The wife's new ride - not a G, but y'all like pics, so....

[Mudgen]

This is her 4th WRX, picked up yesterday. It's my favorite of the four. She named it "Darth".

[370Z/28]

Luke....I am your car.



I like it. In fact, my son is looking to buy one. Since your wife must be quite the expert, can she offer him any do's and don't's?

Beautiful piece of property! Virginia is such a beautiful state. I guess I told you before that I used to live in Newport News.

[Mudgen]

The house is actually on a half acre lot in a built-up golf course community. It always surprises me again when I take pictures in the front yard--it looks like we're probably in a 5 acre subdivision. It's mostly that we have a natural area in front and across the street there are three heavily wooded lots with rising elevations.

One big DO if he's looking to buy a WRX: wait for the 2012s. They're expected to be essentially the same as the 2011s, which are in short supply and therefore not getting discounted much. This one was the worst deal I've ever made on a new car, $500 under MSRP. But it's what she wanted, so I drove to Roanoke and paid too much (only WRX Premium sedan in Virginia at the time). I rationalized it as follows:

A) She gets what she wants
B) She wants these cheap little cars instead of Audi S4s, so I've saved over $100,000 by buying them.

Where in Newport News did you live? My mother was born in Williamsburg, and her family was from Newport News (actually Warwick County) and Hampton.

[joe603]

Cheap??...probably not much less then the G. I just priced the limited out at 38k...yikes!!

Was it the normal WRX? The premium shows up as a 5-door (hatchback). The STi's are more expensive than I thought.

We have a moderator who traded in his G35 coupe for a WRX...

[Mudgen]

Yes, the WRX Premium Sedan, e.g:
http://www.edmunds.com/subaru/impreza/2 ... =101351143

MSRP $29,251 for hers vs. $40,740 for my G37x Premium, so yes, "cheap little car", even more so vs. an S4. There's a consensus that the plain WRX is actually a hair faster in a straight line than the STi, by the way. The STi is all about World Rally Cup suspension/handling setup.

[370Z/28]

I lived in the Denbigh area. I worked at Ft. Eustis. I was contractor employee, not military.

I'll tell Bryan to wait, but he is kinda like me....if he wants it, he is going to get it.

[joe603]

I just priced out an S4 to $55k... Still cheaper than an M3...

My wife used to drive a Lancer ES...now that's a cheap car! Didn't even have cruise control!!

[SVTCOBRA]

Looks great!
Have been wanting to test drive one for a while now.

[Mudgen]

I lived in the Denbigh area. I worked at Ft. Eustis. I was contractor employee, not military.

I'll tell Bryan to wait, but he is kinda like me....if he wants it, he is going to get it.

My Uncle Herman and Aunt Polly lived on the Denbigh side of town, on Riverside Drive. He was GM of the Hotel Warwick.

Is Bryan in TN with you? The Subaru forum buzz is that the NY-NJ-PA dealers are still doing WRXs close to invoice. VA-NC are pretty much MSRP, and my guess is the TN is the same. If he orders one in Sept when they're supposed to start taking orders, he can probably get invoice, and delivery in November.

But if he's headstrong, he'll probably just hunt one down and pay the going rate. Dunno where he'd have gotten that from, couldn't be the genes.

[SleepyMonkey]

nice car! Those look fun - never been in one though

[370Z/28]

It's not my business 'cause he is 27 and pays his own way, but I really hope he will wait. He has a job right now that is contract work with a great large corportation in Memphis (not naming names). We are all hoping that they hire him on full time, but that hasn't taken place yet. I hate to see him get a big new car note and then not get the job permanent.

I paid sticker price for one car in my life. I had one of the first 93 Camaros in Memphis. (1st year of the 4th gen for you non f-body folk). From the minute I saw a picture of the 4th gen Camaro I HAD to have one. They wouldn't budge an inch. I asked them to please just come off of it one penny so I wouldn't have to say I paid sticker price and they wouldn't do it. That car was slow as heck. It got ditched for Rambo as soon as I could talk David into it.

[joe603]

They're doing that crap for the new Camaro. When it first came out, they wanted more for an SS than a new stock 'vette!

[Mudgen]

This is the first time I've paid anywhere near sticker for a car. I bought her first WRX, an '02, a month after they came out when they were in "allocation" and dealers were getting full sticker. A golf buddy was GM of a dealership that had just bought a Subaru store, and I told him to let me know when things calmed down and he could give me a reasonable deal. He called me the next week and said they had a car that a 21 year old had bought and taken home before he checked his insurance rate, which turned out to be more than his car payment. He begged them to take it back, and I was able to let him off the hook. Mark let me have it for $500 over invoice, because he said the dealership owner would give him hell if he didn't get some kind of markup. It had been titled, so it technically wasn't a new car, but it had less than 100 miles on it when we got it. She's been stuck on them ever since.

The $100,000 saved figure was hyperbole, based on 4x~$28,000 difference from an S4. Residual value not taken into account, so it's not actually $100K.

[370Z/28]

They're doing that crap for the new Camaro. When it first came out, they wanted more for an SS than a new stock 'vette!

GM is so STUPID!! When I bought my '86 Camaro, they were asking $2500 "market adjustsment" for IROCs. They were pieces of crap. Just build the stinking cars and sell them like everybody else does, then maybe you won't have to go through bankruptcy.