Bushy86 nice sti, seen it, most bags blew and the upper damage could have messed up the plastic covers causing the belt to slip. The sti's ej motors are always a scary buy from the auction with the front end's even if they are minor upper damages. The new wrx fa20 has a full aluminum front chain cover and its a chain and to brake that aluminum cover to cause the chain to jump is difficult ( not impossible, had seen two of them this year with the same issue). With the Plastic 3 piece STI cover shilling the Timing belt every time the plastic covers get jammed/broken the plastic pieces fall on to a rotating belt sliding under the sprockets and causing the belt to skip few teeth which results in bent valves or worse. For this reason a STI that has a good undamaged Front end will sell for much much more money at the auction. The difference is quite significant, a rear ended sti /limited 15 i bought last year where we had to cut the rear c clip i paid 13500 vs a 17 sti with front end damage selling for 8 to 9k just because its a 50/50 if your motor is working properly, the key word properly as even if it skips it might work but horribly and the auction still indicates Engine start/or run and drive. The worse is when you buy a Fa20 for example that has minor front end upper support damage/ run and drive so your paying top dollar for it, however the fa20's have tight clearance between the engine and the frame rail, which causes the engine to jump and brake the oil sensor at the bottom/driver side and who ever is running the motor eventually runs it with out oil starving the motor. You get it bring it, replace the cover, put fresh oil in, drive the car 1500 miles to only hear a Knock knock knock coming from the crank
)))) had that happen to my buddy who ended up buying a motor from me to replace his knocking motor.....
For this reason many many insurance companies will rather total a car rather than dealing with issues that might come up down the road...... Had a similar issue with one of our ST's which had slide under a truck and had the upper core support bent in, intake manifold broken, oil filter was busted either by the forklift guy or damage but they sold it to us as a run and drive, but after many run/drives with out oil we got the car with a seized engine and your just stuck eating that cost ..... Its a Gamble........