My Little Red Forester

This is the fourth vehicle I've owned. The last one was a 2000 Ford Focus LX that was constantly getting repaired or getting another recall done to it. I need a reliable car, but then, who doesn't. After my Focus decided it didn't want to let me put my key in the ignition one day, I realized it was time to get a new vehicle. I did a lot of researching and investigating before picking a Forester.

Immediately I'd decided I didn't want another car. I spend too much time in the freeway, sharing the road with huge trucks and mammoth SUVs, i.e. Navigators, Hummers, Suburbans and so on. Not wanting a monster SUV, I decided to look for something smaller and in my price range. Basically a step up from a car. I ended up researching the Honda CR-V, the Toyota RAV4, the Ford Escape and the Subaru Forester.

The first thing I did was check the reviews for the vehicles, from both sites that test cars, as well as sites where owners could come and state their opinions about the cars they own. I read the good reviews, but I paid a lot of attention to the bad reviews, to see exactly why someone said they didn't like the vehicle. Many of the professional reviews recommended the Forester, as did many of the reviews by people who owned one.

From there I checked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration site for both crash data, and RECALLS. After the Focus multiple recalls experience, I definitely didn't want a repeat of that. Now just about all cars are going to get a recall at some point, however, I was encouraged to find that there were very few, if any, for any of the vehicles I was interested in. The crash test data between the Forester and the RAV4 were comparable, though the CR-V had better results according to the NHTSA.

While I was checking the NHTSA, I also checked the data at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for their information on how safe the vehicles were, and found that both the CR-V and the Forester were best picks. I was not impressed by the crash test data on the RAV4 or the Escape compared to the CR-V or Forester. I also checked out their data on bumper crashes and found the Forester to be one of the best when it came to you paying the least amount in repairs. The fact that I would be paying almost two thousand dollars to fix a bumper in a 5 mph accident on the RAV4 or CR-V put both of them out of the running, and the marginal grade the Escape got on the IIHS's crash test also put it out the running, which left me with the Forester.

After that I checked out Subaru's website and found myself with a car with a lot more things on it that were standard than I was used to. All my previous cars were the base model, which meant they had nothing on them, except automatic transmission added because I can't drive a stick. Not that I'm complaining about all the extras, they were nice to get for a change. The Forester X, which is the base model, comes standard with ABS, remote keyless locks, power windows, power mirrors, power steering, front and side air bags, air conditioning, all wheel drive, and variable intermittent windshield wipers. I added automatic transmission.

Using their website I checked out the dealerships in my area, test drove one and immediately bought it. That was in December.

I've had my red Forester X for about four months now and can say that I am very happy with it. It handles like a car. The ride is very smooth, the turns are no different than my Focus, except that it handles a lot better. I was worried about it being tipsy, and it isn't in the least. It handles very well in the rain, no skidding or hydroplaning, but then, I wasn't driving like an idiot, so I wasn't trying to make my Forester do that anyway. It breaks very well, and very quickly. The engine is extremely quiet. I never know when I'm doing 80 unless I look at my speedometer. I always knew when I was doing anything over 65 in my Focus, the engine got extremely loud, but not with my Forester. The Forester has a lot of zip, I have no problem keeping pace on the freeway and it accelerates very nicely from a dead stop. It also accelerates beautifully on hills too. There are a lot of steep hills where I live and I have absolutely no problem going up a hill and gaining speed while I'm at it and without flooring the gas pedal. The gas mileage isn't that much different from my Focus, it can drive almost two weeks on a tank of gas. I'm getting about 250 miles to a tank.

I've just put 3000 thousand miles on it and took it in to get the oil changed, and to have this noise checked out when I turned the steering wheel when the car isn't moving. The problem was easily fixed but the fact that it took from seven AM to four PM to get it fixed was totally unacceptable.

Something you need to take into consideration when you buy a Subaru is that you're probably going to be dealing with a dealership that isn't devoted to Subarus. Yes, they'll have techs to work on your Subaru, but for everyone five they've got that can deal with, let's say a Chevy, you're going to have one that can work on a Subaru, which means if it's there to get worked on beyond an oil change, it's going to be there a while and that they probably won't have the parts for it on site and will have to order it.

The only real complaint that I have about my Forester is that the wind noise in the cabin is kind of loud, but not horribly so. Also, the stock CD player it comes with it crap. I immediately replaced with it something a lot better, namely something that could handle MP3s because there really isn't anywhere to put a CD changer, and considering how bad the stock CD player was, I wasn't going to pay $600 to have one of their CD changers installed.

Other than that I am a very happy Forester owner. So happy in fact that I got a friend of my family to buy a Subaru when she needed to get a new car.