I had bent my right front stock steel wheel on my 1993 Impreza, so I decided to get some new wheels. Buying one wheel is kind of silly when they are (or should be) cheap, and fourteen inch wheels suck anyway so I was planning to get some 15" steel wheels from a Forester. These look kind of like alloys, and they're bigger than the stock wheel so you can run a lower sidewall. So I call up my local Subaru recycler, Subaru & Suzuki Auto Recycling (they do Kia too) and asked them what it could cost to get four Forester steel wheels.
The answer: $50 per wheel. We're talking about some stamped steel wheels here, about 22 pounds each, and used. Years old, in fact. His excuse? The dealer wants $100/wheel new. This is the same guy who said that he'd never seen a 1993 Impreza with fog lights - it is a relatively rare option, available only on the LS model in 1993 and 1994, but he said he'd never seen them in twenty years. Either he's lying or he doesn't know shit, because mine had them (and has a factory switch to go with them.)
Instead I looked on ebay and ended up buying four wheels for $255 plus shipping, with rubber. Total shipped cost was just under $400, which I paid on Monday. When they arrived (yesterday) it turned out one wheel had low tread and one was worn down to the belts. I called up the guys I bought it from and they're sending me two more tires. I ended up buying lugs and one used tire, and having the wheels balanced and installed for $106, so it's just a whisker over $500 for the whole experience. Now I have some ca. MY2003 WRX wheels on my car, with their accompanying stock-size (for the WRX) tires. Some asshat sprayed the wheels black without roughing them up, so the paint is chipping off; I'll have to repaint them. Black looks nice, though, especially under the "amethyst" (aka metallic purple) paint job. All I need to do is sand them with some 500 grit wet until the paint is gone, then spray them with Aluma-prep or similar, and then I can prime them. When these tires wear out (they're all about 80% now) I'll put the steel wheels back on, get the old rubber stripped and disposed, and repaint the wheels.
The driving experience is superior in most ways but there are some drawbacks. These tires (all mismatched, by the way) make substantially more road noise than the crap ones I took off, and since the sidewall is shorter and these are all sport tires, the ride is a lot firmer as well, more jouncy. Also, the former tire diameter was about 3% undersize, while these are about 2% oversize. My speedo now reads slightly low (but only like 1 mph at 45 mph) and more importantly, I have something like 5% higher gear ratio. This is going to be great on flat land, netting me perhaps another 1 MPG in fuel economy, but it is hell on the steep hills. One hill which I was previously getting up easily (which is on my way home) is no longer easy and I lose speed by the top. It's a long run with the only passing lanes, so this is very annoying. On the other hand, since the time change has just occurred, I'm driving home when it's dark now so I can put the brights on the fuckos who won't get over.
If you're wondering which wheels fit on the Impreza, check my page on Impreza Tire/Wheel Sizes.