Way back in the summer of 2016, my life was changing fast. I suddenly had a kid. My wife, an academic, got offered a rare tenure track job at a small college in the ‘burbs. My Brooklyn life was soon to be in my rearview mirror. The only problem was that I didn’t even have a rearview mirror because I was carless.
Being a smart automotive journalist, I was quite sure I knew what I wanted: a manual Mazda CX-5. Unfortunately, few were to be had and the ones out there were way too expensive. My friend and colleague Tom McParland suggested a Subaru Forester as there were a ton of 2016 models they were looking to offload at a nearby dealership and that, for $25,000 all-in, I could walk out with a completely fine new car.
This seemed like a sane idea at the time. Of all the crossovers I’d driven, the Forester was seemingly alright-to-good at everything, even if it wasn’t great at any one thing. I didn’t love the design of the RAV4, the meek engine in the CR-V, or the price of the Mazda. The Forester seemed like the ultimate good compromise.
I planned to own the car for about 10 years or 95,000 miles, whichever came first. I made it to eight years and 76,000 miles before I got so fed up with the car I decided to sell it a couple of years early.
The Many Ways My Subaru Let Me Down
If you’ve read about this car all along you can skip down to the next section, but for those of you only vaguely familiar here’s a quick recap of the many issues I’ve had with the car over the approximately eight years of ownership.
Right off the bat, the fuel economy in “Subie” was abysmal. I had the Forester with the best fuel economy at 27 mpg combined (24 city/31 highway), though my mileage around town was regularly in the 21-22 mpg range. I get that this number depends a lot on where you live and how you drive, but the usual combined fuel economy in my experience was around 25 mpg.
That’s not great and, in light of new cars, is kinda terrible. Perhaps superior fuel economy would have made me feel better about the car’s CVT (continuously variable transmission). Most CVTs are bad and the Subaru CVT isn’t early Nissan bad, but it’s still an experience that went from mildly annoying to so jerky over the first 30,000 miles that I started to wonder if it was breaking. Nope! Forums and a trusted mechanic assured me that’s just how Foresters are.
And then stuff started breaking, conveniently around the time the warranty expired. The thing scarfed headlights like Joey Chesnut. Both front lower control arms cracked, requiring expensive replacements. Both rear wheel bearings went out before even hitting 70,000 miles. The battery crapped out early and was awkward to replace. The car was never aligned.
As mentioned, the thread pitch chosen by Subaru on its wheel studs is supposedly designed to keep the wheels more securely to the car, but the result is the studs crack off too easily. Gilligan somehow got better reception on his coconut radio than my car’s speakerphone, much to the annoyance of my coworkers.
And, finally, the locks have just randomly stopped working. My best estimate is that I spent about $7,500 on top of car payments, gas, and insurance to keep this car running for less than eight years.
All this means that when I got an email from Carvana offering me $11,400 for the car I knew it was time to say goodbye. I have no specific proof of any big problem about to occur and, yet, I can feel one in my bones.
Now That It’s Gone Here Are Some Reasons I Don’t Regret Buying A Forester
For all the disdain I’ve had for the Subaru I had a sudden pang of regret as I was signing the title over at a local Honda dealership that agreed to take the car for the Carvana price.
I’d planned to sell the car alone, but a timing snafu meant I needed to bring my daughter and she cried the whole way to the dealership. Then she started crying again as I handed over the keys. She doesn’t remember all the problems, she just knows that this is the only car she’s ever had. All the road trips, all the drive-in movies, and all the car camping happened in Subie.
Seeing these memories flood back for her made them flood back from me.
While I think I paid too much to keep a new Japanese car running, the reality is the Forester never left me stranded. It never broke so badly it couldn’t be fixed. The local Subaru dealers I had were fine and often would let me take a loaner on short notice and without an appointment.
It also did a few things quite well for the price.
It’s a bit of a joke that the Subaru Forester should come with an REI Co-Op membership, but it was only shortly after getting a Forester that I decided I should go camping for the first time in my life well into my 30s. I do not come from an outdoorsy family. I come from a hotel/airbnb on the beach kind of family.
The Forester, in this trim, has more than 74 cubic feet of space, which is better than average for the class. With one seat up for Bette it still managed to have enough volume to swallow my overpacking. I take everything with me camping and there was always room in Subie for just one more pillow, or camp chair, or extra propane bottle I’d never need.
When the camping trips were over the Forester was also easy to clean. I’ve had press cars whose plastic would scuff at the site of a sharp edge and whose piano black interior touches would dirty merely from the pressure of staring at them for more than five seconds. Not Subie! A little spit and a dirty sock would clean up just about anything.
I think the ruggedness of the interior on the Forester gives people the impression that these vehicles are mechanically rugged, which isn’t always the case.
And speaking of the interior, I gotta credit these seats. The cloth seats in Subie are fantastic. Neither too firm nor, as cloth seats often are, too lumpy and soft. I did exactly one full detail in year 7 of Subie ownership and they looked great afterward.
This thing was comfortable on long road trips and even returned a non-terrible highway mileage in the low 30s.
So it’s not all bad. I think, over time, I will even look back fondly at Subie as an important part of our family just as our family grew to be three.
It’s Gone
The final reason I sold the Subaru was that I hope to know a car dealer who, after constantly kvetching, suggested that he might be able to help me out in purchasing something new. I’d have been much happier selling the car for the $11,400 Carvana offered, but I delayed for too long and Carvana knocked that down to $9,500.
Thankfully, the dealer I spoke with nearby was willing to honor most of the $11,400 and kinda begged me to go down to $10,900. Comparable cars are selling for about $14,000 nearby, but my car’s registration was almost up and I had some maintenance I needed to do on the car. Selling before July 7th would save me an immediate $600 and I’m too busy to sell it private party.
I was able to take that $10,900 and apply it to a new car and ended up basically back where I started with a $25,000 car. What did I get? I think most of you can guess at this point. If you can’t, an announcement post is coming soon as it’s silly to tease a car that’s just another crossover for this long.
Farewell, Subie.