STI Mav

One quick sub note, as someone has mentioned above. You can these days get Turbo's repaired. especially for smaller issues such as oil seals. Most places even have kits for the newer VF43 turbos etc. When I checked prices a few weeks ago I was told a repair on a VF43 (for oil seals) would be somewhere in the region of £200-£300 plus P&P. Now depending on what you might want to replace it with it may well be worth looking at going down the repair route, but bear in mind second hand TD05 16 and 18G turbos can be had from around £600-£700, so alot will depend on what you want to do with the car in the future. Cheers, Mav

I have white smoke coming out of my exhaust on start up for about 5 or 6 seconds and that smells of oil as well. I have been told it's likely to be worn/failing oil seals on the turbo and the chances are the turbo will need to be repaired or replaced at worst. Got mine going into Extreme Scoobies in the next few weeks to have that work done as well as a decat.

I'll provisionally add myself and a mate to this list, but to be honest it will be dependant on whether the Scooby City rolling road day on the 13th March goes ahead or not. If it dosen't we will definatly be along to this one. Sounds like a bit of a cop out I know but we've already paid upfront for the above event - so I can't really blow it off now...... 1. Little Green Goblin - WRX looked after by Zen Goes without saying! 2. Woodcote - Type R engine rebuilt by Zen Wouldn't dare not to 3. Tied old Dad - WRX looked after by Zen. Yes for me 4. Ace - STi (or whatever else i have...) 5. Van Diesel - MY00 Turbo mapped by Zen. Yes for me 6. Tim (Scoobyparts) 7. DaOne (mapped by paul) 8. Smoove Mike 9. stevie1982 (mapped by bob rawle) Possibles 1. Decorator man at Scoobyparts on Saturday 6th Feb 2. STI Mav - Hawkeye STI with PPP 3. Mr TC - 09 Focus RS Spectators 1. Frenchy 2. Bockett (possible) 3. Rick N 4. Scooby Ian (possible) 5. Big 'D' (possible) 6. stum450n

Always used Tesco's 99 for "performance fuel" - it's cheaper than most and if there is any difference there's not much in it. Plus according to independant reviews it's one of the better petrols available - http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/tested-the...ce-fuels/226642

1. Hawkeye (No suprise there me thinks ) 2. Blobeye 3. Classic 4. Bugeye 5. Hatch Sorry hatch owners, just not my cup of tea I'm afriad. I owned a JDM WRX STI in bug eye form, which had a big splitter on the front - without that I'm not sure I could have owned it as I'm not overly keen on that shape. Classic's and Blob's I've always liked - very nearly brought an 03 Blob WRX with PPP, until I found out the missus was up the duff. Now the little one's 2 and half and I think he loves the Hawkeye more than I do

Replied to this thread over at ScoobyNet but happy to post for you here to My 06 Plate STI has recently has work done for a failed head gasket, and I was getting very similar symptoms to yourself. I had mine checked by Subaru who said they couldn't find any fault with it and when they did the sniifer test it came back negative. I was able to drive mine for 2 or 3 days at a time with no issues at all - then all of a sudden I would be trying to reverse the car or something similar and the tempreture would go through the roof. If it a Head Gasket issue you can get the work done at API engines for £800 plus VAT - phone and ask to speak to David he will be able to give you some guidance.

Then leave a few seconds and it will either say ON or -- If it says -- you need to trun it to the right so it says ON. If you leave it on -- it wont do anything at all.

Agree with those that are saying hitting the limited is pointless - max power/torque is usually somewhere around the 6000 rpm mark. I have my shift warning set to 6200 and it works perfectly for me.

On a similar subject - does anyone know if you can retro fit the Scooby key to any sort of flip key at all ??

Totally in agreeance with those above. Stay well clear of 3rd party warrenty companies - they will do you absolutly no favours if you have an issue, and will do everything they can to avoid paying out on a claim. My headgasket has gone on my 06 STI, which was covered by a Gold RAC warrenty. Initially they said they would pay out, but when they sent the assesor round to inspect the vehicle they turned round and said there was evidence the block had been taken apart before and put back together again badly - and becuause of this they wern't paying out at all - That was was over a week ago. It's taken a number of phones calls to and from the warrenty company and the garage and threats of legal action through the FOS, and with solicitors - but they have now agreed to pay out on the faulty parts. The downer to the above is that they will only pay out on the faulty parts under the terms of the warrenty which only covers the faulty headgasket in question (not both which are being replaced) and for 10 hours of labour which the garage are saying is pushing it big style if they run into any problems. Worse still there are other parts which obviously have to come out when the engine is taken apart and the warrenty company won't cover those - because they are not faulty and are not covered in the documentation. Long story short, they are paying me out just over a quarter of the overall costs of getting the car repaired - but by the looks of things they are covering exactly what they should do according to their documentation. Do yourself a favour and steer well clear !!

I could get us a nice little deal sorted at Torque of the Devil in Uxbridge. They run a very highly respected Dyno Dynamics set of rollers. Should imagine with 15-20 of us I could get us 2 or 3 runs each with a nice presented graph for £30-£35 per car. Cafe round the corner (30 sec walk) does the most stupid size breakfast I've ever had for less than a fiver - really can't go wrong !!

Definatly closer to the 1k mark than 3k mate that's for certain. TOTD have confirmed today that they did another sniff test and there is definatly exhaust gas in the coolant - not sure what AMC Subaru in Chelmsford were playing at when they tested it but I would have thought it was a fairly conclusive test, so not very happy with them at the moment. On the plus side TOTD have removed the engine and started stripping it down on the instruction of the warranty company. They have agreed to cover the cost of the head gaskets if it is the cause of the problem and will replace them. They are also paying the labour costs at £50 an hour (TOTD charge £60), so I'm saving mega bucks there as well. With any luck the warranty company will cover the significant part of the costs leaving me a smaller more manageable sum to swallow.

Well - today was the day for mine to go into Torque of the Devil to get this Thermostat fitted and have the cooling system fully flushed and refilled. I'd been out in the car over the weekend and done a long run from Chelmsford to Clacton and back with some town driving and my temp gauge hadn't budged once. Then I took the car out Sunday to the fish shop which is 10 mins down the road and the problem seemed to start up again - did it the whole way there and back and again when I took out yesterday evening on a 20 min run into Chelmsford (there and back). The drive to the garage this morning wasn't much fun either, stuck in M25 rush hour traffic with the car overheating really wasn't very enjoyable - but I managed to get it there without any issues. Thermostat was changed and cooling system flushed, boost gauge fitted and I've done the journey back, taken in some town driving and have purposefully been giving it some beans to try and get the temps up The result - Temp gauge won't move at all Don't want to get to over excited just incase the problem comes back in due course, but given that it did it all day yesterday and the whole way to the garage this morning I'm reasonably hopeful that my issue has been fixed. Oh and just out of interest, does the Zero/Sports cool running thermostat give any performance gains ?? perhaps it's just me but the car seemed more responsive and defiantly more aggressive when I stamped on the loud pedal. Just wondering if the ECU picks up the fact that the temperature has been lowered and allows the car a little extra performance ??

Well long story short no not exactly sorted... Warranty company directed me to a small independant garage who had the car on Tuesday. They phoned me mid afternoon and said we've checked everything over and can't find anything worng all looks fine to us Hmm me thinks - so I speak to warranty company again and they suggest booking the car into a main line Subaru dealer to have it looked at "properly". Car went in on Wednesday and they kept it Wed and Thur. They call me back Thursday afternoon and say we have run every check possible including checks for potential failure of the head gasket and everything has come back negative - car should be fine as far as they are concerned. So I collected the car last night and took it out for a 100+ mile drive over a couple of hours finishing up in Southend of all places. Temp gauge hadn't budged the whole journey so I was thinking perhaps someone's knocked something and sorted it without realising it. As I'm going over the speed humps down the seafront I notice the temp gauge jump up as I pull away from each hump and then drop down again fairly quickly - once I was on the move again it went back to the middle and stayed there. Got home and sat on the drive revving the engine and themp gauge rose to 3/4 and just sat there. General concensus opinion has been that either the Thermostat is sticking or there's a block in the coolant system. So I've now ordered a Zero/Sports Thermostat and have the car booked in to change it over and do a total drain and refill on the coolant system to remove any airblocks. Fingers crossed that will solve the problem

Just looking for a bit of advice from fellow STI drivers before I book the car in with Subaru tomorrow...... I have recently brought an 06 plate Impreza STI with PPP, and everything has been running very nicely indeed. Last weekend I took it to be serviced (About an hour's drive from home) and as I pulled up at the garage I noticed that the temp gauge was well up - between 3/4 and the red dots. I sat in the car for a while and just watched the gauge and very slowly it started to drop down but it still seemed very high to me at least the 3/4 mark. I asked the people doing the service to check things over and they did comment there wasn't much cooleant in the reserve tank but other than that everything appeared to be fine. Over the last week the car's been doing short runs and I've not had any problems at all. However I took the car out today and was doing some err "spirited" driving shall we say and again the temp seemed to jump right up - over the 3/4 but not quite to the red dot's, although at one point it did touch on it but dropped down again quite quickly. I've checked the coolant in the radiator and it's topped right up and the coolant reserve it still topped right up. Hot and cold air both work perfectly as does the A/C. The fan comes on and seems to be working fine, but still the temp does seem high to me. The only other comment I can make is that on the very odd occasion you can hear what sounds like running water behind the dash - but I don't know if that's relevant. So what are people's thought's does that sound like an issue or does that sound about right for an STI after it's been driven hard ?? I've got a 3 month RAC gold warrenty when I brought the car so I can get it booked in if anyone thinks it could be an issue ??