yes, there are tons of better cars out there, wrx's really arent that great. however if for some reasonyou have to have awd and a turbo, then you have alot less to choose from.
if i had to have awd and a turbo, id look at a celica all-trac, and possibly a galant vr4, before id look at a wrx. they are cheaper, and very similar in performance. all-trac's are very badass, hardly anyone knows about them. they are cheap to buy and repair, and they are very tough.
galant vr-4's i dont know as much about, but ive seen some extremely good examples go for under 5 grand, with alot done to them.
if you dont have to have AWD, well im not going to start listing all the cars that are better than the WRX that have RWD, there are just too many.
if you have to have AWD but dont have to have a turbo. then i would look at a bmw e30 325ix. its a much better drivers car than the wrx. has a great awd system actually, with something like a 60-40 split, so sending 60 percent of the power to the rear wheels. in comparison tests, in the early and mid 90's it acutally beat audi and subaru by a good amount in snow tests. though it doesnt get as good of a 0-60 time, it has very similar acceleration from a roll compared to the wrx (ive driven both) but the ix has a much better powerband, you have decent power at like 2-3000 rpm's where the wrx blows unless your close to redline. its extremely reliable, and pretty cheap to fix. and very durable cars. they are known to go well over 400,000 miles on the stock motor.
also early 90's audi's would be a good choice, and unlike their newer model's they are tanks, very tough and well built. and much more reliable. an audi 90, or coupe quattro would be an awesome choice.
the wrx is still a good car, but there are cars that IMO are equal and better for much cheaper.
and really cheap wrx's fall apart.
if you could get a wrx in decent condition for like 4 grand, that would be awesome. but i drove about 5 different wrx's when i was looking for a car, each one was on the cheaper end, and each one had a shit ton of problems. ive got friends with wrx's and they have lots of problems too. all of the cars i mentioned would hold up better than a wrx.
