Considering the possible trade-up from a Forester to a new WRX Sport Wagon, and have a few questions:
Does the WRX's Turbo require Premium fuel? (probably a dumb question, but I wanted to make sure...)
What kind of gas mileage can really be expected?
How has the car been with regard to reliability?
I know that storage capacity doesn't quite measure up to a Forester's, but is there really much difference in this regard? (Can it hold 2 sets of golf clubs, for example)..
I'm happy with the Forester, but just considering soenthing more zippy and fun, while still retaining some practicality.
There are those who will tell you you don't _need_ Premium but it is considered what you use when you decide to buy the car. (High compression motors go for hi octane fuel.)
See recent thread: "wrx average mpg"
Some folks have reported 'Piston Slap', esp those in very cold climates. There _have_ been a few recalls or service advisories, but no catastrophic "wheels falling off" or "catching fire while stuck in traffic" type failures.
If you fold the rear seat down you can carry half a doz or more. btw- The rear seat is a split model so you can retain part cargo/part seating capability. I'd take your golf clubs to the dealer and see for yourself.
The Impreza _is_ a fun little car, it's a bit heavy; but that's in part due to the stiffness and safety design of the chassis. It's more an AWD car vs a 4WD car- by that I mean it isn't really suited to offroading and avoiding high centered adventures. But in a more On Road situation it runs and runs w/ a smile on the face of most drivers.
Well - most factory turbo'ed cars actually have a LOWER compression ratio than their normally aspirated counterparts. The spec sheet for the WRX's 2.0L turbo says 8.0:1. My '95 Acura Integra GS-R has a 10.0:1 compression ratio. I've seen engines using regular with a
9.0:1 compression ratio.
However - the boost from the turbo will increase the pressures in the engine which then makes higher octane fuel necessary.
Depends hugely on how you drive. A direct function of how much you use the turbo. I typically get between 19-25 (around town-freeway) sometimes as much as 27 if just crusing on the freeway. On the other hand I dumped about 1/4 of a tank in 1.5 hours driving around one night.
24K miles, and no probs yet. The WRX (02-04 I think) was recalled for a cruise control cable problem but it was a 30 min fix or less.
I have moved twice in my '02 WRX Wagon. I have had two full sized bikes in the back with the rear seats folded down. Up to 4 snowboards with one rear seat laid down, plus 3 people (extra board). A 32" tv plus lots of room for clothes and stuff. A full sized dinning table (came apart some) and four chairs which did not come apart at all. All these with the hatch completely closed. So it holds alot! Not to mention two people laying down in the back watching a drive-in with the hatch open, works GREAT!
Again as mentioned before the Forester XT (or some Forester model) is faster
0-60 but for me it's all about the WRX. Plus if you are really concerned about a few tenth's of a second, upgrades for the WRX will easily fix that.
And some owner's manuals state you don't have to change your oil but every
7500 miles. Do you know anyone that lets their Sooby go that long (Synthetic oil users exempt) between oil changes?
My 1994 750il BMW (that's a 5.0 V-12 engine BTW) calls for premium (93 or better). I won't pay nearly $3 per gallon for it in California, so I use regular 87. I've been doing that for almost four years now and more than
50,000 miles without a ping or any engine troubles.
Maybe not, but 140 mph suits me just fine with 87 octane fuel. I think top end is near 160, but I haven't had it that far and no plans to in the future.
The higher the octane, the less power is contained in a volume of gas. The additives used to increase the octane rating don't add any power, and they essentially take up space. What they do is to allow the gas to burn rather than explode in high compression situations. burning gas is good for power, exploding gas is bad.
Engines designed for high octane gas definitely make more power on high octane gas. But only if it's designed for it. An engine designed for regular (87 in my part of the US) gas won't get any power benefit from
High-test often has more detergents, and a good cleaning on a engine made for 87 can sometimes restore power that the engine had when new.
That said, 93 octane Mobil and Exxon is all that I let into my '02 WRX wagon. I'm moving cross country next week, and I remember in the high elevations that sometimes premium only has a 89 or 90 octane rating. I guess the gas companies think that higher elevation means lower air pressure and therefore less oxygen in a given cylinder charge. But I'm thinking that turbo engines can pack just as much air into the cylinder at high elevation as it can at sea level, at least away from redline. Does anyone know for sure? Hopefully the guy using 87 in his WRX lives high in the rockies.
I'd like to know how you can get away with using regular (87) gas in an engine with a 10:1 compression ratio. I've always heard that would need high octane fuel, but Subaru recommends regular for their 2.5 litre non-turbo engine.
One exception is turbo engines where the boost is limited by the output of knock sensors. Higher octane fuel, by producing less knock, will allow the ECU to turn up the boost to up to the max, producing more power (by using more fuel).
To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@" Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.
It's important to note that knock sensors only detect knock *after* it's already occurring. They *limit* the damage caused by engine knock (a catch-all term for a whole host of abnormal fuel ignition situations), they do not *prevent* this damage. It is therefore *always* desirable to use fuel of appropriate octane for your engine's internal cylinder pressures (which might be elevated by a high compression ratio or by an external pressurizer such as a turbocharger or supercharger) and not to rely on the knock sensor(s) to "adjust" your engine's timing to accommodate lower-grade fuel. Such timing adjustments in response to detected engine knock shouldn't be viewed as normal computer-aided adjustments to the engine (as would be the case with adjustments to the fuel-air mixture made by an oxygen sensor, for example), but rather as more akin to emergency damage control.
You wouldn't advocate sticking one's fingers into a wood chipper just because the body has a mechanism to keep from bleeding to death after losing a finger. Why would you advocate using low-octane fuel in your car just because its engine has a mechanism to keep it from self-destructing from the resulting abnormal fuel ignition?
A Google search of "pre-ignition," "auto-ignition," "detonation," or just plain "engine-knock" will provide more information than you're really likely to want about the causes, results, and prevention of premature engine failure due to the various types of abnormal fuel ignition that are collectively referred to as "knock."
I'm not sure I buy this. The "additives used to increase the octane rating," as you put it, are combustible hydrocarbons just like those that
*decrease* the octane rating. Actually, "octane" is a specific hydrocarbon chain that shows excellent pre-ignition resistance characteristics. The "octane rating" is actually named after this hydrocarbon. A fuel having an "octane rating" of 100 has anti-knock characteristics identical to the hydrocarbon named "octane." Because high-octane fuel by its very nature is less volatile than low-octane fuel it can sometimes lead to harder cold starts. Perhaps you're confusing this characteristic with a lack of "power" contained in the fuel. And most modern gasolines don't actually use much octane in them, preferring to use other hydrocarbons (such as toluene) that actually have even greater knock-resistance than octane, and therefore octane ratings of greater than 100 in their pure form. (Pure toluene's octane rating is 114, IIRC.)
This is 100% correct. An engine that experiences relatively low combustion chamber pressures and temperatures won't be as susceptible to abnormal fuel ignition, and so won't benefit from higher octane fuel. Higher-performance engines will experience greater combustion chamber pressures and temperatures (especially so when driven hard), and will *require* high-octane fuel to prevent damaging engine knock from occurring. And it's important to note that very high fuel economy can be seen as a different type of "high performance" than very high power generation, and that extremely efficient engines *may* still require premium. In fact, I'm convinced that the biggest reason that "economy" cars are almost universally designed to run on 87 octane gasoline is the impression by engineers that the buyers of these cars aren't going to want to pay for premium fuel. I expect that even better fuel economy could be achieved by designing their engines to use premium. But I'm just an enthusiast and not an automotive engineer, so this opinion should be taken with the appropriate grain of salt.
This was absolutely true 20 years ago when I started driving. My folks used to run a tankful of premium through their grocery-getters once every couple of months for this reason. I'm not so sure anymore, however. In the race to portray each distributor's gasoline as "better" than their competitors, each company has started adding detergents to its entire line of gasolines. Start listening to the claims made by Shell and Exxon and the others on their television commercials and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I, too, allow only 93-octane into my Forester. The manual calls for 91+, but the choices in my area are limited to 87, 89, and 93. If I ever come across a pump with 91-octane in it, I'll probably use that. After I "upgrade" my Forester's boost level, however, I will from that point forward use only 93+ in the car. My wife's grocery-getter van, however, has never seen anything but 87-octane in its entire life. And the stuff about lower octane being acceptable at higher elevations is questionable, as well -- especially in a turbo-ed engine. Short of elevations in the stratosphere, a turbocharged engine will experience no change in performance with changing elevations. This is the exact reason that turbochargers and superchargers were first put on piston-driven aircraft. If you're at an elevation where your turbo can't hit max boost, then you're probably also breathing from an oxygen tank.
Bottom line is this: If you elect to buy a high-performance car such as the WRX or STi or XT, you're buying increased long-term costs in addition to the higher sticker price. These increased long-term costs include higher insurance premiums, likely shorter lifespan of engine and drivetrain components and _the cost of buying better gasoline_. All of these long-term costs must be considered before selecting a high-performance car. For many of us, these costs are acceptable in order to get the kind of driving experience we want. If these costs are not acceptable to you or if you cannot afford them, then you should consider a different car. There's really no excuse for buying a car that needs premium and then putting something less into it. IMHO, it's no different than skipping oil changes just to save money. If your budget is stretched that tight, then you've bought the wrong car.
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