RIP in peace.
To be fair, if me now with the resources available today got the car it wouldn't have been as bad.
Car showed up, needed rear diff main seal, crank seal, timing belt, brake rotors and pads, struts, radiator, coil packs, oil pump (which was unknown common failure at the time, the feedback I got from Vex at the time "don't need to worry about replacing it, we have never seen one fail".. that was the main source of my issues. The timing belt was off the car like 5-6 times throughout my ownership of the car because it kept pushing crank seals out). Importer didn't really care about all the issues that were missed in his "inspection" in Japan lol, and to be fair an importer is only as good as the information given to them by whoever they're using for an exporter or whoever was doing their "inspections."
And since the info wasn't really out there and readily available (Forum knowledge wasn't what it is today, people weren't as familiar with JDMs, and there was no facebook car groups), and Vex wasn't about to share what crossed over for parts (they said it was bad for business lol), I went to the JDM Subaru specialists at the time Vex Performance while they were still in Red Deer and got bent over haha. Asked for the cheapest options, got sold DBA rotors, Endless brake pads, Koyo radiator, Tomei kevlar timing belt lol 1360$ later as a poor student, and it was my own damn fault from being naive.
