a lot about new stereo, new interior stuff blah blah, but its exactly the same gear as my 2017 model. The only differences I can actually see are the front bumper, wheels, brakes and black trim. Five thousand pounds.
I love mine and its a great car, but christ, thats a steep increase for a whole lot of nothing. For my money the revised grill is less attractive, too.
Did you buy before the 2017 tax price hike? That’s 1700 quid right there for the first year tax?The marketing materials that were sent to me and others sing a lot about new stereo, new interior stuff blah blah, but its exactly the same gear as my 2017 model. The only differences I can actually see are the front bumper, wheels, brakes and black trim. Five thousand pounds.
I love mine and its a great car, but christ, thats a steep increase for a whole lot of nothing. For my money the revised grill is less attractive, too.
Edited by Falsey on Thursday 16th November 19:46
Does yours have heated electrically adjustable seats? They go on about the digital radio too does yours have that? Or the updated info screen? to me wheels and updated brakes is at least a 1k hike in any other manufacturers book, maybe 1.5k. Or the headlights.. or the reversing camera.
For my money there’s a lot more than the 2017 car here and totally worth the increase when they now won’t let the 2017 model go for less than 32k at any dealers I’ve seen in Northampton or Norfolk. Exclusivity alone is worth a big portion of that as well imo. But I’m only judging from their marketing Schpiel vs the 2017 I test drove.
Mines coming mid Jan
Edited by FiddleSticks on Thursday 16th November 22:59
Falsey said:
Heres the thing that gets me. This is the runout model, and basically £5k more than I paid for mine a year ago, but its not even specced up to the level of the US premium model. This is the best of the current model we've had, the final hurrah, and Subaru still couldnt be arsed getting parity with their other markets.
The marketing materials that were sent to me and others sing a lot about new stereo, new interior stuff blah blah, but its exactly the same gear as my 2017 model. The only differences I can actually see are the front bumper, wheels, brakes and black trim. Five thousand pounds.
I love mine and its a great car, but christ, thats a steep increase for a whole lot of nothing. For my money the revised grill is less attractive, too.
Plus :The marketing materials that were sent to me and others sing a lot about new stereo, new interior stuff blah blah, but its exactly the same gear as my 2017 model. The only differences I can actually see are the front bumper, wheels, brakes and black trim. Five thousand pounds.
I love mine and its a great car, but christ, thats a steep increase for a whole lot of nothing. For my money the revised grill is less attractive, too.
Edited by Falsey on Thursday 16th November 19:46
19 inch alloys
Reverse camera
Electric and heated seats
LED lights turn with steering
Electronic centre diff to replace mechanical centre diff
I also prefer the front design on my 2017 model with the integrated fog lights.
FiddleSticks said:
Did you buy before the 2017 tax price hike? That’s 1700 quid right there for the first year tax?
Does yours have heated electrically adjustable seats? They go on about the digital radio too does yours have that? Or the updated info screen? to me wheels and updated brakes is at least a 1k hike in any other manufacturers book, maybe 1.5k. Or the headlights.. or the reversing camera.
For my money there’s a lot more than the 2017 car here and totally worth the increase when they now won’t let the 2017 model go for less than 32k at any dealers I’ve seen in Northampton or Norfolk. Exclusivity alone is worth a big portion of that as well imo. But I’m only judging from their marketing Schpiel vs the 2017 I test drove.
Mines coming mid Jan
I dont know what the tax hike entails. I paid £29.5k OTR (thanks carwow for bargaining power I suppose).Does yours have heated electrically adjustable seats? They go on about the digital radio too does yours have that? Or the updated info screen? to me wheels and updated brakes is at least a 1k hike in any other manufacturers book, maybe 1.5k. Or the headlights.. or the reversing camera.
For my money there’s a lot more than the 2017 car here and totally worth the increase when they now won’t let the 2017 model go for less than 32k at any dealers I’ve seen in Northampton or Norfolk. Exclusivity alone is worth a big portion of that as well imo. But I’m only judging from their marketing Schpiel vs the 2017 I test drove.
Mines coming mid Jan
Edited by FiddleSticks on Thursday 16th November 22:59
I have the digital radio and updated screen. Wheels and brakes I would agree are a good £1k, fair and I dont dispute that. I have LED lights and they dont turn. Dont have a reverse cam - I did ask for reverse sensors at the time and they said no. Exclusivity is worth something, I agree, but how many did they sell of the regular model last year? 3-400? Cant argue with a badge though.
PK0001 said:
Plus :
19 inch alloys
Reverse camera
Electric and heated seats
LED lights turn with steering
Electronic centre diff to replace mechanical centre diff
I also prefer the front design on my 2017 model with the integrated fog lights.
Covered most of the above already. Looks are obviously subjective. I prefer the new lower bumper, too, but the grill is not for me.19 inch alloys
Reverse camera
Electric and heated seats
LED lights turn with steering
Electronic centre diff to replace mechanical centre diff
I also prefer the front design on my 2017 model with the integrated fog lights.
Aside from the already discussed electronic diff is the only 'substantial' change, but Ive not seen any back to back performance comparisons for this vs mechanical.
Im still not convinced its worth the £5k jump. Which is why I didnt go for it when they contacted me I suppose!
Im not saying its not a great car. I love mine. What Im saying is I dont think the extra cost is equal to the extras they are adding. I guess the second hand values will be higher in time though.
PK0001 said:
Electronic centre diff to replace mechanical centre diff
On the DDCD equipped STi's, the previous centre diff units have all been electro-mechanical devices, they have never been purely mechanical devices.To simplify how they work, you have a combined gear based and mechanical plated diff unit with a variable clamping load applied to the plates by an electromagnet controlled piston assembly. To lock the diff tighter, you increase the current flow through the electromagnet, this applies more pressure to the plates in the diff.
The early DCCD cars were controlled manually by a potentiometer, so the driver manually adjusted how much current flow there was to the electromagnet. You couldn't use ABS with this system. It had an input from the handbrake so when you pulled the handbrake on, the centre diff unlocked, so you could still do handbrake turns.
When the newage car came out they developed an automatic version called DCCD-A which had a mapped control unit that varied the current based on gearbox road speed, throttle position, lateral G load and wheel speed, it also interfaced with the ABS system so if any ABS was triggered, it unlocked the centre diff to 5% current flow so you could have individual wheel controlled ABS without transferring that load through the diff units to the other wheels. An update of this came on the widetrack blobeye MY05 which included a yaw sensor input, then the MY06 Hawkeye introduced another update that added a steering wheel position sensor.
The classic and early newage used a similar DCCD unit, but for the MY06 Hawkeye a new version of centre diff that retained all the above was introduced, but they changed the design of the clutch packs inside and added a torque sensing diff stage, so instead of a 2 stage plated diff unit it became a combined single torsen and two stage plated diff unit. Unlike the earlier version the newer Hawkeye version never fully unlocks, which is why the torque split changed from a potential minimum 33f/66r of the early spec unit to 41f/59r minimum.
You obviously cant make a centre diff that is purely electronic, you need to have a mechanical system that transfers torque, so i'm intrigued to understand what they are actually doing here.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 17th November 00:46
To me, they're worth it. Real improvements over the 2017 and the last of the line exclusivity. Remember also the pound has depreciated a lot in the last year and the new tax changes add a lot but at least they'll only be £140 per year going forward.
Opinions aside, what ultimately decides is the market. They all sold within days at full price, no discounts or finance, no broker prices. QED.
It's likely to be a keeper for me as we'll not see the like again so to be honest the odd thousand wouldn't have made any difference as to whether I bought one or not. If they'd never been offered I'd have bought a 2017 instead.
And the future?.....
https://www.torquenews.com/1084/coming-subaru-wrx-...
If a hybrid presumably it can't be a manual and almost certainly heavier even if they use aluminium and/or carbon fibre which is unlikely. The weight could be low down though which would help handling.
Opinions aside, what ultimately decides is the market. They all sold within days at full price, no discounts or finance, no broker prices. QED.
It's likely to be a keeper for me as we'll not see the like again so to be honest the odd thousand wouldn't have made any difference as to whether I bought one or not. If they'd never been offered I'd have bought a 2017 instead.
And the future?.....
https://www.torquenews.com/1084/coming-subaru-wrx-...
If a hybrid presumably it can't be a manual and almost certainly heavier even if they use aluminium and/or carbon fibre which is unlikely. The weight could be low down though which would help handling.
Edited by rovermorris999 on Friday 17th November 09:19
aaron_2000 said:
They were sold out in a few daysFalsey said:
FiddleSticks said:
Did you buy before the 2017 tax price hike? That’s 1700 quid right there for the first year tax?
Does yours have heated electrically adjustable seats? They go on about the digital radio too does yours have that? Or the updated info screen? to me wheels and updated brakes is at least a 1k hike in any other manufacturers book, maybe 1.5k. Or the headlights.. or the reversing camera.
For my money there’s a lot more than the 2017 car here and totally worth the increase when they now won’t let the 2017 model go for less than 32k at any dealers I’ve seen in Northampton or Norfolk. Exclusivity alone is worth a big portion of that as well imo. But I’m only judging from their marketing Schpiel vs the 2017 I test drove.
Mines coming mid Jan
I dont know what the tax hike entails. I paid £29.5k OTR (thanks carwow for bargaining power I suppose).Does yours have heated electrically adjustable seats? They go on about the digital radio too does yours have that? Or the updated info screen? to me wheels and updated brakes is at least a 1k hike in any other manufacturers book, maybe 1.5k. Or the headlights.. or the reversing camera.
For my money there’s a lot more than the 2017 car here and totally worth the increase when they now won’t let the 2017 model go for less than 32k at any dealers I’ve seen in Northampton or Norfolk. Exclusivity alone is worth a big portion of that as well imo. But I’m only judging from their marketing Schpiel vs the 2017 I test drove.
Mines coming mid Jan
Edited by FiddleSticks on Thursday 16th November 22:59
I have the digital radio and updated screen. Wheels and brakes I would agree are a good £1k, fair and I dont dispute that. I have LED lights and they dont turn. Dont have a reverse cam - I did ask for reverse sensors at the time and they said no. Exclusivity is worth something, I agree, but how many did they sell of the regular model last year? 3-400? Cant argue with a badge though.
PK0001 said:
Plus :
19 inch alloys
Reverse camera
Electric and heated seats
LED lights turn with steering
Electronic centre diff to replace mechanical centre diff
I also prefer the front design on my 2017 model with the integrated fog lights.
Covered most of the above already. Looks are obviously subjective. I prefer the new lower bumper, too, but the grill is not for me.19 inch alloys
Reverse camera
Electric and heated seats
LED lights turn with steering
Electronic centre diff to replace mechanical centre diff
I also prefer the front design on my 2017 model with the integrated fog lights.
Aside from the already discussed electronic diff is the only 'substantial' change, but Ive not seen any back to back performance comparisons for this vs mechanical.
Im still not convinced its worth the £5k jump. Which is why I didnt go for it when they contacted me I suppose!
Im not saying its not a great car. I love mine. What Im saying is I dont think the extra cost is equal to the extras they are adding. I guess the second hand values will be higher in time though.
If you are also basing on a discounted price then again it's not a fair comparison really.
And thats before the increased spec and exclusivity.
All in all, I'd say £5k wasn't that unusual.
rovermorris999 said:
Remember also the pound has depreciated a lot in the last year
WrongThe pound is 15% higher against the Japanese Yen than 12 months ago.
12 months ago you got 129 Yen to the pound, you now get 149 Yen to the pound.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 17th November 14:37
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