Several years ago my brother Scott acquired his first Subaru – a fairly basic Impreza wagon that quickly captured his heart for its unique growly boxer engine, practical hatchback spaciousness and season-less motoring enjoyment.
What could be better than a reliable, fun-to-drive and sensible little wagon? Why one with a lot more performance, that’s what! And so began the ascent through a 2009 WRX hatchback to my brother’s current beloved 2011 WRX STI hatchback.
No other car for sale in Canada is as much a motoring Swiss Army Knife as the WRX hatchback. With four doors, a roomy interior and an expansive cargo hold, the Impreza enables its owner to carry more people and stuff than any car with such street cred has a right to. That reputation amongst enthusiast drivers stems from a gruff and tough horizontally opposed four-banger that whistles out a lot of ponies through its turbocharged plumbing.
Best of all, routing all that power through four contact patches and long-travel suspension damping means that the speed-induced exhilaration doesn’t end when the pavement (or summer weather) does.
With about a year left on the lease for Scott’s STI, it seems timely that for 2015 Subaru has introduced a new WRX STI to help ensure people like my brother keep coming back. The Fuji company wants drivers to know that this is the highest performing STI yet, with dramatic improvements in areas crucial to enthusiasts like handling and shift quality.
This all sounds like great news for people like my brother, so why is he so concerned? We took his car and a new STI for a spirited drive around some of our favourite country roads in the Niagara region to find out.
Styling
Let’s just get this part out of the way, shall we? Subarus generally don’t win a lot of points in the beauty pageant. If you can tell me with a straight face that the WRX – any WRX – is a beautifully styled car, I’d suggest you ought to take up a career as a professional poker player, or make an appointment for laser eye surgery.
Aggressive looking? Sure. Purposeful? Of course, but that’s about where it ends.
The new STI looks best from the front end where its contemporary LED lighting accents and larger grille opening help give fresher appearance than the last generation’s mug.
The flanks of the new car still possess the flexed fender flares of the old car, and yet somehow look less muscular than before, especially compared to the chunky butt of the hatchback.
The new car’s rear wing is even taller than the one found on last year’s STI sedan in the interest of enhancing rearward visibility – one simply looks under the wing now, and presumably means you’ll notice the flashing lights of the cop car sooner. The replacement of the once-trendy ‘Altezza’ taillights with ones featuring red lenses is a welcome adjustment.
   2015 Subaru WRX STI (blue) vs 2011 Subaru WRX STI (white). Click image to enlarge |
Overall, the new car ends up retaining its boy-racer looks – a simple compact sedan tarted up with rally-bred accessories. For the Subaru faithful, they’re likely to appreciate it over time.
Interior
Despite its luxury car price tag, the interior of Subaru’s STI has never hidden its economy car roots very well. Based on the Impreza – though no longer including that moniker anywhere on the car – the cabin of the STI is notably better now than it was.
The 2015, with its black-and-red leather seats now have adjustable headrests (compared to the previous fixed units) and are both more supportive and more comfortable than the old ones.
The dashboard – and indeed much of the interior – of the last generation model was assembled using a lot of hard and shiny plastics that are decidedly low rent. Beyond the appearance though, they turn my brother’s car into a torture chamber of squeaks and rattles when the weather turns cold. Now the plastics in the 2015 car are a bit softer, but still have a sheen of cheapness to them. Only time will tell if they’ll become as noisy as the old car’s panels.
The new STI also features the dash-top screen offering a litany of information about the vehicle ranging from boost to throttle percentage to fuel efficiency to climate control details. Most of the information here is non-essential, but does help to give the car a more contemporary feel, as does the push-button start on my Sport Tech–package test car.
One other adjustment that may seem minor but isn’t, is Subaru’s decision to relocate the exterior mirrors to the door instead of the leading edge of the side windows. This makes for even better visibility out of a cabin that was already very bright and airy.
  2015 Subaru WRX STI dashboard, gauges. Click image to enlarge |
The shift knob is unchanged except for colour and the smaller-diameter steering wheel is now a flat-bottom affair that feels really great in hand. The gauges too, continue with red numerals on a black background, though now the equally sized tach and speedo flank a graphic output that throws even more digits and info at the driver.
One area Subaru hasn’t updated enough is the infotainment system, which in Scott’s car is a cantankerous beast to use with tiny buttons. It offers slow reaction to inputs and a generally low-rent appearance to the graphics. These descriptions continue to apply to the new system too, which is a shame because Subaru has proven with the 2015 Legacy that they know how to do a proper good-looking, good-sounding, easy-operating system. Hopefully we’ll see the Legacy’s system show up in the WRX family within a year or so to end this misery.
Handling
Enough rambling about those insignificant details of comfort and style; buyers of the WRX (and even more so the STI) have always willingly turned a blind eye to those blights. These are, first and foremost, driver’s cars and happily the new car does nothing to change that attitude.
In fact, it improves upon it.
Tearing around rural Niagara, it doesn’t take long for both Scott and I to notice the improvements in transitional responsiveness of the new STI. This is where Subaru has spent the development resources for the new car, and the suspension – both front and rear – are largely reimagined.
Stiffer is the term applied to the stabilizer bars, cross members and control arm bushings as well as the springs, reportedly 22 percent more so. The result is an STI whose reactions to steering inputs are more immediate than we’ve seen before. And while others in the media have complained that the STI is now too stiff for practical on-road application, we found no appreciable difference in ride quality between last year’s car versus the new one even on some pot-holed gravel roads.
  2011 Subaru WRX STI dashboard, gauges. Click image to enlarge |
This is not to say the new car isn’t rigid, because it surely is – it’s just that the old car wasn’t exactly a softy either. The bigger difference is felt in body control now with the 2015 STI wallowing side-to-side and fore-aft much, much less than it did in its previous life.
Steering is still hydraulic in the STI (unlike the electric power unit in the more plebian WRX) and provides excellent feedback through the wheel, just as it does in the old car. It’s the overall sensation of greater immediacy that makes the new STI feel like a full-on sports car, not just a radically modified econobox.
Braking was powerful before and remains a strong point of the STI today with its Brembo componentry.
Drivetrain
Left relatively unchanged, the 2.5L turbocharged horizontally opposed four cylinder engine still puts out 305 horsepower as my brother’s did when it came from the factory. Scott’s car has undergone a transformation of sorts in this department though with full, larger-bore exhaust, intake, fuel injectors and custom ECU tune. This all makes his car sound and act like something that came out of a Gran Turismo video game.
For 2015 Subaru has adjusted the throttle response, making its reaction to inputs a bit more immediate. If we hadn’t driven the cars back to back, I’m not sure I would’ve noticed, but we each felt it at driver swaps and it makes the new car seems more lively and responsive pulling away from a stop and at low rpms. Once the modified car spools up its full boost, it leaves the new STI in its dust of course, but then, it’s not exactly comparing apples to apples here and everything done to this last generation car can be done to the new car too (and more).
In 2011 when my brother ordered up his car, he had the dealership install the optional short-shifter kit making the throws more precise and, obviously shorter. This modification took the six-speed action from simply acceptable to just what it should be with true action requiring a deliberate heft and a slight bit of notchiness. Happily Subaru now makes the short shift unit standard fare on the 2015 STI, just as it ought to be.
   2015 Subaru WRX STI vs 2011 Subaru WRX STI. Click image to enlarge |
Practicality
Cutting right to the chase here, the reason my brother loves his STI so much is because it does everything he needs it to do, no matter the season. It’s an exhilarating sports machine, reliable daily driver, passenger carrier and convenient cargo hauler due largely to its cavernous hatchback configuration.
His hatchback, with the seats up can swallow 538 L of whatever junk he wants to throw in there. With the seats folded, that number swells to an SUV-like 1,257 L. For 2015, Subaru is offering the STI in sedan format only, having killed off the hatchback. The sedan at best offers about a third of the volume for cargo space of the hatch.
While this decision is enough for Scott to join the legions of hatchback-loving STI owners with their torches and pitchforks, it’s important to note that this is not the sole measure of a car’s practicality. The new STI, is incrementally longer which equates to an improvement in rear passenger legroom (from 852 mm to 900 mm) and when looking at sedan versus sedan, an improvement of cargo space from 320 L to 340 L is realized.
  2015 Subaru WRX STI vs 2011 Subaru WRX STI. Click image to enlarge |
Still, if you’re like my brother and occasionally need to carry bulky items, Subaru’s decision to axe the STI hatchback could very well be enough to cause current owners to seriously consider leaving the brand for their next car.
But there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Spy photos have started circulating the internet with a WRX hatchback mule in testing camouflage, so although at the time of writing, Subaru is still unwilling to confirm the future of a WRX / STI hatchback, it may just be in the cards yet.
Value
Parking a Subaru STI in the driveway will likely have your neighbours wondering what backwards-cap-wearing punk is visiting, what with that giant rear wing and all (especially if it’s finished in my tester’s World Rally Blue paint). When learning that you’ve spent upwards of 40-large (or more) on your fast and furious ride, the uninitiated will likely try to sell you some swampland in Florida too.
The reality though, is that Subaru’s sportiest machine is one of the best high performance bargains available. With capabilities as lofty as they are, it can easily hang with the big money performers on the road or the track. And given that this car is as happy in either setting, can haul the family and luggage too, it negates the need for owning both a dedicated toy and a practical daily driver.
Common sense would suggest that upgrading the 2015 STI as Subaru has done with more technology and those dramatic suspension improvements would net a costlier price of admission. Not so. It’s now possible to order a $37,995 WRX STI, whereas last year, the cheapest STI sedan you could find would ring in at $38,195.
  2015 Subaru WRX STI vs 2011 Subaru WRX STI. Click image to enlarge |
2011 Subaru WRX STI
Conclusion
When the 2015 Subaru STI was launched in Detroit this past January, the ensuing grumbling about the carryover drivetrain threatened to overshadow what continues to be one of the most sensationally fun driver’s car available. Last year’s STI was a raw, raucous and legitimate all-weather performance machine. The new STI is all of that still, but with truly world-class steering and handling, and a more contemporary interior and exterior style. Being a better value only helps make this appealing package even more so.
The only remaining question is whether or not all of these improvements are enough to keep the hatchback faithful with the STI for their next purchase. For my brother, every one of the new car’s improvements are appreciated, but he’s still not convinced he can go without the capacious hatchback when the lease is up and it may have him looking elsewhere.
Time will tell if he, and other current STI owners, will forego some practicality for a dynamically superior car, or if Subaru will relent to the pressure and offer what we, the hatchback lovers really want: this new, seriously better car, with the cargo-carrying capability to boot.
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Manufacturer’s Website: Subaru Canada Photo Gallery: Crash Test Results: |
Pricing: 2015 Subaru WRX STI Sport-Tech
Base Price (WRX STI): 37,995
Base Price (WRX STI Sport-tech): $44,995
Options: None.
Destination: $1,650
A/C Tax: $100
Price as tested: $46,745
Competitors:
Audi S3
BMW M235i
BMW 335i
Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution
Volkswagen Golf R
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