mdowens

Full Powerstation Stage 3 Handling Kit fitted today. The steering & control with the Stage 1 Kit & rear subframe bushes was awesome but the ride quality was far too harsh for me. The Stage 3 kit completes the story with AST suspension all round. Verdict so far - very impressed. The suspension provides good ride quality and excellent damping. Needs to settle down a bit to release the full potential. I think the Stage 3 kit is very similar to the Lichfield kit (but with AST springs instead of Prodrive springs).

Hi Jason Yep there is a Powerstation Stage 2 kit - seems to be everything in Stage 1 plus Rear Subframe Bush kit (which I had done) plus Eibach lowering springs. I did not have the Stage 2 lowering kit done - lowering the car is not really my scene. I put the wrong URL in my last posting - it should be www.powerstation.org.uk I saw a few posts on this forum and Scoobynet that people had some nasty frights with the rear subframe wandering around and the car nearly leaving the road. Sounded a bit too exciting for me which is why I got the rear subframe bushes done too. The steering and stability from the Stage 1 kit is awesome. On smooth roads the car is great to drive. Unfortunately, the ride quality on poor road surfaces is very hard and uncomfortable - time to visit the osteopath stuff. It seems the compression damping is far too firm. I cannot understand what Subaru were up to on the design of the STI suspension - seems like they put in some very hard shocks then decided to soften up the whole thing by putting in very soft bushes. In comparison, the suspension if my old Turbo 2000 Scooby was just fine. cheers, Mike

Hi Jason, The Stage 1 kit is £595 + VAT but I paid about £750 for the Stage 1 Kit Plus the Rear Subframe bush kit. See www.powerstation.org My recommendation would be to save up and do the whole Stage 3 Kit with the shock replacements in one go - 1) You save money getting it done in one go 2) You save your back by not driving the scooby with very hard standard suspension & harder bushes 3) You only take one day off work getting it done On roads with reasonable road surface the Stage 1 kit is fine - the handling is awesome and the ride quality is OK. On lousy road surfaces ( part of the M25) the ride is very uncomfortable. I will get the Stage 3 kit done in 2 weeks and I will add a post with the results. Mike

Latest update: I have found the standard suspension is far too firm on anything other than smooth roads. The compression damping is just far too hard. I think the standard suspension relied on the very soft bushes to maintain some degree of ride quality. The only option is to replace the shock absorbers so I am off back to Powerstation for the Stage 3 kit - AST dampers. These are supposed to provide much smoother damping than the standard units. I will post another update when they are fitted.

Excellent. I have not got the Thatcham manual so had to work out the button pressing through lots of trail, error & frustration ! At least you know you don't need to get the Scooby repaired - its actually a feature !!

Hi Yep, what you have described is one of the more annoying tricks of the new model. One motoring magazine described the new model as "a great car once you manage to actually get in it". I have found that the best chance of unlocking all doors is if I hit the unlock key button, wait until the indicator lights have just gone off and then hit the button again. This has the best chance of working but still never 100%. But hey, my door usually opens and its the missus that is stuck out in the rain for a bit longer..... I would like to meet the people responsible for the following features of the new car and ask them what on earth they were smoking at the time: 1) The "not" anti-roll bars & hideous squidgy suspension bushes 2) The very light steering with 0% feedback 3) The door locking system 4) The not very supportive seats

I agree, the 330 is a lot of car for various reasons. The seats on the standard STI are nowhere near as good as those on older Scooby's or the Recaro's on the 330.

No, I have not discussed these modifications with Subaru or my dealer. Going by comments on this site (and other sites) I assume that the warranty will not cover anything that has been modified but the whole of the warranty will not be invalidated. You raise a very good question. For me it was a case of making the car driveable or selling it 4 months into a 3 year purchase plan.

I bought a MY09 WRX STI and decided that I could not cope with the vague steering, excessive body roll and generally very loose handling. I hoped I would get used to it but I didn't - it just felt worse and worse. I had been driving a Classic Turbo 2000 for the last 8 years and the I thought the new car was very poor in comparison (yeah I know, I bought the new one !!). After a lot of digging around on the Internet I found that a number of people experienced the same problems and there were a number of solutions available. Last week I had the Powerstation "Stage 1 Handing Kit" fitted (plus the rear subframe bush kit). Simply awesome - ALL of the handling and steering problems have been fixed and the car is totally transformed. I think it now drives like a Impreza STI should do. The steering feedback is very good and the turn-in is very precise (way better than any other Subaru I have driven). There is absolutely no body roll - totally different from the original car. Powerstation also re-valved the power steering which has made it less light. The general ride quality at slow/medium speeds on country lanes is firm but not uncomfortable. At higher speeds on country lanes the suspension works just fine. Motorway / dual-carriageway driving is as smooth as standard. So in my opinion there is no real disadvantage to the new kit. I declared the planned changes to my insurance company and they did not change the premium etc. I saw a few people mention issues with the sloppy rear subframe bushes so I got them changed in addition to the Stage 1 Handling kit. Yeah I know this sounds like a Powerstation advert but they totally transformed the car from something very disappointing to a really great car. Very nice people to deal with too.