you never know whats gonna happen. I had one afternoon to put my whole WRX back together to trade it in for the MS3. If i had to find someone to weld my stock exhaust back together, I would have had to trade the car in with my aftermarket on there, thats $400-$500 down the drain.
you cant be so short sighted to claim that you are never ever going to want to get rid of your MS3. Who knows what will come along in the future.
also, if I ever want to swap back to stock to take it in to the dealer for warranty work, I now have to find someone to weld the thing back in for me.
Its never a bad idea to keep your stock parts...I kept all of my WRX stock parts and now I am rolling in about 2k in cash selling my performance parts because I was able to swap the stock parts back onto the car to trade it in. A little bit of planning ahead saved me $2,000....sounds worth it to me.
True. But I plan on keeping my MS3 for as long as its drivable. So no worries for me there. Do you really think that the dealer will say something about a MazdaSpeed part? I've already had a chit chat with the service manager here, he said I can bring it in any time I have warranty issues. Besides; if I have a problem with the exhuast portion of my car, I'd look into it myself. The only problem I can see happening is a leak, and that my friend, I can fix myself. No need in taking it in for warranty repairs. That pretty much goes for anything that is done to my car where I can figure it out. For me, I can pretty much fix anything so as long as I know the problem. Of course this method will not do for everyone, but I did mention that this is the most convenient for me, and the quickest at that. If you must have it in one piece, either do the extra work, or get someone else to do it.
I'm sure with your having to put your wrx back together in one afternoon isn't really anyones fault but yours. Piss Poor Planning. By that, I mean if I had already planned on trading my wrx in from the get go, I'd have already had the after market parts swapped out for the stock. If my exhaust had to be re-installed from being cut, I'm sure I'd pay the 50-60 dollars to have it re-welded. Not only would it save me the time, but I'd have that afternoon alone to be cruising in my new Speed3 by having stuff done. But not everyone tends to think that way. But hey what do I know.
I agree with you on keeping the stock parts. But having owned my 01 Ford Focus(yes I drive a Focus too) the stock parts I had from installing aftermarket parts just took up space in my garage. Over the past 6 years, I've already sold, or thrown away stock parts. I still have the OEM side skirts if anyone is interested in throwing those on thier Speed3s? lol Anyways, what I learned from that experience, is to just get rid of the stock parts if they are just taking up space. Especially if the parts have been sitting there for 2-3 years. Ya dig?
But, back on topic. If you have the time and its really that important for you to have the stock exhaust taken off as one whole piece, then do it. If not; just cut that biatch outta there!!! lol
