Hi im 17 gonna be 18 soon and want to get a used wrx first thing is.. i only drove a stick once and it was a 87 civic hatchback so i donno if i would would be any good with that, also i only mostly do city driving, i head that the 5mt is "made of glass" and i want to eventually do some modding on the car maybe make it equal to an sti or better. right now i drive a 97 malibu v6 and its slowwwww lol i have had it since the day i turned 16 and i alone put about 50k miles on it the last year so i am also worried about reliability and longevity of the engine and trans. do they make an autostick version on the wrx for the 04-05 years? sorry its such a long post but i want a car i can keep for at least 6-8 years and i can mod it without worrying about parts dying on it lol thank you for any advice

Hi, I'm from Singapore and driving a 05 WRX. Yes, they do make WRX in auto transmission. But it wouldn't be as nice as a manual one. There's alot of sayings that the gearbox is weak, but so far there has been no problems for me. In Singapore, we have some WRX souped up to 500bhp, still no problems. Only need uprated clutch. Doing up the WRX would be easy as there's alot of aftermarket parts for it and they're easily found. Only thing that i do not like about the car is the brakes. In Singapore, our stock WRX brakes are 4 pot front and 2 pot rear. Find the braking really weak and definately has got to be the first thing to look into if you're thinking of doing up the car.

but is the automatic just a regular auto or is it the kind where you can control it yourself? (autostick)

auto or autostick, it's a waste of time in the WRX.
Autostick is a gimmick, we have it in one of our cars and it really actually detracts from the performance of the car.

If you're getting a WRX and you get an auto, you may as well have just got an RS and saved the money that you'd pay for the WRX, since you're losing a lot of the fun and gain of the WRX by going auto.

how good is the reliabilty on the manual, is it a good car to learn in? i really only drove one stick and it was about a year ago, also if i wanted to do more performance tuning on it later on is the tranny still reliable with minor upgrades?

The tranny will handle minor upgrades fine.
It's a fine car to get used to stick on, my wife learned stick on mine and there's been no problems.

They're a solid car if you're not going to constantly abuse it.

just normal driving with the occasional speed when wanted how long do these usually last and whats the first thing to go out on it if i got a used one? also any things to look for as trouble spots? one last thing, what is everyones opinion on a wagon compared to a sedan? hows the truck space in the sedan? is the handling much different on a wagon compared to sedan? thanks for all your help so far

The clutch will generally be the first and only thing to actually want replacing in the long term, the Subaru clutch tends to wear a little quicker than a normal fwd clutch as it takes a lot more load.

Wagons are :cool:, I'm waiting on mine to arrive at the dealer....that's a whole different story :mad:

Wagon handling is a little different due to the extra weight behind the rear axle, but unless you've really driven both cars to their optimum, you won't notice a difference.
Down side on the sedan is that the rear seat only has a centre through space, the seats don't fully drop so although the trunk is a nice size for the car, it's restrictive if you're wanting to move bigger things.

if i had the wagon, would it ever be possible to put a trailer hitch on if i had an aftermarket exhaust system? not like i would need it for a few years but i just wanna know if its possible, also are the insurance rates on the wagon any different than the sedan?

I learnt manual on my rex. It's not bad for learning.

Sedan's trunk space is really nice. It's huge imo. You can put loads of groceries in it :P

As for choosing between a sedan and a wagon, I think generally older ppl like to go for the wagon (25yo+) (hope I didn't offend anyone =P )

Thank you for all yourhelp everyone. i am gonna get one as soon as i can a stick shift sedan :-P. also i was wondering if i wantedto take the cat out of the up pipe would i have to geta boost controller or anything or would it still work just fine?

Sorry for missing your previous questions.

The wagon certainly will accept a trailer hitch without an issue, it may limit the exhaust system you put on but my advice there would be to fit the hitch then the exhaust.
For some reason, the wagons have tended to be cheaper to insure.

Now, as RL so nicely pointed out, I will hop in my wheelchair and go for a roll :p

the 04-05 trannies are the strongest...just get a MT and learn to drive it