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2018 Subaru WRX Drivers' Notes | Turbo traditionalist

Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore: The Subaru Impreza WRX is one of my favorite enthusiast sedans. It's invigorating, just a bit raw and makes you want to drive it more and more. Our tester has subtle blue paint and aggressive black wheels, which strike the right tone. It's sporty without being stupid. Inside is black leather, red stitching, and plastics that are decent, or at least non-offensive. Good looking car, overall. I was excited for my one-night stint in the WRX. I blitzed home, dashing in and out of traffic in the lower gears. This thing is like a hovercraft, and with the windows down and the engine growling and buzzing, I made record time. The steering is tight, the clutch engagement is heavy, and the brakes have just the right amount of pedal depth. I felt focused and in control. I've always felt the WRX is the right Impreza for me. The STI is awesome, but unusable for many everyday driving experiences. I could live with the WRX longterm, and love it. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Associate Editor Joel Stocksdale: If you've ever lamented that turbo cars don't feel like turbo cars anymore, you should check out a WRX. Its 2.0-liter turbocharged flat-four definitely takes a page from the peaky boosted beasts of the past. Driven at low rpms and gently enough that boost still builds, the turbo is laggy and takes a while to hit peak boost. This means that in mild driving, you'll be just shy of the speed limit when the turbo whacks you in the back, and you'll have to jump back off the accelerator just a moment later. But the rush of the turbo kicking in is still pretty entertaining, and a unique feeling that has been engineered out of a lot of other turbo cars. If you drive the WRX hard, though, the turbo engine becomes much easier to work with. The lag disappears, and the turbo spools right up. But you do have to be running the boxer right up close to redline to keep it responsive. These characteristics aren't something I personally enjoy. But the way the rest of the WRX drives is spot on for me. The steering is weighted nicely, and the car is very responsive. It also feels quite neutral, much more so than even good front-drive and front-biased all-wheel-drive cars. There's a bit of lean, but the chassis is always composed and communicative. And the benefit of the slightly roll-y suspension is that the WRX has impressive ride quality.

Subaru profits fall by half last year among recall maladies

Subaru took a financial beating last year, according to its freshly released earnings report. During the full fiscal year, which ended March 31, the carmaker's operating profits effectively halved. Net income dropped 33% to 147.81 billion yen, or $1.33 billion, and revenue fell 2.2% to 3.16 trillion yen ($28.5 billion). Subaru states that its operating income declined by 48.5% to 195.5 billion yen, or to about $1.78 billion. According to Subaru, this was not only due to a decrease in sales, but also due to recall campaigns. Total production decreased nearly 6% to 989,000 units, and production stoppages at the Gunma plant were partially to blame for that — but Impreza, XV and Levorg sales also sank. The redesigned Forester did start out well in the summer, but sales in the first half of 2018 were more modest with the outgoing generation still in the showrooms. The Gunma manufacturing plant, Subaru's sole factory in Japan, ground to a halt in January 2019 to remedy issues with Forester, Crosstrek and Impreza electric power steering units, and that cost Subaru nearly 10 days of production, corresponding to around 30,000 vehicles. Earlier, there was a 500,000-vehicle recall in Japan due to fraudulent final inspections. Automotive News also lists other recent Subaru maladies, such as a low-fuel warning recall and stop-sale for all U.S-market Outbacks and Legacys, and the earlier, global recall to repair valve springs on the boxer engines of 411,000 vehicles. This particular recall hasn't been problem-free, as there have been cases where subsequent engine failures on BRZ models have been suspected of having been caused by slapdash recall work. There is also a new, large-scale recall in the horizon for Subaru, as a brake light issue on 2008-2017 vehicles necessitates the recall of some 2.3 million vehicles. However, it's not all bleak for Subaru, as U.S. sales are going strong. The carmaker predicts 2019 will be the 11th straight record year, and U.S. retail sales climbed 7.7 percent in April, which was the 89th consecutive month with increased sales. But still, not all Subaru markets are equal: On the North American market, Subaru sold 717,000 vehicles during the past fiscal year, an enormous percentage of its total sales. News Source: Subaru via Automotive News Plants/Manufacturing Recalls Subaru

Drive-up bank robbery perpetrated with Cayenne and WRX

Thieves carried out what appears to be a movie-script-perfect robbery of a bank in Sydney, Australia early on Friday morning, using two stolen high-performance vehicles in the process.
At around 11:15 AM local time, in near mid-day light, reports say that two men in masks smashed into the side of a Westpac bank in a confirmed-stolen black Porsche Cayenne. The perpetrators were armed with sledgehammers according to witness reports, and took only about five minutes to take what they were after inside of the bank.
The rapid getaway was executed in a Subaru WRX, also confirmed as a stolen vehicle, while witnesses snapped camera phone images of the illicit goings on. One Twitter user posted a few of the images to his social media feed; you can take a look at them in our small gallery below. Follow on down for the full video report, from The Sydney Morning Herald.