I drove a Forester today...

What is wrong with your Tacoma that they needed to give you a Forester to drive?

 

Funny this came up yesterday we were just on here and Subie subject came up. Here's our set-up 2016 Forester Limited 2.5i and 09 Tacoma.

 

Subaru Forester - loved the car - HATE the company! Here's a word of warning about Subaru of America: My '09 Forester, bought new w/ 10 miles on it failed under warranty. SoA refused to honor said warranty. The engine burned the #4 rod bearing at 35k miles. Just the one bearing mind you, all the rest of the engine was operational. You mechanical types will know that there is nothing that I could have done which could have caused one single bearing failure and the rest of the engine be so pristine! (& it was pristine, you could still see the honing hash marks on the cylinder walls - for example)
It was such an extremely obvious assembly fault, yet SoA refused to own up to it. They wanted me to pay $6,000 for a new engine. I took them to court and 18 months later they paid out $40,000 and bought the car back. Stupid actions (or lack of actions!) by a company who should know better. There is 18 months of story behind this fiasco and I won't bore you w/ it here, but the company had incompetent, non-mechanically inclined as you can get, people calling the shots - and they called 'em wrong!
I was clued in straight away when the local SoA rep would never meet face to face with me - never!
I sent both the oil filter and an oil sample to an independent laboratory - just as back up to my maintenance practices and both were "clear for continued service". SoA stepped back to regroup when I told them the samples were submitted, but they never requested the lab results. ??? That's like the pulse & breath of a warranty patient.
The courts had an independent mechanic research the engine, my maintenance actions, records, receipts, etc. but when he looked at (actual visual of) the opened oil pan and saw the one bearing in relation to the rest of the components - he laughed! Out loud. I was there and saw it happen, hence my earlier "extremely obvious assembly fault" statement.
blah blah blah blah... I will say this; I had that car in MN and it was fantastic on the ice & snow! Amazing traction control. But I'll never give that company any of my money again.

 

I drove a Subaru Forester for 13 years. Fun little car. Had its faults. The transmission took a dump at about 55,000 miles, just outside of the warranty. When I sold it just over a year ago it was just starting to develop the classic head gasket leak, it was leaking about a quart of oil between oil changes. But I really could take that car anywhere. I took it on almost any forest road I wanted to. I never got stuck once, only had to turn back twice. Nothing was really wrong with it, it was just that our kids were getting bigger and we outgrew it. Sold it to buy the Tacoma.

 

The classic head gasket failure was always in my thoughts. Knew it would show up one day and wasn't looking forward to it. Too bad too, because the extra ground clearance that the horizontally opposed engine (Boxer) gives you is a great feature. I'd like to see it in more vehicles (but not Subes) - and there are others out there which dinna blow the gasket w/ such regularity.
That's a shame about your transmission failure. So young...

 

It was actually kinda funny. We were on the way to meet my in-laws for lunch, my wife was driving at the time, and the transmission just seized in the middle of an intersection. Couldn't move at all. There just happened to be a highway patrol officer three cars behind us, so the other cars got out of the way, and he walks up next to us to see what's going on. My wife is all, "It won't move at all, seems like it's seized up." He offers to give us a push to get us out of the intersection. He runs the push bar up against the bumper and starts to push, and the tires are not rolling at all, they're just rubbing on the pavement. He gets out and runs up alongside the door and says, "You have to take it out of gear, sweetie!" My wife sticks her head out of the window and yells, "It is out of gear, SWEETIE!" He comes back, all in a huff, but she shows him that the stick is completely in neutral. He called a tow truck, they sent a wheel-lift. We're all, "That's not really going to work." They had to call back and get a flat bed. Even going up onto the flat bed the tires were grinding the whole way.

Got it into the shop, first gear had just disintegrated, pieces of it got all ground up and into everything. All the gears, all the bearings, everything was shot. That was not cheap.

 

I want one for my wife

 

How classic is this? on older or newer models? what about other models?

 

I thought the only subies with turbos were the wrx/sti line. So you can get a forester or outback with a turbo? That would be pretty interesting.

 

Mine was a 2003, and as far as I know it is much more common for Subies in that age range to have a head gasket leak than to not. Mine was unusual because it made it to around 140,000 miles before it started.

 

We have the 2017 Outback... We love it. They changed the timing belt back to a timing chain and now it doesn't need to be replaced every 80K at ~$1,400-2,000. It easily gets 12mpg better than the Tacoma on the highway, as for the city driving the Outback is worse by 1-2mpg. Same ground clearance as the Tacoma . The radio/entertainment center does strange things in very cold weather though...

*Edit added some nice stock photos of our color and trim level.

 

those outbacks are sexy

 

I had a 14xt, it killed my back (not tall people seats), but it as a riot to drive.



My wife was pissed when I traded it in, but we couldn't keep it as her vehicle.

Crazy good resale value, back in 2013 it was really hard to order an XT so it drove the values up.

 

The forester can come with a turbo but no manual tans CVT only.

I had an 04 FXT few a few years, worked at a Subaru dealership. Car was a blast to drive. moved down south changed jobs and ring land failure cylinder 4 with 160k on the clock. Kinda sad to see that car go. Wife drives a 2012 Impreza sport and if they ever come back out with a turbo WRX hatch she wants one.

 

me too!

 

Loved our '14 Forrester. Great little car and amazing turning radius. Only sold it because with my Tacoma, the wife's Dodge 3/4 ton Cummins and the Subaru, we felt like we were a little heavy on the 4WD/AWD vehicles and got a Civic instead for a fuel efficient commuter.

 

I've owned two Subaru's, a '12 Legacy, and a '15 Forester. The '12 legacy was one of the best cars I've ever owned, and was a beast in the snow. Plus, it got 32 MPG, which was really nice!

Then I had a kid, and decided I needed something with more room to haul all the shit everywhere with. So I traded in the legacy for a Forester. I had friends that had them and they loved them. I ended up buying the nicest Forester you can buy, which was the Touring XT. It was definitely a lot of fun, had the turbo in it, and it could haul balls when it wanted to. Everything was good for a little while.

Then I started to notice some things. After a fewmonths, the paint began to show all sorts of damage. Some small chips and scratches here and there. Some of them made sense, like a gouge in the hood where a rock hit, but some of them were completely unexplained, and deep into the paint. The biggest, most narly ones were right down the driver side doors. Some were longer and just into the clear coat, and others were deep down to the metal. Now most people would say "somebody keyed it." And at first, I would of been inclined to agree. But as I started to take pictures and document it, I noticed that these scratches just kept appearing. So whoever was "keying it" would of been following me around, and just adding small scratches as time went on. I think that would be very odd, unless they are just a master troll.

Now, mind you, this vehicle did not go off road. Went into some pastures on occasion, but never anything crazy. I began to document the scratches, and how they were getting worse and worse. It seemed that if you so much as looked at the damn thing wrong, it would scratch itself. I began to call it my "emo subaru."

I would take it into the stealership I bought it from and their response was basically "huh, that's odd, never seen that before!" "Have you seen the new '16 Foresters? They're pretty sweet!'

Please bear in mind, that I am very anal about where I park my car, and I'm very careful to avoid things that could unnecessarily cause damage. Maybe not so much in my truck (because that's what trucks are for), but in that Subaru I babied the shit out of it. With that being said, my truck has been off-road, and in some pretty thick brush and other crazy situations, and it barely has any marks in the paint. So I find it really strange that my babied subaru had 10x the amount of scratches than my un-babied Tacoma. IMO Subaru's paint and body is just terrible, they're either skimping to be environmental, or skimping to save money to put on flashy shit.

One other note on that, I have two other friends that bought a '15 and a '16 Forester. They have both complained to their stealerships about the amount of scratches their car has.

EDIT

Here are a couple of pictures:








On top of all that, the damn things squeak like nobody's business. The entire interior, is made of this cheap, flimsy plastic, that rubs and squeaks and rattles constantly.

Here are a few vids I took. Please note, that yes I'm aware anything will make noise if you do what I'm doing. I am merely recreating noises that happen on their own during normal driving, not creating new ones. :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48T-qKW20_k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyGv6vOIE5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0WoOpoZ9Sk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krkuyIWLehk


EDIT:

Here is a video of the interior trim door piece snapping out of place when I close the door. Dealership's response was "snap it back in place:"

https://goo.gl/photos/SdEFntA4ZmDXBKYn7


Here is a video of general noise while driving:

https://goo.gl/photos/ABhA8pXzbah7nrfd6


And those are just the ones I could find, there were multiple other annoying noises I never could track down. I would also take it to the stealership with all of those videos. And each time the techs would be "unable to replicate the problem." Then I would drive it out of the dealership, and listen to the same old noises going home.

It got to the point where I got Subaru Corporate involved, and they were about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

Then, 10 months after I bought the thing brand new, with 11 miles on the clock, the entire thing began to shake at stop lights. Perfect maintenance record and everything. Took that to the dealership, and once again they were "unable to replicate the issue."

The next week, the Toyota dealership I pass on the way home, had a pretty '15 Tacoma Sport for sale. I went in that weekend, traded that POS Forester in without a second thought, and I've never looked back.


Now my Tacoma doesn't have all the bells and whistles, isn't as fast, and is missing a few things I liked about the Forester. But I'll be damned if it isn't way more useful, more reliable, and the over all build quality is way better.


I understand that I probably just had a super shitty experience, and not everyone is going to feel the same. I just wanted you to be aware of the downsides to one. And you can browse the Forester forums, and you'll quickly see that paint quality, interior quality, and build quality are major issues.

(I'll try and dig up the pictures of the paint and include them in here later)

 

I know nothing about the Subaru's, but I heard they are great vehicles.

So stay away from the Foresters??

 

There are people that love them, and then there was my experience.

I would say, realistically, they have some issues, but I probably had a worse experience than most. I would approach with caution.

 

With Subaru it is important to remember that you get a LOT of features, fuel economy for a low $ amount compared to other comparable suv/crossovers. http://www.toyota.com/rav4/compare/summary/44884/43498/43740/43707 <-- And the Toyota website is obviously biased.