I've wanted a WRX for years. When I was car shopping in 2012, it just wasn't in the cards. Instead, I bought an '07 Impreza, figuring I would just wait until it died and grab the car I actually wanted. 12.5 years later, the Impreza was still kicking at 150k miles, though it had started leaking oil. I decided it was time and picked up this "lightly used" '23 WRX. The car had been leased by 1 owner before I found it, and it saved me like $10k off the sticker price of a '25. Should have done more research on these cars before buying. Turns out, the leaser had a handful of modifications on it without tuning for it. Cold air intake, UEL exhaust headers, etc. Why put that money into a leased car? Don't ask me. It clearly wasn't running correctly. Timing was being heavily pulled in the higher RPM ranges, which I had confirmed at a local shop with a dyno. Determined to not get shoehorned into the stereotype of used Subaru buyers, I shelled out to remove the mods I didn't want (I kept the CAI and Cat-back), and had it professionally, but conservatively tuned by DMANN Tuning. I'm happy to say that it's now running great, and I'm finally happy with the purchase. Looking forward to continue making it unique.
