Last night my bro--Maddie08--and I installed my recently-purchased Primitive skid plates. Primitive (WRX - STi) offers 2 types of "full armor" skid plates: 1/8" and 3/8". I went with the former, what they call "street" armor. The full armor simply means front and rear skid plates. I figured since I won't actually be off-roading my STI Limited, the 1/8" was the logical choice.

All in all, very high-quality stuff. I may post pics later, if folks are interested. I've decided not to replace the oem limited front lip and to keep the WRX look--mostly b/c I'm tired of driving my STI like it's a supermodel. With the skid plates and no front lip spoiler, I can now drive around in all weather and treat it like a proper Subaru. It will also come in handy when I move to a snowy and mountainous climate

Anyway, thought I would share. If anyone is considering skid plates--go Primitive.

 

What's the protection coverage like? Can you still reach the oil filter?

 

It is bolted on with 5 bolts and comes standard with a access hole just to drain the motor oil. As an option, you can delete this access hole (which I opted to do). In order to do anything, you must remove the skid plate. It sounds like a hassle, but it's very simply to take on/off. The trade-off, of course, is great protection. It covers a larger area than the factory black plastic garbage, especially with the optional "stinger tail" which I also got. This tail extends the rear of the front skid plate just enough to cover the tranny.

 

Nice, I'm sure you'll enjoy that skid plate when you go up north. I haven't run the factory plastic one in almost 3 years now.

 

Puts some pics of it installed

 

planning on taking some sweet jumps or something?

 

The factory plastic under there was coming off and needing replacing and I thought why not take advantage of this and replace it with a skidplate to help protect things. By 'things' I mean, rain/snow/ice/dirt/etc. I plan of moving to a state (almost definitely Colorado) with 4 well-defined seasons in early 2010 and decided to be proactive.