2026 Subaru WRX:Base or Premium?
Building it? Anthony says buy the base WRX, because the exhaust, intake and seats are coming out anyway. Keeping it stock as a daily? Spend the extra for the comforts. In the Northeast, the heated seats alone are worth it.
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The base WRX keeps the manual, AWD and full engine output. Whether it belongs in your driveway comes down to the compromises you’ll live with every day.
Transcript
We're back with some more four-banger talk. There's a big discussion going on right now about the WRX Premium versus the bottom-of-the-line WRX.
The way I look at it, when you're buying that Subie you're already looking at a car in the low 30s. If we're talking about $1,500 more for heated seats, you might as well do it if you live in the Northeast or on the East Coast, where it's cold. If you live somewhere in the South, you're probably not going to bother.
Personally, I would just go with the base model. Everything that's on it, you're probably going to end up ripping out and swapping out. You're going to do your own exhaust. You're going to do downpipes. You're going to end up tuning it. You're going to do intakes. At that point there's no reason to pay the premium, because you're probably going to strip the car anyway.
If you know you're not going to tear the car apart and you're just going to leave it as it is, then yes, spend the extra money. Get the more loaded version and all the comforts. But if you're going to be that guy who tears out the interior and puts in race seats, why spend the extra money just to rip everything out and replace it with performance parts?
There's no wrong or right option. There's a car for each driver. If you're using it for the daily commute, day-to-day driving and groceries, and you want a nicer vehicle with a few more creature features, go for the more loaded version. If you're going to be the race car guy and build it, go for the base entry model and build it up from there. Save yourself a couple of bucks up front that you're going to end up spending on the build anyway.
They're awesome cars, really fun to drive and really fun to build. I love that they're all-wheel-drive manuals. That's very rare nowadays. Base or Premium, they're both great vehicles. Catch you on the next one.
