2.5RS Buying questions

A few questions regarding the 98-99 2.5 RS's. There's a few for sale not too far from me, and I'm wondering how good of a deal they are. I'd love to go WRX, but I don't have the money. I want to buy a car that is fun in the corners (Hence my preference of AWD), gas mileage isn't horrid, can be modded fairly well, and is reliable. I read the FAQ already and found much of it insightful. I was wondering: Do any of you have a 98-99 2.5 RS with ~80K miles on it or higher? What kind of repairs if any have you made, and should I expect these if I end up pursuing this car?

Also curious of the cost of getting this car into mid-13's in the 1/4 mile, if anyone knows from experience with their 2.5RS :)

Thanks in advance, I hear you guys are the experts.

if you want a quick 1/4mile car you could always find an older 2.2 and swap in an ej20 and probly be pushing high 13s / low 14s stock since the older imprezas way less than the wrx...

I sold my '98 RS with 89,000 miles on it, never had any problems with it mechanically, I just kept up with the regular maintainance and service intervals and she always went great.

Also, I didn't 'baby' the car either, I own cars to drive them.

What were reasons for selling it? Did you mod it any?

I sold it to buy a 2003 model, no other reason.

No mods.

Cool, thanks for the info :)

Yeah, should be a fun little car! I don't think you'll even miss the turbo unless you've owned or driven the WRX already, at which point you'll miss it a lot. But if you haven't experienced the "warp speed" effect of turbo lag, ignorance is bliss. Have fun!

I'm test driving a 3000gt VR4 right now, I would miss the turbo lag for sure if I end up getting this instead. I want to do some work to it later, I figured it'd be a fun base to start with. I'm not sure which one I want to go with, but from the looks of it, a vr4 for 10 grand is a better deal than a 2.5rs at 7 grand as far as performance goes. Both awd, but the VR4 is faster with it's setup than the 2.5RS would be with 3 grand into it (Turbo, maybe minor mods also).

You found a VR4 for $10k that still runs well and has no major parts missing or broken? If so, I'd say get it. No offense to the RS, but the VR4 is just flat-out cool. Needs a little suspension work to make it hang in the twistys with the WRX, but in a straight line the VR4 smokes Subies like a peace pipe. As long as the VR4 has been well cared-for, I'd say get it. Mitsubishi factory support blows (despite their recent commercials' claim to the contrary) and the 3000gt platform in particular tends to have little nitpicky crap wrong with it all the time, but if you're looking for speed the VR4 will just vaporize the RS. Not to mention that the 3/S platform is like driving a fighter jet whereas the Subaru is like driving a car (albeit a fun car). Think of it like this: the VR4 was Mitsubishi's attempt to beat Ferrari on the track. It failed, but it was the attempt.

That's what I'm starting to lean towards, yeah. And my insurance quote is even quite nice compared to what I thought it'd be. 102/month for liability. That's like 10-20 bucks more than I'm paying now lol. I know this is OT and should be in a different forum, but do you know any specific things that the vr4 tends to have issues with? Does it have crankwalk issues like the DSMs? I've heard that their synchros tend to go out, and sometimes a valve leak. Are there other ones that can be expected of vr4's? Also the one I found has 89k miles on it and looks fairly well taken care of. Do you know of anything that is going to need to be replaced soon? Same questions for the 2.5RS :)

2.5RS - I have no experience here, and as my WRX is pretty new, I have no experience there, either

VR4 - Water pump will break eventually (check and see if there's already a replacement... the replacement should be OK). Turbos will need replacing eventually if pushed hard. Window track parts WILL break, even if they've been replaced. Motor mounts are very squishy and need to be changed out soon if they haven't been. Change the tranny fluids. Check the paint; 3/s cars are notorious for badly faded paint (a paint conditioner and polish will do wonders). The suspension may need replacing, but even with worn out suspension parts the car still drives great. And at this point, I send you over to the 3/s forum because my knowledge ends there (mostly). I have many friends with 3/s cars, and I spend more time working on them than I do working on my own two cars (not because they're broken more often, but because there are more of them and they have more money to upgrade).

I appreciate all the help guys, but the '92 VR4 I was looking at just got sold. There aren't any VR4's in the area now, so I'm looking for a 2.5RS. Besides, I think it'll be more fun to do the work to get it into 13's, instead of buying a car already doing 13's. If anyone sees a 2.5RS for sale with under 100,000 near Oregon, drop me a line :)

Oh and freakray, how much did you sell your 2.5RS for?

98 are phase I dohc, it has been known for some headgasket issues at or around 100-120k miles

99+ is a phase II sohc, must more reliable then the 98 engine. They 98-01 are really hard to find and are considered rare compared to the new imprezas

:)