According to the seller, today’s Nice Price or No Dice WRX sports an incredibly low 29,000 miles on the clock. Let’s see if this rally-bred sedan’s price has us over the moon.
The idea of niche marketing allows small businesses the opportunity to stand out from the crowd, focusing on either filling an underserved segment or creating a new spin on an evergreen product or service. It also allows established businesses to do the same, just across multiple niches, often snuffing out the hopes and dreams of those smaller start-ups in the process. Subaru, being a small car maker, carved out the niche of building small, affordable AWD cars and wagons. It became pretty successful for itself in doing so. Toyota, much larger and able to have multiple fingers in many a pie, decided to get into that game, introducing the AWD Tercel wagon in the early 1980s. Fortunately for car buyers, that AWD niche was actually a chasm, and today, both Toyota and Subaru not only co-exist but also partner on cars, each selling variations of each other’s wares. The 1984 Toyota Tercel AWD wagon we looked at yesterday could be considered the model where that all began. Unfortunately for its seller, you all thought it also stopped with the car’s $8,500 asking price. The result was a resounding 70% No Dice loss.
The works
Speaking of Subaru and competition, it wasn’t just Toyota with which the plucky Japanese car company had to contend. Another niche it occupied was playing in the Word Rally Championship and homologating cars for the street in support of those efforts. Today’s 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi is one of those, and it was built to go head to head, both on the rally circuit and the street, against the likes of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.
To do all of that, the Impreza had to be emboldened with a lot of go-faster bits. Chief among those is the 2.5-liter DOHC flat-four that lives and breathes fire under the introverts-need-not-apply be-scooped hood. That massive air scoop feeds a large intercooler, which in turn cools the intake charge from the turbo, aiding the engine in making its impressive 300 horsepower and 300 pound-feet of torque.
Behind that is an STI-engineered six-speed manual transmission (more about that in this car in a sec) and DCCD (Driver Controlled Center Differential) to put those ponies to the pavement in the most efficient manner possible. Other updates over the more plebeian Impreza models include harder suspension pieces, Brembo brakes behind larger 17-inch wheels, a Momo-designed steering wheel, and STi embroidered sport seats. According to the ad, on this silver over electric blue model, those bits have only been used to the tune of 29,073 miles.
Use it or lose it?
Such low mileage is an impressive find, considering how fast and furious most of these cars are treated. The car is dealer-offered, and neither the ad nor the dealer’s website gives any indication as to why it was so criminally underused. In fact, there’s no history whatsoever to be had.
All the dealer does is do the math for us, dividing those miles by the car’s age, informing us that it works out to a mere 1,384 miles per year. Of course, we don’t know if that’s actually how they were metered out or if the total came in one big push, with the car being left fallow for years on either side.
A quick VIN search doesn’t glean anything more, so this STi’s origins and history remain shrouded in mystery until some brave soul actually talks to the dealer or pulls its Carfax. On the plus side, the pictures do tell a bit of a story, one in which this WRX doesn’t seem to have been modded like most and appears to be in fairly solid shape.
Perfectly imperfect
It’s not “like-new,” however. Those pictures also show that the car has a few boogers. Most notably, the cabin suffers from a loose window control panel on the passenger door, and a rogue cup holder in the dash. The other issues include some noticeable wear on that Momo tiller and what looks to be a missing bit of trim below the doors on the driver’s side.
Now, here’s where things get even more imperfect. Omitted from the Craigslist ad and buried on the dealer listing is the following info:
Not a perfect vehicle. Transmission was replaced with a 5 speed. Odometer and speedometer stopped reading recently. Clutch is starting to go out. Does have a slight misfire.
Whoa. That’s quite a different story from the ad, which describes the car as “excellent” and promotes the low mileage as a prominent selling feature. Could this dealer be demanding that prospective buyers do their homework on the car before making a decision? I’m guessing yes. It’s also odd that neither the ad nor the listing tells us the car’s title status.
Dealing with a dealer
Of course, it’s a used car dealer, not your mom. That means that it’s expected that they might be masking some of the car’s weak points in the ad in an attempt to get someone to bite. That way, they can then pull out that old saw of car dealer strategizing, “What can I do to put you in this car today?” That’s not likely to work on any of us, but the WRX’s $9,995 asking price just might.
What do you think? Is that price low enough to overlook the car’s shortcomings (including its need for a proper gearbox)? Or is that too much to deal with?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Iowa City, Iowa, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!
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