The 2025 Subaru Forester is now here, and it looks….moderately different than the old one. The engine is possibly even less different, as it’s basically the same 2.5-liter Boxer mated to a — you guessed it — Continuously Variable Transmission. But there is a new interior. Here, let’s just take a look at this new machine:
OK, let’s start by looking at the outgoing Forester:
And here’s the new one, whose front end I personally thinks looks…possibly less modern than the outgoing one but whose side profile I think looks great:
Maybe the press images will change my mind, since it’s comparing apples to apples:
Ah OK, that front press picture is a bit better; I’m not sure if it’s an improvement (maybe the rear end is), but the new interior is — with its 11.6-inch touchscreen — plus it gets Wireless CarPlay, which is a big deal for Subaru owners.
Subaru says a hybrid variant is coming next year; Autopian Publisher Matt Hardigree, who owns a 2.5-liter CVT Forester, has told me to write a headline that says “You should wait for the hybrid” because he’s tired of filling up his Forester all the time with expensive New York gasoline. He has a point. A hybrid Forester will print money. You might want to wait for that.
This is breaking news, so this article is still being updated.
Things I love about our subarus (2010 and 2014):
Things I do not love:
As an owner of a 2010 Outback I need to bitch about the easy to work on. This car has been dead reliable for the 70,000 miles I’ve owned it, but all the basic maintenance items are a pain in the ass:
Headlight bulbs take an hour each with trying to do it blindly through the wheel wells and oil changes are always fun with the ‘ring of fire’. Also I’ve found I need to make sure my oil filters have round instead of square o-rings or the thing will dribble oil.
I’ve got a ’18 Outback, the wife has a ’19 Forester. The plastics are greatly improved over your models. I always seem to be getting mid 20’s MPG while my wife always manages low-low 30’s. This is partly because my commute is more “city” and hers is more highway, but even on comparable routes, her Forester always seems to get at least 10% better fuel economy.
She has no idea about a CVT at all much less to complain about it. I hate it. Mines a hair over 100k now and it shudders on cold mornings; fluid flush made no change.
Their wheel bearings can go fuck off.
A new Subaru? Is it a BRAT? Is it a BRAT? No? Wake me for the next introduction.
My issue with modern Subaru is…… Despite the upgraded engine and more “economical” CVT. They are STILL GETTTING SIMILAR fuel economy figures as my 2008 Outback 2.5i 5 speed with the dino EJ25, which absolute baffle me. I liked the Outback Wilderness and Crosstrek Wilderness. I wanted to buy one but its their CVT that turned me away from it. My buddy bought a Outback Wilderness few months ago and was surprised to see his figure wasn’t far off as mine 15 years old EJ25 5 speed Outback…..
I bought a used MK 7.5 GTI w/ a DSG rather than anything w/ a CVT. My observations (probably soaked in confirmation bias) lead me to believe Subis are good ‘till 99-100K miles, then they sort of fall apart w/ bad head gaskets, timing belts and water pumps that require 3 mechanics, w/ everything crossed, to install and get properly timed.
OTOH, I believe a VW type 2 w/ a turbo Subi transplant would be just nuts to drive.
To my eyes, the exterior (esp. the rear) calls to mind the second-gen Ford Escape. Which is a good thing.
Leadfoot Hardigree.
But on a serious note, just please let them have fixed the center dead spot. Lord, that’s all I ask for. Why? Because my mom is guaranteed going to buy one and I simply cannot stand the way the current model dead spot cause her to rhythmically tug the wheel every few seconds to make sure the steering linkage is still attached. Fuck me for the way the constant ensuant head toss fills me with red rage. Yes, I bitch every time the car is mentioned.
This looks better than the current one, which was easy because the current one looks awful. This seems to wear it’s bulk a little better, even though it still seems more bloated than it should be.
The hybrid is genuinely interesting. My wife’s 2018 Forester is… fine on gas I guess. If it’s efficiency was closer to that of a Rav4 hybrid, it would be appreciated.
If the infotainment is like the current Outback it will sort of suck. But then again, what infotainment doesn’t suck at this point?
And finally, the CVT remains. Man, I really hope Subaru is working on different powertrain combos (we’ll see about the hybrid) cause that old-ass boxer paired with a bad reputation CVT is rough. Subaru customers are loyal, but if they keep fucking around, they’ll eventually find out.
I’m always a little surprised that Subaru doesn’t pair that engine with an older, regular auto. At least then, the complaint would be “it’s an ancient powertrain”; which, for plenty of its buyers, wouldn’t be necessarily seen as a negative.
I mean, you can buy anything used from 2013 or earlier.
The engine is identical anyway.
Both Toyota and Ford use ‘eCVTs’ in their hybrids, which aren’t belt driven and instead use a planetary gearset like a traditional automatic. Subaru will likely use Toyota’s supplier of these, given their partnership. While they do hold RPMs on throttle, I find hybrid CVTs to be less annoying because you get a break from the droning sound when it goes into electric only mode.
Assuming that the hybrid will in fact be Toyota’s eCVT, then yes, give me that.
While everyone here complains about the feel of CVTs (I do too), Subaru’s really isn’t that bad. Well, except for the whole lack of reliability issue.
If there’s a hybrid Forester, can a hybrid Outback be too far behind?
I sure hope not! Hybridize all the Subies, I say.
Blocky and upright is the new trend. People criticized vehicles from the ’80s for being designed with a ruler but here we go again.
I think the best design periods are the overlaps where we get both the status quo and the new upstarts that change it all.
The Taurus was amazing when it debuted, but then by the mid-90s NO MOAR JELLYBEANS.
Assuming the Hybrid tech is from Toyota it will be worth the wait
Sadly, it is not.
I like the looks and the hybrid will be nice, but being that I’m on my third CVT on my Subaru Ascent, why would I go with another CVT Subaru? Give me gears!!!!! I know, it’ll never happen.
I dumped my Outback after CVT #3 started to go out. Subaru needs to get hybrids with eCVTs in the mix ASAP.
What are you people doing with your CVTs? The one in my 7-year-old Outback seems perfectly fine. Considering that it’s a CVT.
My wife’s Forester CVT failed after 20k miles. They’re known to blow up. Subaru admits it, based on the 100k warranty they gave everyone after it became apparent that these CVTs suck.
Hopefully they’ll get the hint, not pull a Nissan
In my experience they’ve at least stood behind their shitty CVTs. They replaced it immediately without a fight. As for Nissan, lol, my understanding is that they basically flipped off all their customers.
Pretty much
”It’s a Lifetime fill, sir”
”I’m weird that way: like to change all fluids”
”They’re sealed from the factory”
”Well, I can buy the fluid at my local dealer”
”…..”
IMHO, you either get a good one that lasts 200k+ miles with no maintenance or you get a bad one. Since the replacements are remanufactured units that failed, there is a risk that the defect that caused the CVT to fail the first time was never properly root caused and corrected.
Same, ours is 5yo and still Transmitting Constant Variables as well as it did from the factory.
My 6-year old Outback has a shuddering CVT in the cold. Only 100k miles. They friggen suck.
7 years is surely nothing to brag about for a transmission’s lifespan, but for a Subaru CVT, it’s absolutely astounding.
I actually prefer the exterior of the 2025 over the outgoing Forester. It’s somehow more frumpy and parent pants.
But holy smokes, what’s with the Jumbotron on the dash?! I object, your honor.
This looks like someone tried to draw the new Honda Pilot from memory after a fat bong rip. I don’t think they could make it any more boring if they tried…and a raspy, asthmatic NA 4 cylinder that’s 50 horsepower too few for a car this size paired with a CVT is an immediate no dice for me. I’d wait for the hybrid, and even then I don’t think this would be anywhere near my first choice in this class.
You know what? I’ve been avoiding this for a while…but I’m going to say it. Alright, I’m ready:
I don’t understand the appeal of modern Subarus. Outside of the Toyobaru and I guess the WRX (even though the current one is watered down as fuck) their entire lineup is soulless, gutless crossovers that are saddled with CVTs and 4 cylinder engines. They all look the same. The flat 4s are generally less reliable than their Japanese competition.
They’d get dreadful fuel economy without the godforsaken CVTs, I’m one of those insufferable people who thinks all wheel drive is a ridiculously oversold feature, I could keep going. I do not understand the cult like devotion Subaru has. I guess it’s because they’re different and have charming advertising?
Oh and I’ve driven several of them, by the way. The base manual Crosstrek was one of the least enjoyable cars I’ve ever been behind the wheel of and the soon to be last gen Forester is a ponderous boat that’s 20% bigger than it needs to be.
“I don’t understand the appeal of modern Subarus. Outside of the Toyobaru and I guess the WRX (even though the current one is watered down as fuck) their entire lineup is soulless, gutless crossovers that are saddled with CVTs and 4 cylinder engines. They all look the same. The flat 4s are generally less reliable than their Japanese competition.
They’d get dreadful fuel economy without the godforsaken CVTs…”
Same here. I like the idea of Subarus…on paper, they’re good and interesting. The execution, however, just isn’t there. You covered most of the points I’d bring up. Their proponents always says the head gasket issues are dead and buried. Fine. What about the oil consumption on the FB engines? “Quelled, slain,” they shout, “They’re fine!”
I don’t believe them.
I will probably never be able to forgive SoA for giving me no help with my leased 2013 Outback that guzzled literal liters of oil on a 190 mile trip. Full crank case. Check oil light. Consistently. Unless they scrap the drivetrain and start with a clean sheet design, I’m a big ‘ol N-O-P-E.
There are dozens of us! DOZENS!
My brother and sister love their Subarus. Between the two of them, they have owned five… and 14 head gaskets.
It’s about the same horsepower, weight, and size of a Cherokee XJ, which has enough power. I’m guessing the issue here is not horsepower, it’s 190 wheezy rough Subaru horsepower droning through a CVT vs 190 torquey American horsepower and a five speed.
I absolutely love our 2016 Outback. The car has been a trooper – taking my 4-person and one dog family from Utah to Maine to Florida. Comfortably. As long as we give the dog Dramamine. (We use a roof pod for cargo and a bike rack on a hitch for the bikes). We’ve taken it skiing. We’ve taken it canoeing (it took our canoe, too). We’ve taken it to Costco.
Is it “fun” to drive? Not the way my 944 turbo is. But it beats the heck out if it for comfort, utility and long trips. And it was less than $30,000 new.
Subaru carved out a niche long ago as the go to for AWD. In the northeast, that’s about all that matters. Other brands offer AWD, but Subaru’s system tends to perform a bit better than others. People have had good experiences with Outbacks and other Subaru products in the past, so they keep coming back. In our area, they’re also one of the only dealers that operates in a respectable way. In other regions that might not be the case, but in Upstate NY, that’s pretty important.
Personally I hate the CVTs, but this day in age nearly every brand has some sort of deal-breaker design flaw baked in. And when I think about the compact crossover segment, is there anything really that much better than the Forester? They all sort of suck (except for maybe the CX5/50 I guess).
Mazda is undoubtedly the enthusiast’s choice….and until there’s a hybrid Forester I’d still take a hybrid CRV/RAV 4 over it for obvious reasons.
The Rav4 is fine? If you can actually get your hands on one. Friends and family have had a lot of trouble with Honda’s 1.5T, oil dilution and some other weird maladies.
I guess my point is, I feel like most brands you’re buying and praying that you’re not going to experience the well-documented failure points that each model has. I don’t trust anything I guess, lol. I’m the opposite of “all cars are reliable now”, which was the official motto of people buying VWs 5 years ago. So if you dig the hiking boot on wheels aesthetic of a modern Subaru and you plan is to basically treat it like shit like many of the people who own Subarus (like my wife), then why not.
‘hiking boot on wheels” So on point. Thank you for that
Same here – it feels like almost every new car has some caveat or asterisk with it. Even the RAV4 like you mention, the 8-speed in the nonhybrid was a gritty mess in the early one of the current gen I drove.
It does seem like hybrid variants, where applicable, avoid a lot of the pitfalls. (Cue conspiracy theory that it’s all an elaborate ploy toward greenwashing or whatever.)
For normal buyers, Mazda and Subaru get viewed on a pretty equal plane in my experience. A sort of mainstream yet niche brand, at least against the likes of Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc.
The jump they had on safety helped quite a bit. Not even just the marketing of AWD as a safety feature, the full lineup had top marks in the IIHS tests early on, which was an easy win to market when you only have 3 cars. Features like Eyesight which was one of the earlier driver assist technologies but also more accessible for “regular” cars and not just luxury brands.
When you look back to Subarus in the 90s and early 2000s, they were usually considered too small and not as powerful or up-to-date and whatnot as their competitors. Once they started upsizing in the late 2000s, and power became less of a demand in the market, they were seen on a more equal plane. They went from “good value if you really need AWD” to something that would probably sell well without AWD (but they often cost the same as FWD competitors, so that expense isn’t a demerit) – they’re just practical, comfortable* vehicles, and that ticks a lot of boxes for people. Plus people started looking outside of Honda and Toyota in the late 2000s into 2010s, so that was a boon for many smaller brands – not unlike Hyundai/Kia too.
*This seems to be mentioned in every review I’ve read but also ones that I’ve ridden in. Even the old Crosstrek, when it was new, my impressions were 1. how slow it felt, and 2. how comfortable it was even for a base model.
Except, even with the dreadful CVT they aren’t exactly getting great fuel economy either way lol……
I used to love Subarus because they could take a beating, were easy AF to fix, had great chassis feel, good handling with useful ground clearance, were undisturbed by any weather, and engines that punched above their weight. Then they went AWD only, then they got bloated and fat, then they punched out the venerable 2.2 to make it an unreliable 2.5 (see fat and bloated) and put it in everything, then they ditched frameless doors, then they ditched the traditional wagon, then they became shit to drive and ugly, now they’re laden with intolerable safety nannies. That said, I did buy the only real Subaru still being made and the only one with 2WD (just with the Toyota badge because I liked the front bumper better).
Do you have the current gen Toyobaru or the last gen?
As someone who also doesn’t understand the appeal of modern Subarus, here’s a defense:
– Their AWD systems have always been actually good (unlike certain mid 2010s CR-Vs), and I think Subaru customers likely remember that incident at a disproportionately higher rate than average. They’re also more likely to actually do ‘soft-roading’, whether it be on unplowed snowy or wet unpaved road, which means they’d appreciate the good AWD more.
– Their design decisions may feel like they lean towards function over form compared to other cars. The controls aren’t fussy, you don’t need to access everything from a touch screen like in designs that posture as high-tech (they kinda ruined this with the recent 11″ vertical infotainment screen though), the heated seat button looks like it came from last century (this irrationally bothers me), and everything is visually very inoffensive (except for the infotainment UI; it looks like an Android phone from 2013).
While a bunch of the things I listed above are negatives, they come with the positive that Subarus are priced notably lower than their AWD competitors, which somewhat justifies it all.
– Subaru took over from Volvo as The safety-oriented brand with the Eyesight driving aids. In a world where basically everything has good crash test ratings, driving aids/soft safety features like good headlight throw and the steering headlights feature allowed them to get the highest safety awards. Other car brands may not have been willing to sacrifice their exterior styling for better headlights.
I do agree that their powertrains are extremely unremarkable (ignoring reliability), but it’s good enough for the average consumer and the auto press has a speed bias.
I wonder how much more a boxer engine costs compared to a conventional I4. The boxer is presumably more expensive because it has 2 banks, and thus 2x the cylinder heads, timing gear, etc. Since Subaru’s AWD has a center mounted transfer case, I think they’re locked into longitudinally mounting engines, which puts I4s at a packaging disadvantage. If the cost difference is high, that might explain why they don’t upgrade their powertrains and stick with a (cheaper?) CVT.
Subaru may not make particularly great vehicles, but they’ve been masters of effective marketing for decades; convincing millions of owners that it is the idea safe lifestyle vehicle, most recently with safety obsessed dog owners. It also helps that people generally consider them reliable thanks in part to years of cheerleading from publications like CR.
If the Hybrid has a planetary e-CVT I’d wait for the hybrid too.
That being said I wouldn’t buy either. I’m hoping for a new Baja before 2027
I think the current one is ugly… I think this one is more ugly? No, it’s less ugly… wait, I take that back, it’s more ugly… all I can decisively say is that the taillights are less ugly.
The tail lights on the current Forester look just like molars. Makes me grind my teeth to see ’em!
It isn’t pretty, but I don’t hate it. Subaru styling gets a lot of knocks but there’s much worse out there to me, and props to Subaru for keeping an upright design with big windows to see out of. The center screen, not so much a fan of. But at least it should be comfortable while you wait for the screen to fully boot up.
That’s good news about a hybrid version. At least something different from the same old powertrain combo. At this rate they’re going to beat out Mazda and the CX-50 hybrid.
The current Forester undercuts a CR-V or RAV4 comparably equipped, I expect the new one to just add to that more as it adds things like keyless access and dual-zone HVAC standard – though the RAV4 just around the corner seems likely to follow the Camry with adding those features standard plus standard hybrid. And even in top trims, ventilated seats and a 360-degree camera are things Honda still doesn’t give you.
Yeah, there’s uglier choices out there, but not many uglier choices in this segment. Heck, every single competitor you mentioned is significantly better looking (CX-50, CRV, RAV-4). The only ones I would say are uglier are: Rogue, Outlander, Equinox.
This is very odd to me because it doesn’t seem to follow the design language Subaru has elsewhere (apart from those stupid half octagon wheel arches). Nothing in the design flows. It is like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to go rugged-boxy or modern and ended up with…..something?
I have loved Subaru for a long time but more and more the decisions are even more puzzling. They’ll set a ton of these (relative to what a ‘ton’ means for Subaru).
My first thought was it looked like a Chinese clone of the Honda Passport and CRV.
Outside is worse, inside is better. Doesn’t matter, it’s going to keep selling like mad in the mountains since there’s no good competition for it in its range. Still not selling my turbo though.
Feels like it’s taking styling after the Ascent. Like a mini-Ascent. Not for me, but other than cup holder quantity, I don’t have strong feelings about the Ascent.
Now that Subaru has finally moved on from ca-2015 lobster claw taillights to a ’90s-retro lightbar (though a non-lighting lightbar, by the looks of it), we can expect that trend to end very soon, right?
Looks like an AI Ford Explorer
Y’know, I think you’re right. I thought it looked generic, but that is exactly what it looks like.
Great, another SUV to make me go “Wait, is that a cop in an Explorer up ahead? Better slow down..”
If that’s a real turntable it’s on, I gotta give props for making look like it was floating in mid air. It’s pretty cool when real life can look like a bad Photoshop.
I didn’t care that much for the appearance before, but it looks worse to me. More generic. I’m pretty sure you could slap a Ford emblem on the front and people wouldn’t guess it was a rebadged Subaru.
The photoshop of the burnouts among the redwoods look hilariously bad.
I don’t think that’s burnouts–look at the circle it is on. I think that might be a smoke machine and a stage in front of a terrible backdrop that might be photoshopped in.
Yeah, I see the stage now. Still hilariously bad photoshopping.
Is it just me, or does Subaru need to hire somebody who knows Photoshop to create their press release images? None of those look like real pictures. Or at least the backgrounds look very fake.
It still has that awesome giant sunroof and real windows you can actually see out of.
Hopefully the new one will still be available in green 🙂
Too bad Subaru finally switched to the big iPad. I liked that they still kept using double DIN even now.
When the Outback switched over, it was only a matter of time before that was across the board. And, having driven the Outback with it, I do not like it. It’s better than the all-screen cars, since it does have a couple knobs and buttons, but it’s not how I’d design things.
My wife’s ’19 is certainly not double DIN. I had to remove the damn thing to track down a weird radio issue.
🙁