Hey all,
I live in Belgium and I'm a proud owner of a second-hand Impreza GTT. 218 hp, from 1999. I've owned it since november 2012 and it has been my daily drive ever since (don't own another car). It had 171 000 kilometres back then, it's around 201k now.
Sadly it ran into major problems this month. It started with me noticing the heater wasn't producing any hot air. Didn't mind it too much, winter was pretty much over anyway. The last two weeks of april, I noticed the check-engine light flashed briefly twice in two weeks, but didn't notice anything else. Then shortly after that, I noticed that in idle, the engine was revving higher then usual. Usually it revs around 900 in idle, but it could sometimes (not always) rev around 1500.
Then it got worse, after driving 10 minutes (and about 8 kilometres) the oil temperature was around 110 degrees. Normally to get it that high, I'd have to drive for half a hour on the highway at the least. But those 10 minutes I never drove faster then 50 km/h. And everytime I drove somewhere, the time for the oil temperature (as well as the water temperature) to rise in temperature was getting shorter and shorter.
So I brought it in to check what's wrong at my usual garage. They thought one of the cilinders might have been broken down. The next day, they said the motor would need a revision, the radiator needs to be replaced. He said it would costs me around 6500 EUR and that the body also needs some work, but couldn't tell me a price for that.
I was baffled at the price. Sure, it's a 24-years old car so replacements parts are becoming rarer and more expensive especially in Belgium, but this high?
I've posted this thread on a dutch forum for Subaru-owners but I decided to post here as well, the more opinions I can get, the merrier. So far it seems I should go for a second opinion. The car technician advised me not to go with repairs as he found the costs not justified. I took his advice at face value because he used to own an Impreza too, and has always managed to keep costs down (had a clutch issue last year that was suspected to cost me around 1200 EUR but was ultimately around 500 EUR).
What do you guys think, should I go for a second opinion or am I better off giving up on my car?
I live in Belgium and I'm a proud owner of a second-hand Impreza GTT. 218 hp, from 1999. I've owned it since november 2012 and it has been my daily drive ever since (don't own another car). It had 171 000 kilometres back then, it's around 201k now.
Sadly it ran into major problems this month. It started with me noticing the heater wasn't producing any hot air. Didn't mind it too much, winter was pretty much over anyway. The last two weeks of april, I noticed the check-engine light flashed briefly twice in two weeks, but didn't notice anything else. Then shortly after that, I noticed that in idle, the engine was revving higher then usual. Usually it revs around 900 in idle, but it could sometimes (not always) rev around 1500.
Then it got worse, after driving 10 minutes (and about 8 kilometres) the oil temperature was around 110 degrees. Normally to get it that high, I'd have to drive for half a hour on the highway at the least. But those 10 minutes I never drove faster then 50 km/h. And everytime I drove somewhere, the time for the oil temperature (as well as the water temperature) to rise in temperature was getting shorter and shorter.
So I brought it in to check what's wrong at my usual garage. They thought one of the cilinders might have been broken down. The next day, they said the motor would need a revision, the radiator needs to be replaced. He said it would costs me around 6500 EUR and that the body also needs some work, but couldn't tell me a price for that.
I was baffled at the price. Sure, it's a 24-years old car so replacements parts are becoming rarer and more expensive especially in Belgium, but this high?
I've posted this thread on a dutch forum for Subaru-owners but I decided to post here as well, the more opinions I can get, the merrier. So far it seems I should go for a second opinion. The car technician advised me not to go with repairs as he found the costs not justified. I took his advice at face value because he used to own an Impreza too, and has always managed to keep costs down (had a clutch issue last year that was suspected to cost me around 1200 EUR but was ultimately around 500 EUR).
What do you guys think, should I go for a second opinion or am I better off giving up on my car?
