Read The Fine Manual. Your STi should be driven easy for the first 1000 miles. That means keep your RPMs below 4000 and avoid steady speeds or prolonged idling. I personally change my oil after the first 1000 miles. It is very hard to keep from testing the limits of your new toy but trust me your car will better for it if you don't.

Just my .02

 

I wonder if that dealer was trying to sell you an STI with more than 10 miles on it. Some dealers are letting their STIs out on the road for abuse and thus have to justify themselves by saying that hard driving does no damage. Don't buy one unless you trust it has been broken in properly or buy one with less than 10 miles.

 

It wasn't too bad for me either. I just set the shift light to 4k. It's pretty hard to ignore the glaring red dot in your vision. With all the low end torque, this car is a blast to drive at any speed. I'm at about 1200 miles and I have my first oil change (to synthetic) coming up next week.

 

Yeah set the shift indicator to 3800 and just upshift when you need to go faster. Hell I got to 110mph staying under 4K.

 

Bad idea Kbi. Talk to any mechanic they'll tell you the same thing no synthetic till after at least 5k. There is a break in process that occurs after the break-in process. After you get to the 1k mark change the oil but you still haven't broken the engine to it's extremes. Now you need to ride the engine harder and give it some time to feel itself out and develop a good wear pattern. Unfortunately, that's impossible to do with synthetic stuff because it's lubricates too well. That can result in an engine that runs too tight and there are definite performance losses in that.

Trust me I made this mistake once with my old wrx. Right before a trip to SoCal I took it to a Jiffy-Lube and the guy pitched me synthetic I crumbled because I thought it's the most expensive so it has to be the best, right? He also tried to convince me what I had in the rear diff was bad because it was black (turns out it was just the anti-sieze the guy was either dumb or just plain trying to scam me)

When I got back to SoCal first thing I did was take it to an authorized Subaru service department. The guy there told me to stay away from synthetic for at least 5k and recommended to stay away for 10k. Said he'd seen lots of people come in with engine problems because they switched too soon to synthetic.

He explained that if the engine is too tight then it starts to burn up the synthetic oil. What you end up getting is a car that has to have the oil changed every 1k miles!

Sorry if this is a bit long winded, and definately get a second opinion from authorized Subaru mechanics but I've heard this over and over again. The only thing synthetic saves is the trees.

 

I just got off the phone with my dealers mechanic. He is an STI owner and has his own business for STI's.

His web site.. www.mspt.net


Anyway, I just spoke to him askin about the clicky linkage during shifting and he said it was normal. Then I asked him about breakin.

He told me.. and I quote. "You better start getting on that thing now"

He told me to drive the car hard to teach the computer my driving style right away. Rather than having the computer learn a toned down style of driving.

He owns a 2004 STI, very sweet BTW, lots of mods, and he ran a rally race with it at 500 miles on the car.


Just letting everyone know. He is a true subaru mechanic and big time into the rally scene. I trust him.

 

Perhaps, luckily, I didn't get my oil changed yet. I was planning on switching to Mobil 1, but it seems the general opinion from the local Subaru Service dept. plus this forum, is to wait until 5 or 10k miles. I'm up to 1500 miles now and will be getting a convential oil change Thursday.

Any other opinions on synthetic oil use out there?