- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 19
- 81
By somewhat popular demand, here's my writeup of my Impreza, which is still pretty new. I bought it at the end of January.
Some things to know first, for context:
- My '97 Elantra was my first car, which I drove from late 2000, up until early January of this year.
- While I was on my learner's permit, I drove my mom's '93 Subaru Legacy. Besides that, I haven't really driven any other vehicles.
- I didn't actually test drive any other brands. My first test-drive was a 2012 Subaru Legacy. Before that, while shopping around, I saw Subaru and was reminded, "Oh yeah, all-wheel-drive exists." And the Impreza had the best fuel economy of any AWD available, at least in my price range. Nothing jumped out at me as "AAHH! THIS SUCKS!", so those two features made up a bulk of my buying decision. My mom's Subaru has also been pretty trouble-free; she's still driving it.
- This winter was ridiculously warm and light on snow. About 4 years ago, we had >140", and it was cold, so it stuck around a long time; that's more typical weather for here. The almanac says that 89" fell this season. I would have guessed more like 20". You could have driven around with summer tires on a RWD car and been ok.
So I didn't really get to try out the AWD in snow.
- New cars have all kinds of nifty features that my old car didn't have, so I may be disproportionately "wowed" by some of the fancy things that are now available. Some of the major features of my Elantra were a tilting steering wheel, stereo tape deck, and driver and passenger airbags.
- I don't really drive for fun. I drive because I'm in Location A, and need to be at Location X in a reasonable amount of time. But I do appreciate a comfortable ride.
Note: When I mention "the Elantra," I'm talking about my '97 Elantra, not their '12 model.
While shopping online, I had also looked at offerings from:
Kia, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Mazda, Ford, and probably a few others.
I will also say, I wish that I would have gone with the hatchback. It's 6" shorter front-to-back, and it also has a rear windshield wiper. But, I didn't because that also would have meant waiting a good bit longer for some of those models to start showing up. When I was shopping, most of the ones coming in were already reserved or outright sold, and the selection was otherwise limited, due to shortages caused by the tsunami in Japan. Still, the 4-door does have a good bit of space in it.
Pluses and minuses: Note that a lot of the pluses deal with major subsystems or features of the car. A fair number of the minuses are minor usability things, very nitpicky things, or personal preferences.
+ It feels like it has more get-up-and-go than the Elantra did, and I rarely even push the engine past 4000rpm. Some of that may be because of the CVT: Even while the automatic transmission is trying to decide on a ratio, there's still power going to the wheels, unlike when a geared transmission is shifting. But the AT electronics are better about making up their mind than the Elantra's, so the time for it to make up its mind is less.
It's 148HP vs 130HP, and 145lb-ft@4200rpm vs 122lb-ft@5000rpm, so there's a little bit more power to work with on the Impreza. It's still several hundred pounds heavier than the Elantra, but it feels like it's able to do a lot more with what it's got.
+ AWD should be nice once it really starts snowing, especially once I get some snow tires on there.
+ The winter-weather (their "All-Weather") package: Seat warmers, side-window heaters, and heaters under the windshield where the wiper blades rest. This is available as a standalone upgrade. Of the limited number of manufacturers that even have these things available, most or all of them want to offer them as part of a larger upgrade package, including such things as alloy wheels and a moonroof, which I didn't really need. Sure a moonroof is nice - if I'm a passenger. I primarily got the winter package for the side-window and wiper heaters, but I'm ok with the seat warmers too. (driver and passenger only; backseat passengers get to stay cold) The mirror and wiper heaters turn on along with the back window heating grid, though the wiper heaters will only power up below a certain ambient temperature.
+ Big side mirrors. There can be lots to see beside you, and these things give a pretty decent view.
+ Keyless entry. The key and security fob are also integrated into one assembly.
+ Keyless trunk, with release latch. There does not appear to be a conventional keyhole on the trunk, so those are your only two options for opening it.
+ Paddle shifters with the automatic transmission. I hadn't ever heard of paddle shifters until I saw them in the Legacy I tried out; I've found them to be a convenient way to shift, should I want to do so, such as for doing some engine braking. (The CVT can mimic the behavior of a 6-gear transmission.) Other than that, I don't use them to try to pretend I have a manual transmission car. I prefer to let the car worry about managing its gearlike ratios, most of the time.
+ Disc brakes on all four wheels.
+ Fuel economy. The rating is 27/36, but reports seem to vary, so it may be dependent on driving style. My daily commute consists of some city driving (more than 14 traffic lights) and some 40-45mph roads. I got 29.7mpg in the winter, but I'm now up to 32.4mpg for the same route. Highway: 36.2mpg, at a typical cruising speed of 70mph.
+ A cruise control system that can figure out what to do when encountering crazy obstacles such as a slight incline. The Elantra would shed at least 5mph before it would even think about trying to downshift, and it would quickly pick up speed when going down a hill. The Impreza can do some automatic engine braking on hills, but it's not terribly enthusiastic about it.
+ It seems to be pretty roomy on the inside, though I'm not a terribly large person.
+ The trunk's got a good amount of space, and the curved support arms on the trunk lid retract into protected areas, so there's no risk of crushing any cargo when closing the trunk. (I've done that at least twice with the Elantra when I was very much not paying attention.)
+ Glow-in-the-dark emergency trunk release handle, for all those times that I lock myself in the trunk.
+ Power windows, power locks, power side mirrors, all that stuff. (Well, no power seat adjustments. But I only need to adjust that once and then never touch it again.)
+ Bluetooth, though I don't use a cellphone much at all. But it's there, and the manual says that it does heaping big gobs of all kinds of neat stuff.
+ USB and 3.5mm audio inputs.
+ Volume and track controls, and basic cellphone controls, on the steering wheel.
+ Trip computer that can show temperature, time, average speed, average MPG, and a few other stats.
+ Anti-lock brakes, traction control, vehicle dynamics control, and some other sorts of new safety stuff. I don't think I've yet made use of these things yet, but they sound nifty. The other side of all this safety stuff: The insurance cost for this car isn't bad at all. For a new car versus an old thing whose value would have doubled with a set of new tires, my insurance cost went up by 60%, but I'm still paying less than $800/year. However, I did not have collision insurance on the Elantra. If I'd do away with the collision insurance, the Impreza's coverage would actually be a bit cheaper. (Statefarm insurance. $0 comprehensive deductible, $500 collision.)
+ You can get a bit over 500 miles out of a tank of gas, if you run it down to the very last drop.
+ Gas cover release is inside, by the driver's seat.
+ A better sound system than my Elantra had.
+ The front of the car doesn't have a face, or else my imagination isn't adequate. Yes, Mazda, I'm talking to you.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
+/- Others have said they hate the engine noise from the CVT. It does indeed sound a bit different than other engines, but...well, I don't mind it. It's not like it's some terrible screeching or anything. It's just different. And all I can't help but hear is "efficient power transfer."
+/- The winter was too warm, so I didn't get to find out if the Impreza's doors would tend to freeze shut or not. The doors on the Elantra would constantly freeze shut in the winter, requiring that I either find a single door that would open, or else use a screwdriver to carefully pry one open.
+/- The gas cap has a handy little strap that keeps it from falling or getting away. Unfortunately, the strap looks like the kind of plastic thing that's going to get brittle and break in a few years.
+/- No real engine temperature gauge. There's a blue light for "cold" and a red light for "hot." Both are off when the engine is at normal running temperature. The analog temperature gauge instead shows a relative MPG rating, swinging from - to +. Surprise, surprise, when you push the gas pedal, it swings over toward -.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
- Tire pressure monitoring, though I don't think you can avoid this on any vehicle anymore. My understanding is that it doesn't even let you know when the tires are running low. It lets you know when they're just short of being completely flat. Besides that, it looks like all they do is make it a pain if you want another set of wheels.
- The knobs to control the fan speed, temperature, and vents are completely round, without any special protrusions or indentations to allow you to determine their status without looking right at them. Eventually, I'm going to remedy this with a sculpted dab of plastic-adhesive epoxy.
- The pushbuttons are similar, in that they are momentary switches, not latching ones. So for these too, the only way to tell the status of the AC, defrosting heaters, and outside/inside air is to look at the indicator LED. You can't just feel the button to tell what it's doing.
- AWD, so it must be towed with a flatbed.
- I'm going to go with a minus on this one, though some people may like it: Co good coasting. You can't really do it in this car, unless you pop it into neutral. Let your foot off the gas pedal, and there is always some engine braking present. You can upshift as far as it will allow you to go, but that's usually only 1 "gear" above the nominal ratio for the current speed. The Elantra coasted just fine. Let go of the gas, and the engine rpms went way down, and it just coasted freely. Not so with the Impreza.
- Only a 3-year/36,000 warranty, though they have plans that extend it out to a total of 6 years.
60k miles: $564
80k miles: $840
100k miles: $1282
I'm thinking of going for the $564 plan.
- The cruise control needs to be enabled each time the car is started. On the Elantra, the cruise control was enabled by a latching pushbutton.
- Using the front windshield defrost vent automatically switches the venting over to bring in outdoor air. I usually prefer recirculated air though, because 1) I might want warm air on the windshield, but I don't feel like getting a full hit of diesel exhaust from a bus in front of me, and 2) I like having the air blowing from that vent. It creates more of an ambient breeze, rather than a direct wind, and I don't have to fiddle with the air vanes on the vents - they can stay precisely directed at my hands on the wheel. Someone on a forum elsewhere hypothesized that they're doing this now because most people are too stupid to figure out why their windows are fogging when using recirculated air, so they don't even allow that ability anymore, which wouldn't surprise me. I don't know if this is something that can be modified, or if the physical layout of the vents would prevent defrosting with recirculated air.
- I'm not too impressed by the autodimming mirror: It is not nearly as sensitive to light as my vampiric eyes are, and it has no adjustments. At work, I said something once about how very bright the Conference Room is, but I just got a lot of "Huh? No it's not." responses. I think I can fool the thing by masking over the front-facing light sensor, but I haven't thought much about it, as I rarely drive at night, now that it's summer. I got the autodimmer because the dealer had a vehicle incoming that was very close to exactly what I wanted. Getting exactly what I wanted would have meant another 4-8 week wait, and my Elantra was already in the process of falling apart.
- I would have considered their Limited edition, but it comes with leather on everything. My primary thought on leather: It smells terrible, and just never stops. I very much prefer fabric for furnishings.
- The turning circle is 34.8', versus 32.5' for my Elantra. Oh well.
- Only 1 USB jack, so you need another device if you want to charge a device and play music off of something else. :eek;
- No standard 120V outlets. And for less than the price of Subaru's matches-the-car-interior inverter, I got a standalone sine wave inverter that can handle slightly more power, which also has a USB plug built right in. Ok, so it doesn't just slide neatly into a dedicated spot in the car's interior. Oh well.
- I think the wheels and tires are crafted to be of the "sporty" manner, which seems to be marketing lingo for "transfers bumps more effectively." This is likely partially a consequence of the 16" alloy wheels, versus the standard 15" steel wheels, thus the tires are a little bit thinner. It's not terrible though, and I've not done a side-by-side sort of comparison.
- I also haven't done a side-by-side comparison of this, but I'm going to say that the roof transfers more noise from rain than the Elantra did. Otherwise, it's not a noisy ride.
- The gas cap is not on the driver's side.
- There still aren't cars that have a heater around the gas cover. It sucks trying to get the stupid things open when every nook and cranny of a car is inundated with ice, thanks to Erie's insanity-inducing winters. But again, thanks to the warm winter, I didn't get much firsthand experience with ice formation.
- Like so many cars, this one doesn't allow you to defrost both the windshield and your hands at the same time. I have yet to be in a car that allows this. Defrost & feet? Sure. Hands & feet? Yup. Defrost & hands? That's just crazy.
Overall, it's been a good car for the several months I've had it. (I bought it on January 21st.) There are indeed some annoyances, gone over above, but they're mostly little more than just that.
There's nothing in there that makes me dread the idea of driving somewhere - that is of course due to having to deal with other drivers, and just the general tedium of driving. (Again, just my own opinion; I usually get bored by driving after the first 5 minutes of playing "keep the car between the painted lines.")
Update, March 7, 2014:
- I really wish the rear-window defroster was more powerful. My Elantra could have cooked 1/2"-thick bacon strips to a crisp on its rear window in the darkest, most frigid depths of February. The Impreza's can convince light snow to go sit somewhere else, but only after considerable negotiation.
- AWD is good. It handles nicely in the snow. Even on a snowy hill: Push gas pedal, car moves forward. The Elantra was never quite that obedient.
- I also like the CVT. Driving a regular geared automatic feels weird now with the pauses for shifting.
- It complains about -10°F weather less than I do, though it is a little bit sluggish to speed up when it's freshly started.
- The AWD does seem to leave this thing more prone to trying to fishtail in turns; I need to be careful about giving it gas. But the dynamic stability control system has thus far done an excellent job of correcting that, though I do try to avoid requiring its services.
- It's doing its job of being a car, and getting me to places I need to go. There's not a whole lot else that really comes to mind. And as far as I'm concerned, "It's quite functional" is pretty good praise.
Some things to know first, for context:
- My '97 Elantra was my first car, which I drove from late 2000, up until early January of this year.
- While I was on my learner's permit, I drove my mom's '93 Subaru Legacy. Besides that, I haven't really driven any other vehicles.
- I didn't actually test drive any other brands. My first test-drive was a 2012 Subaru Legacy. Before that, while shopping around, I saw Subaru and was reminded, "Oh yeah, all-wheel-drive exists." And the Impreza had the best fuel economy of any AWD available, at least in my price range. Nothing jumped out at me as "AAHH! THIS SUCKS!", so those two features made up a bulk of my buying decision. My mom's Subaru has also been pretty trouble-free; she's still driving it.
- This winter was ridiculously warm and light on snow. About 4 years ago, we had >140", and it was cold, so it stuck around a long time; that's more typical weather for here. The almanac says that 89" fell this season. I would have guessed more like 20". You could have driven around with summer tires on a RWD car and been ok.
So I didn't really get to try out the AWD in snow.- New cars have all kinds of nifty features that my old car didn't have, so I may be disproportionately "wowed" by some of the fancy things that are now available. Some of the major features of my Elantra were a tilting steering wheel, stereo tape deck, and driver and passenger airbags.
- I don't really drive for fun. I drive because I'm in Location A, and need to be at Location X in a reasonable amount of time. But I do appreciate a comfortable ride.
Note: When I mention "the Elantra," I'm talking about my '97 Elantra, not their '12 model.
While shopping online, I had also looked at offerings from:
Kia, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Mazda, Ford, and probably a few others.
I will also say, I wish that I would have gone with the hatchback. It's 6" shorter front-to-back, and it also has a rear windshield wiper. But, I didn't because that also would have meant waiting a good bit longer for some of those models to start showing up. When I was shopping, most of the ones coming in were already reserved or outright sold, and the selection was otherwise limited, due to shortages caused by the tsunami in Japan. Still, the 4-door does have a good bit of space in it.
Pluses and minuses: Note that a lot of the pluses deal with major subsystems or features of the car. A fair number of the minuses are minor usability things, very nitpicky things, or personal preferences.
+ It feels like it has more get-up-and-go than the Elantra did, and I rarely even push the engine past 4000rpm. Some of that may be because of the CVT: Even while the automatic transmission is trying to decide on a ratio, there's still power going to the wheels, unlike when a geared transmission is shifting. But the AT electronics are better about making up their mind than the Elantra's, so the time for it to make up its mind is less.
It's 148HP vs 130HP, and 145lb-ft@4200rpm vs 122lb-ft@5000rpm, so there's a little bit more power to work with on the Impreza. It's still several hundred pounds heavier than the Elantra, but it feels like it's able to do a lot more with what it's got.
+ AWD should be nice once it really starts snowing, especially once I get some snow tires on there.
+ The winter-weather (their "All-Weather") package: Seat warmers, side-window heaters, and heaters under the windshield where the wiper blades rest. This is available as a standalone upgrade. Of the limited number of manufacturers that even have these things available, most or all of them want to offer them as part of a larger upgrade package, including such things as alloy wheels and a moonroof, which I didn't really need. Sure a moonroof is nice - if I'm a passenger. I primarily got the winter package for the side-window and wiper heaters, but I'm ok with the seat warmers too. (driver and passenger only; backseat passengers get to stay cold) The mirror and wiper heaters turn on along with the back window heating grid, though the wiper heaters will only power up below a certain ambient temperature.
+ Big side mirrors. There can be lots to see beside you, and these things give a pretty decent view.
+ Keyless entry. The key and security fob are also integrated into one assembly.
+ Keyless trunk, with release latch. There does not appear to be a conventional keyhole on the trunk, so those are your only two options for opening it.
+ Paddle shifters with the automatic transmission. I hadn't ever heard of paddle shifters until I saw them in the Legacy I tried out; I've found them to be a convenient way to shift, should I want to do so, such as for doing some engine braking. (The CVT can mimic the behavior of a 6-gear transmission.) Other than that, I don't use them to try to pretend I have a manual transmission car. I prefer to let the car worry about managing its gearlike ratios, most of the time.
+ Disc brakes on all four wheels.
+ Fuel economy. The rating is 27/36, but reports seem to vary, so it may be dependent on driving style. My daily commute consists of some city driving (more than 14 traffic lights) and some 40-45mph roads. I got 29.7mpg in the winter, but I'm now up to 32.4mpg for the same route. Highway: 36.2mpg, at a typical cruising speed of 70mph.
+ A cruise control system that can figure out what to do when encountering crazy obstacles such as a slight incline. The Elantra would shed at least 5mph before it would even think about trying to downshift, and it would quickly pick up speed when going down a hill. The Impreza can do some automatic engine braking on hills, but it's not terribly enthusiastic about it.
+ It seems to be pretty roomy on the inside, though I'm not a terribly large person.
+ The trunk's got a good amount of space, and the curved support arms on the trunk lid retract into protected areas, so there's no risk of crushing any cargo when closing the trunk. (I've done that at least twice with the Elantra when I was very much not paying attention.)
+ Glow-in-the-dark emergency trunk release handle, for all those times that I lock myself in the trunk.
+ Power windows, power locks, power side mirrors, all that stuff. (Well, no power seat adjustments. But I only need to adjust that once and then never touch it again.)
+ Bluetooth, though I don't use a cellphone much at all. But it's there, and the manual says that it does heaping big gobs of all kinds of neat stuff.
+ USB and 3.5mm audio inputs.
+ Volume and track controls, and basic cellphone controls, on the steering wheel.
+ Trip computer that can show temperature, time, average speed, average MPG, and a few other stats.
+ Anti-lock brakes, traction control, vehicle dynamics control, and some other sorts of new safety stuff. I don't think I've yet made use of these things yet, but they sound nifty. The other side of all this safety stuff: The insurance cost for this car isn't bad at all. For a new car versus an old thing whose value would have doubled with a set of new tires, my insurance cost went up by 60%, but I'm still paying less than $800/year. However, I did not have collision insurance on the Elantra. If I'd do away with the collision insurance, the Impreza's coverage would actually be a bit cheaper. (Statefarm insurance. $0 comprehensive deductible, $500 collision.)
+ You can get a bit over 500 miles out of a tank of gas, if you run it down to the very last drop.
+ Gas cover release is inside, by the driver's seat.
+ A better sound system than my Elantra had.
+ The front of the car doesn't have a face, or else my imagination isn't adequate. Yes, Mazda, I'm talking to you.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
+/- Others have said they hate the engine noise from the CVT. It does indeed sound a bit different than other engines, but...well, I don't mind it. It's not like it's some terrible screeching or anything. It's just different. And all I can't help but hear is "efficient power transfer."
+/- The winter was too warm, so I didn't get to find out if the Impreza's doors would tend to freeze shut or not. The doors on the Elantra would constantly freeze shut in the winter, requiring that I either find a single door that would open, or else use a screwdriver to carefully pry one open.
+/- The gas cap has a handy little strap that keeps it from falling or getting away. Unfortunately, the strap looks like the kind of plastic thing that's going to get brittle and break in a few years.
+/- No real engine temperature gauge. There's a blue light for "cold" and a red light for "hot." Both are off when the engine is at normal running temperature. The analog temperature gauge instead shows a relative MPG rating, swinging from - to +. Surprise, surprise, when you push the gas pedal, it swings over toward -.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
- Tire pressure monitoring, though I don't think you can avoid this on any vehicle anymore. My understanding is that it doesn't even let you know when the tires are running low. It lets you know when they're just short of being completely flat. Besides that, it looks like all they do is make it a pain if you want another set of wheels.
- The knobs to control the fan speed, temperature, and vents are completely round, without any special protrusions or indentations to allow you to determine their status without looking right at them. Eventually, I'm going to remedy this with a sculpted dab of plastic-adhesive epoxy.
- The pushbuttons are similar, in that they are momentary switches, not latching ones. So for these too, the only way to tell the status of the AC, defrosting heaters, and outside/inside air is to look at the indicator LED. You can't just feel the button to tell what it's doing.
- AWD, so it must be towed with a flatbed.
- I'm going to go with a minus on this one, though some people may like it: Co good coasting. You can't really do it in this car, unless you pop it into neutral. Let your foot off the gas pedal, and there is always some engine braking present. You can upshift as far as it will allow you to go, but that's usually only 1 "gear" above the nominal ratio for the current speed. The Elantra coasted just fine. Let go of the gas, and the engine rpms went way down, and it just coasted freely. Not so with the Impreza.
- Only a 3-year/36,000 warranty, though they have plans that extend it out to a total of 6 years.
60k miles: $564
80k miles: $840
100k miles: $1282
I'm thinking of going for the $564 plan.
- The cruise control needs to be enabled each time the car is started. On the Elantra, the cruise control was enabled by a latching pushbutton.
- Using the front windshield defrost vent automatically switches the venting over to bring in outdoor air. I usually prefer recirculated air though, because 1) I might want warm air on the windshield, but I don't feel like getting a full hit of diesel exhaust from a bus in front of me, and 2) I like having the air blowing from that vent. It creates more of an ambient breeze, rather than a direct wind, and I don't have to fiddle with the air vanes on the vents - they can stay precisely directed at my hands on the wheel. Someone on a forum elsewhere hypothesized that they're doing this now because most people are too stupid to figure out why their windows are fogging when using recirculated air, so they don't even allow that ability anymore, which wouldn't surprise me. I don't know if this is something that can be modified, or if the physical layout of the vents would prevent defrosting with recirculated air.
- I'm not too impressed by the autodimming mirror: It is not nearly as sensitive to light as my vampiric eyes are, and it has no adjustments. At work, I said something once about how very bright the Conference Room is, but I just got a lot of "Huh? No it's not." responses. I think I can fool the thing by masking over the front-facing light sensor, but I haven't thought much about it, as I rarely drive at night, now that it's summer. I got the autodimmer because the dealer had a vehicle incoming that was very close to exactly what I wanted. Getting exactly what I wanted would have meant another 4-8 week wait, and my Elantra was already in the process of falling apart.
- I would have considered their Limited edition, but it comes with leather on everything. My primary thought on leather: It smells terrible, and just never stops. I very much prefer fabric for furnishings.
- The turning circle is 34.8', versus 32.5' for my Elantra. Oh well.
- Only 1 USB jack, so you need another device if you want to charge a device and play music off of something else. :eek;
- No standard 120V outlets.
And for less than the price of Subaru's matches-the-car-interior inverter, I got a standalone sine wave inverter that can handle slightly more power, which also has a USB plug built right in. Ok, so it doesn't just slide neatly into a dedicated spot in the car's interior. Oh well.- I think the wheels and tires are crafted to be of the "sporty" manner, which seems to be marketing lingo for "transfers bumps more effectively." This is likely partially a consequence of the 16" alloy wheels, versus the standard 15" steel wheels, thus the tires are a little bit thinner. It's not terrible though, and I've not done a side-by-side sort of comparison.
- I also haven't done a side-by-side comparison of this, but I'm going to say that the roof transfers more noise from rain than the Elantra did. Otherwise, it's not a noisy ride.
- The gas cap is not on the driver's side.
- There still aren't cars that have a heater around the gas cover. It sucks trying to get the stupid things open when every nook and cranny of a car is inundated with ice, thanks to Erie's insanity-inducing winters. But again, thanks to the warm winter, I didn't get much firsthand experience with ice formation.
- Like so many cars, this one doesn't allow you to defrost both the windshield and your hands at the same time. I have yet to be in a car that allows this. Defrost & feet? Sure. Hands & feet? Yup. Defrost & hands? That's just crazy.
Overall, it's been a good car for the several months I've had it. (I bought it on January 21st.) There are indeed some annoyances, gone over above, but they're mostly little more than just that.
There's nothing in there that makes me dread the idea of driving somewhere - that is of course due to having to deal with other drivers, and just the general tedium of driving. (Again, just my own opinion; I usually get bored by driving after the first 5 minutes of playing "keep the car between the painted lines."
)Update, March 7, 2014:
- I really wish the rear-window defroster was more powerful. My Elantra could have cooked 1/2"-thick bacon strips to a crisp on its rear window in the darkest, most frigid depths of February. The Impreza's can convince light snow to go sit somewhere else, but only after considerable negotiation.
- AWD is good. It handles nicely in the snow. Even on a snowy hill: Push gas pedal, car moves forward. The Elantra was never quite that obedient.
- I also like the CVT. Driving a regular geared automatic feels weird now with the pauses for shifting.
- It complains about -10°F weather less than I do, though it is a little bit sluggish to speed up when it's freshly started.
- The AWD does seem to leave this thing more prone to trying to fishtail in turns; I need to be careful about giving it gas. But the dynamic stability control system has thus far done an excellent job of correcting that, though I do try to avoid requiring its services.
- It's doing its job of being a car, and getting me to places I need to go. There's not a whole lot else that really comes to mind. And as far as I'm concerned, "It's quite functional" is pretty good praise.
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