New car for wife., so many cars, so little money..... Options

[00 SS]

Subarus are EVERYWHERE here in Colorado. They have the reputation of being the hippy LGBT mobiles, as a result, we don't have one.

[Mastawyrm]

Wow, they still had head gasket issues all the way into 2015?!? I remember back in the '80's and '90's where the common joke was that a tune up on a Subaru included a torque wrench so you could do a torque check on the head bolts.

Haven't heard of that many engine issues with the autocrossed Subarus, just transmission and transfer case replacements. Although I think a friend has had an engine replaced in his 2015/16 XTi, but he usually wrings the most out of cars he autocrosses. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Friend of mine spun a bearing while autoxing an STI. I forget the year but it was a hawkeye

[trackbird]

Subarus are EVERYWHERE here in Colorado. They have the reputation of being the hippy LGBT mobiles, as a result, we don't have one.

Yea, and you get to have strange conversations in parking lots.

A friend parked her Subaru in the lot at a store and gets out of the vehicle. Just then a second, matching Subaru pulls in beside her.

Subaru 2 "Think if we leave them here together they'll make little Subarus?"

Friend "Um, I'm not sure, I guess it's always possible" (while trying to find a way out of this oddly uncomfortable discussion)

Subaru 2 "We'll, I guess we'll just have to leave them here and find out!"

Friend "Um....ok".


Another friend of ours is a little 30-ish year old blonde who was getting her masters in social work and she just HAD to have a Subaru. Not that she could afford to trade her car in with the cost of school and such. And I tried to convince her to keep her car and put tires on it (or whatever) and she took everything I said as a "See, I should buy a new car" and she bought roughly the least expensive thing you could drive off a Subaru lot because she HAD TO HAVE a damn Subaru. lol. Now she calls it her "Lesbaru" (she's straight, but I think it's due to the high percentage of LGBT Subaru fans). Beats me.

[00 SS]

If cars could do that, I'd have a litter of el Caminos by now.

[rpoz-29]

I don't want to make a political statement, I just don't want to my wife to get stuck in the Snow!:) On a side note....I just looked at the title of my post. A great response would have been, "Good idea"!

[GCrites80s]

It's an interesting trichotomy with Subarus. Regular ones are considered granola, the tall ones are just another crossover but WRX/STI is a "troublemaker's car".

[rpoz-29]

I never thought of that....They cover a lot of bases, old folks, gender curious, and hooligans.

[CrashTestDummy]

I don't want to make a political statement, I just don't want to my wife to get stuck in the Snow!:) <SNIP>

Kind of hard to avoid that, even if you're trying to avoid it. As they say, 'haters are going to hate'. A Subaru in Colorado will have a rainbow sticker in the window no matter what, and a Camry on the highway will have a 'Caution idiot driver on board' sticker on the back window. Then there's a BMW.....

People will make a$$umptions about the driver in the car before they ever know about the driver in the car. You can't win. Drive what you want/need to drive, and let the twitiots tweet. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[trackbird]

It's an interesting trichotomy with Subarus. Regular ones are considered granola, the tall ones are just another crossover but WRX/STI is a "troublemaker's car".

I never thought of that....They cover a lot of bases, old folks, gender curious, and hooligans.

And a Forrester with a WRX STI drivetrain swap is for the older gender-curious hooligan!


We actually drove the Legacy 3.6R from Subaru. We liked how it drove and it made good power (the CVT helped, but we don't prefer CVT transmissions) and the features were nice. Sadly the outside is ugly. My wife said "There's no pride of ownership, no "hey guys, come see my new car" feeling with that one, you just quietly park it out back and hope nobody sees you get out of it". lol.

[rpoz-29]

I wonder in an NRA or Trump sticker would even stick to one? There was a guy around here years ago with a Skull&Crossbones painted on the hood of a Miata.

[rpoz-29]

We ended up with a Forester. Drove an Impala and I loved it, but she thought it was too big. Drove a Malibu, and it was nice but really plain. Looked at the Honda's, Hyundai's, Kia's, and Toyota's of the same type, and the Subaru seemed to be the best value. Slow with only 170 hp, but has a good safety rating, decent mileage, and good AWD system. It is pretty homely. We will see. Now excuse me while I go hug a tree.

[GCrites80s]

Plant a tree... trees for America...

[trackbird]

We ended up with a Forester. Drove an Impala and I loved it, but she thought it was too big. Drove a Malibu, and it was nice but really plain. Looked at the Honda's, Hyundai's, Kia's, and Toyota's of the same type, and the Subaru seemed to be the best value. Slow with only 170 hp, but has a good safety rating, decent mileage, and good AWD system. It is pretty homely. We will see. Now excuse me while I go hug a tree.

A Subaru is an excellent choice on paper, it's just the opposite of the "car guy choice" (with exceptions for the WRX/WRX STI). That's not always a bad thing. I wouldn't have bought a Ford Edge for myself (maybe the twin turbo version), but my wife is loving heated seats, a heated steering wheel and slogging through all of the various unplowed streets in our area without issues. Thus far, it has been a perfect choice. I suspect that you'll find the same thing with the Subaru.

[rpoz-29]

At least for now, I can use that old Sonata as my dd. Driving an extended cab truck with an 8 foot bed has gotten old. And diesel has gone up too, probably the result of winter blend anti-gel formula.

[rpoz-29]

My wife hauled an old door, a sled, kerosene heater, a night stand, a lamp, and some old Tonka trucks to our son's family in MD. It's averaging 28mpg. Pretty good so far. Looked again, and it's up to 31.5 mpg.

This post has been edited by rpoz-29: Feb 7 2018, 12:26 AM

[00 SS]

Sounds.like you guys are really liking it. That's great. Good luck with it. My wife is similar. We ended up with a 4 cylinder awd 13 Equinox. It does everything she needs, just not in much of a hurry. It drives nice, but it's not much fun so I rarely ride in it or drive it.

[rpoz-29]

I love the radio. It shows a picture of the album cover from the band that's playing. (Oh look! Black Sabbath). That feature has probably been around for years, but I've been driving a '96 Dodge Ram. If I wreck the Subaru, it'll be because I was trying to see the album cover.

[GCrites80s]

My mother's 2014 Buck Verano did that. It's got more obscure bands, too. Like who loaded a picture of Armored Saint into it?

[00 SS]

I believe that comes in with HD radio. You get whatever the station transmits. The aftermarket Kenwood I put in my 2000 GMC Sierra does that too.

[GCrites80s]

Hers did it for MP3s I played from my phone through USB and Bluetooth. Some of these MP3s were so old (many were downloaded from Napster) that I doubt they had the art as part of the file.