I am a member over there (prohobo).
Thanks for the link for the sway bars I'll take a look. I do miss living in San Francisco - as I had a few tuner friends out there and also have a few friends that drive professionally (Daytona Pro-types and Lemans GTE series) - so I would spend a lot of time at Sears Point (now Infineion), Thunderhill, and Laguna.
My wife and I are big F1, LeMans, and WRC fans. While I was a fan of Subaru (Peter Solberg) watching those battles years ago between Mitsubishi and Subaru in the WRC races - always cheered for Subaru, I had never thought of buying one. Back in 2004 I was looking to buy a new car (my wife was pregnant and the 1984 JEEP CJ was a little to bouncy for her), I looked at Audi, BMW, and a few other mid-size sedans. My friend (a pro race driver for Porsche GT) told me to check out the WRX series. I didn't think it was my style. I saw him out at Sears Point one day testing. While he did drive Porsche most of the time (being a driver for them), he also had a Subaru WRX STI as his daily driver. He took me out for a ride around the track in his WRX - I don't know if you have ever been or seen Sears Point, but it has lots of elevation changes and corners. I seriously almost wet my paints. He drove it flat out and it didn't break traction in the corners - it drove like it was on rails. When we were done I asked him about what he did to it - he said nothing much, brake pads, tires, sway bar, and ECU remap - the rest was stock WRX STI. He said for $30k there is no other car that can beat it with factory settings on the track. Sure there might be cars faster in a drag race for that money, but in corners, under-braking, etc - the STI is it. Of course his Porsche will beat it (not by much on the track), but it was also 4 times more expensive (over $100k). He said if I wanted to save some money, just get the WRX (same engine as the STI) for the low 20s, but a new down-pipe, new shoes, new pads, sway bar, and a new tune - and now you have the best driving car on the market for just over $20k.
So I figured if it was good enough for a pro-driver it must be good enough for me.
However, I was still not sure - I test drove the Audi A4 - but it had NOTHING on the performance over the WRX I had test drove. I did test drive the S4 (but that was $75k) and while it had the power it still didn't have the flat cornering. Admittedly I didn't push the S4 that hard. I soon realized that buying a BMW 5 series of Audi A4 or A6 was going to be in the $50 range to get the features I want - but the FUN FACTOR performance wasn't there unless I stepped into an M or S series (respectively). After a month of test drives and looking around - I went back and drove the WRX - wow I just couldn't believe the car was just over $20k.
I am not a guy that finances purchases (I love to save and pay cash) - I had $50k to spend. So I did the obvious thing - I bought TWO Subarus - I bought the WRX in Blue (not STI and fixed it up) and I bought a Forester XT - fully loaded in leather (same boxer turbo engine as WRX). So while I was going to get one car, I ended up getting too and after selling the CJ7 - I walked away with money - even after fixing up the WRX.
I look back at that purchase as one of the smartest things I had ever bought. We still have the Forester, I traded my WRX in for a L-GT (and I got a great deal on the trade in). If I told you what I did on my trade in you would probably think I am not the nicest guy, I do negotiate to a point of pain for a sales person on a big purchase - and in this deal I returned the car the next day because I could get a better deal and to knock off $2000 - he caved. Of course this is in the middle of the economic crisis and cars were not selling. So I squeezed really hard. My feeling if you don't want to sell at that price, don't sell - I am not mad or bothered. However, if you do - don't give me grief about it. I feel that if you are a cash buyer you can squeeze really hard - since you don't have a 3rd party financier to deal with. I love cash buying negotiations - we just bought our house during the housing foreclosure mess and I squeezed the crap out of CountryWide on a foreclosed property. Every time they called me back, I dropped my bid by $10,000. They couldn't believe it - then I gave them 5 days to make a decision - because there were 100s of houses to buy for a cash buyer. I told them if they waited another 5 days, it would be $50k lower. They called back 2 days latter I ended up getting it for $30k less my original bid (I also stuck them with the back-taxes and all foreclosure prices). The manager of CountryWide REOs called me from California and wanted to know if I took a course in negotiating - his people couldn't believe what a hard time I was giving them - I laughed and then told him what I did for a living - he said it figures and could use an army of proper negotiators. I said the biggest trick is to NOT get emotionally involved and to KNOW when you operate from a position of strength (market conditions) - it's just business. Housing market is soft (everyone knows that) - so was the auto market - if you are a cash buyer you can squeeze as hard as you want and they will usually break.
All markets work because two people agree on price, they just don't agree on value! (one thinks it's a good sale the other thinks it's a good buy)
My wife wants a new Forester XT, but they don't make it in a stick-shift anymore and she only drives a stick! So I am not sure what we are going to do - she actually has written letters to Subaru about issuing Forester XT with a stick again. There was a Japanese only Forester STI version (stick) - but I don't know if it is easily available.
Oh well - sorry for going into a tangent - I love the Subaru - have had 3 of them now.
I will get pics when I get all my stuff together and the time to get on all snapped on.
