I just bought a US-market 2004 Impreza WRX STi. It's very pleasant to drive and, I think, is very good value indeed. I'm new to these cars, so I'm curious about the answers to some things that I've been wondering about:
The speedometer clearly overreads. Is there any easy adjustment? I can check it pretty well with my GPS unit, but I've not been able to find a decent repair manual locally to find how to adjust the calibration.
There's a fair bit of noise when I drive. I expect some tire noise, but I'm more used to that being uniform. This noise has a periodicity to it, quite apparent at around 30mph-40mph, where the frequency (I can still hear separate amplitude peaks at that speed) is all to do with how fast the car is moving and nothing to do with engine RPM. Is this normal?
The car has 225/45R17 90W Bridgestone Potenza RE070 summer tires on it at the moment. I drive around 20,000 miles a year, in a reasonably sane manner. Any thoughts as to how long these will last? In general, I'm looking for good grip, but good value for money: what tire recommendations do people have for summer and for winter, and what lifetime should I expect from such tires?
The headlamp beams don't both point at the same height. Is that normal? The manual adjuster seems to work okay, but that affects both equally as far as I can tell. (I'm still waiting for the manual...)
There's a small scratch that clearly breaks through the paint. The body's WR Blue Pearl. I figured I'd just go to AutoZone or something to see what they had, but can anyone give me any tips on touching up scratches in this color so it looks like new again?
-- Mark