Why not more hype about the Subaru Forester XT?

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Originally posted by: NutBucket

Originally posted by: Skoorb
WRX is almost as much money and although overall a better performance car (minus the lowend of the forrester) it says RICER, and "officer, can I have a ticket please?".

WRX screams ricer? Since when?

I'm not saying I wouldn't love to have one - because it IS fast, but how many middle age men have you seen driving them? OK, I've seen one, but clearly the big target audience of the WRX is middle age 20 year olds with enough money to buy it and still young enough to want one

It's interesting how people's tastes vary, you basically despise the Gamecube, which is the quirky console, and admire the Forester, which is the quirky performance suv.

just an observation.

It's not that I despise the gamecube, I just think it's a kiddy console The forrester has always been to me a very very very boring car with no features that appeal to me, until I found these numbers out

Just as an added note, Soobs tend to be too quirky for the mainstream market. I noticed that when I was shopping for them 3 years ago. The cars are excellent (and the steering and AWD are some of the best in the world)....but the brand marketing and styling has been basically horrible.

Think Audi without the audi name stuffed into a malformed volvo and you get subaru.

They are funny, but also unique. Even a low-powered outback can turn the ocassional head because it just isn't seen that much and it does still look fairly sharp. Subarus are not known for having upscale interiors either

 

[arcas]

I'm curious. Do you really put a vehicle's 0-60 or 0-30 time very high on your list of criteria? I realize that I'm 30 and thus am considered an old fogey by you young'uns but I just don't see much point in drag racing.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: arcas
I'm curious. Do you really put a vehicle's 0-60 or 0-30 time very high on your list of criteria? I realize that I'm 30 and thus am considered an old fogey by you young'uns but I just don't see much point in drag racing.

You want the most performance for your buck.

Same with computers. Obviously, not everyone cares what is inside their computer, as long as it functions. Same with cars.

 

[BigSmooth]

C&D must have really flogged it to get a 5.3 run out of it. MotorWeek tested it at 6.2, still plenty quick.

I think it's a sweet wagon. The styling is so-so but performance and utility wise it's very nice.

 

[cavemanmoron]

Originally posted by: BigSmooth
C&D must have really flogged it to get a 5.3 run out of it. MotorWeek tested it at 6.2, still plenty quick.

I think it's a sweet wagon. The styling is so-so but performance and utility wise it's very nice.

i owned an Impreza sport wagon in the early 90's

very nice car,good on fuel,i had to get used to reving it up higher than American cars,
before shifting,but had a decent amount of power.

I would consider another Subaru,if i had the $$ to buy a new car.

 

[Eli]

Skoorb - I would like to point out that the interior in the Forester XT is not the same interior in the rest of their cars. They re-did it specifically for that car.

Here's what C&D says about the interior,

There are lots of cars, trucks, and SUVs out there with overcooked plasticky interiors. The Subaru Forester 2.5XT is not one of them. It is the very model of restraint, with an aggregation of sport seats, textures, textiles, and metallic elements in the cockpit that put it in the same league as the attractive Mercury Mountaineer's interior design. It doesn't wear on you or distract you; it's just there to look plenty good and serve your needs as they arise.

 

[Eli]

DP...

 

[Keego]

Subaru is great, I love my Impreza :>

But the Forester needs a body change, the boxy rear end turns me off.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Keego
Subaru is great, I love my Impreza :>

But the Forester needs a body change, the boxy rear end turns me off.

It's an SUV.. It's supposed to be boxy.

Shrug.

 

[BoberFett]

I rather like the look of the most recent Forester. I thought the last body style was a bit ugly, but the new one at least has a little styling to it while still appearing functional.

I thought about test driving one when I bought a car in July, but my girlfriend has had her heart set on a PT Cruiser for a long time so we went that way instead.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: NutBucket
I don't buy the 0-60 time tho. Think about it. It has less power then a regular WRX, weighs more and is faster?

Yeah the numbers don't seem to jive with me either, but I guess it's just geared to give it a ton of power on the low end - also C&D says that they thought the car felt more powerful than a 210 HP and may have been underrated.

The numbers are likely legitimate. The reason why the XT is such is mover is that Subaru employed an insane 4.44:1 final drive ratio with quite short gearing. Unfortunately, this has translated into pitiful fuel economy figures. Some owners complain about getting 16mpg or so in city driving. Pretty pathetic for what's basically a small ute. It needs premium fuel to boot. The poor fuel economy combined with high revving at highway speeds has killed some interest in this model.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: NutBucket
I don't buy the 0-60 time tho. Think about it. It has less power then a regular WRX, weighs more and is faster?

Yeah the numbers don't seem to jive with me either, but I guess it's just geared to give it a ton of power on the low end - also C&D says that they thought the car felt more powerful than a 210 HP and may have been underrated.

The numbers are likely legitimate. The reason why the XT is such is mover is that Subaru employed an insane 4.44:1 final drive ratio with quite short gearing. Unfortunately, this has translated into pitiful fuel economy figures. Some owners complain about getting 16mpg or so in city driving. Pretty pathetic for what's basically a small ute. It needs premium fuel to boot. The poor fuel economy combined with high revving at highway speeds has killed some interest in this model.

That doesn't surprise me - there must have been something wrong somewhere My mother has a 2000 imprezza outback (I know there is a separate outback model, but I think this is what it's called). I've put thousands of miles on it and it was a nice car, but with an auto and only around 145 horsepower it got worse gas mileage than my maxima. It was rated for higher, but something - be it the transmission or whatever - caused that car to have some piss poor fuel economy. Still, I really like subarus.

I'm curious. Do you really put a vehicle's 0-60 or 0-30 time very high on your list of criteria? I realize that I'm 30 and thus am considered an old fogey by you young'uns but I just don't see much point in drag racing.

It's to me the simplest, and often most applicable, performance number. 1/4 has just never meant as much to me as 0-60 (although this does a fast 1/4). Performance is important to me, though not necessarily the most important thing. If it wasn't important at all I'd be driving a minivan :0

 

[mithrandir2001]

My Outback wagon gets slightly better gas mileage than I expected. It's nothing great: it averaged 23.1 mpg over 2,700 miles but at least this is between the 21/27 EPA estimates. My previous car was a Honda Accord that was supposed to achieve 26/32 but I could only muster 24 mpg from it. The Outback weighs 400 more pounds and has AWD mechanicals to reduce efficiency a little but the gas mileage is not much less. Strange. It IS slow, though. Normal acceleration is fine thanks to a decent amount of low-end torque (especially for a 4 banger), but foot-to-the-floor rev-to-redline runs are quite lacking. The engine feels like it is out of breath above 4500 rpm. No wonder Subaru needs blowers on their performance models.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001
My Outback wagon gets slightly better gas mileage than I expected. It's nothing great: it averaged 23.1 mpg over 2,700 miles but at least this is between the 21/27 EPA estimates. My previous car was a Honda Accord that was supposed to achieve 26/32 but I could only muster 24 mpg from it. The Outback weighs 400 more pounds and has AWD mechanicals to reduce efficiency a little but the gas mileage is not much less. Strange. It IS slow, though. Normal acceleration is fine thanks to a decent amount of low-end torque (especially for a 4 banger), but foot-to-the-floor rev-to-redline runs are quite lacking. The engine feels like it is out of breath above 4500 rpm. No wonder Subaru needs blowers on their performance models.

Yeah given how my mother's car was I can only imagine how absolutely sluggish your car must be with a 4 cylinder. The only time you'll win a drag race is when it's a snow storm