[Cloud9...68]

Well, after months of searching, my wife and I finally decided on and purchased a new car for her - a 2014 Subaru Forester XT (turbo) Touring. Before anyone starts laughing, we had driven many high-end crossovers (BMW X1, X3, and X5, Audi Q5, Mercedes GLK), but kept coming back to the fact that feature-for-feature, the Forester offered as much, and generally quite a bit more, than those far more expensive cars, in terms of power (and definitely power-to-weight ratio), gas mileage, cargo capacity, passenger space, reliability, and, as possibly the final deciding factor, it did the best of any crossover, and practically any car made, in the IIHS's new small-offset crash test. It's actually a lot of fun to drive, too - no turbo lag, lots of power, and has a fairly light-on-its feet feeling of agility, despite being a pretty tall vehicle. We had a Forester before - a 2000 - and it's amazing how far upscale the new ones have moved.



So, my dream of inheriting my older daughter's 2004 BMW 325i has come true, so I no longer will have to subject the 968 to that horrible 4-mile, bumper-to-bumper, clutch-destroying commute to and from the vanpool pick-up point every other day. The 325i is the perfect car for that task - it has an automatic, is practically worthless (despite being in decent condition), so I don't worry about leaving it at the vanpool pick-up point. And being a 3-Series, it's actually a very nice car, with great handling and adequate power. It just has a lot of miles, thus the very low value. So, the 968 continues its evolution to nearly full-time track car, other than the drive to and from the track, which is too short to considering trailer it. I'm seriously considering taking out a limited-use insurance policy on it from Haggerty, as I probably won't put more than 2000 miles a year on it. But so many of those miles will be track miles, dramatically increasing its fun-per-mile factor versus how I was driving it before.

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[flash]

both my mother and my sister have had those. they loved them. tough motor. not overly burdened. good choice.

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[Cloud9...68]

Thanks. Other than being a little frumpy looking, especially from the front (but then it's a crossover, not a supercar), we really like it. One night when my wife is asleep, I might pull the motor and put it into one of these:



https://www.factoryfive.com/kits/project-818/



On another note, while I'm procrastinating over swapping my 968's staggered 18" wheels/tires for a set of 17-inchers, the Subaru dealer agreed to replace the very busy-looking 18" wheels the Forester turbo comes with, with a set of much nicer-looking 17" alloys that come on the premium version of the NA model, for no cost. I was pleasantly surprised that they agreed to do that, given the lack of flexibility with things like interior/exterior color combinations and options packages on most cars nowadays. In my opinion, this huge-diameter wheel craze is the dumbest automotive fad since the opera window. Nothing but downside for arguably a small aesthetic benefit.

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[robadams56]

Hi Andy, haven't been on the forum in ages and was pleased to see you still have your 968. Looks quite different with the mods. Hope all is well and glad you don't have to subject her to that Austin traffic!

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[Rap]

Cloud we all get frumpy as we get older. Unfortunately we mistakingly see frumpy as cool! Lol perhaps you just made an intelligent mature choice!!! Lol

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[BeBe]

The weather is nasty in the DC area today (snow/ice), so I drove my '04 Forester. It is the car that both my kids learned to drive on, then my father-in-law had it until he passed away, then I got it back. It is still good to drive. Hard to beat the utility for the price. It is holding up very well mechanically also. It is one of four Subarus I've owned. It will probably get traded for an Impreza this spring, but I will miss it.

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[Cloud9...68]

Rob,



Yes, it's a totally different beast from when you drove it. Given the amount of money it would have cost to take care of the items the shop found in the <acronym title='pre purchase inspection'>PPI</acronym> (or the effort it would have taken to prove that several of their findings were incorrect), I decided to keep it, and convert it to a much more capable track car, as the track was where I was having the most fun driving it. But I was still using it to commute to and from the vanpool pick-up point every other day, and traffic had gotten so much worse for that short commute than it was before I started the car project, that doing it in any stick-shift car, let alone a track-prepared one, turned out to be a real chore. So when my wife told me she wanted a new car, I uncharacteristically embraced the idea, as I knew it would relieve the 968 of commuting duties.



I assume you still have your 968. How has it treated you? How often do you drive it?



BeBe,



Glad to hear of your positive experience with Subaru's. As I said, we had a 2000 Forester which was a decent car, but the new ones have really moved upscale. The interior is very nicely appointed (not quite up to Audi standards, but definitely not shabby), it's loaded with technology (lane departure warning, active cruise control, back-up camera, xenon lights, and a slew of stuff I haven't scratched the surface of yet), and it's Consumer Reports top rated vehicle in terms of expected reliability. But the thing that sets it apart is the engine - 250 hp, and 258 lb-ft of torque available between 2000 and 4000 rpm. It's a genuinely fast car, with no perceptible turbo lag. And we paid 10-25K less for it than other cars we were looking at.

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[JTP]

Congrats on the new car! I worked at a Subaru dealership in the early 80's and they sure have come a long way!

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[Langley968]

[quote name='JTP' timestamp='1388778197' post='154092']

Congrats on the new car! I worked at a Subaru dealership in the early 80's and they sure have come a long way!

[/quote]



Ah... the days of the BRAT...



   



Or the Australian version...



   

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[rxter]

I like the Subies. Honest decent cars and very good at what they are trying to do well.



My 968 is now the subject of epic freeway commutes. Growing older by the day....

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[Rap]

rxter, don't you have a better dd?

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[rxter]

Yes, but I gave it to my son. And the other one I got for my wife. And I already have 4 cars in the driveway/garage and I don't really want another. I am thinking about ditching 2 of them and getting a better all-rounder.

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[Rap]

Perhaps a late model Subaru would fit the bill! Lol. With all those cars in the driveway/garage, how much time to you spend moving them around? Suddenly I find myself doing the auto shuffle. My dd now goes under the lift.

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