Subaru Forester - Anyone Driven One?

[JamesG]

Morning All

Anyone owned or driven a Forester? I've recently moved to New Zealand and these are pretty common but I've never come across one before. Are they reliable?

Cheers
James

[andy_enuff]

Think koi might have one lying around, hemight know...

[marcdtr]

hi yes great motor.Abit of info people take the stock fuel jets out of them and stick them on a grinder then get them pressure tested and sell them to the imprezza lot for £££

[Koi]

yes I do have one lying around here. I have the 2.5XT, full leather all the trimmings etc.
Full time 4wd, goes like stink (0 to 60 sub 6 secs) and for an estate it handles pretty good as well. Bit of an ugly wolf in sheeps clothing so to speak which is what I quite liked about it. Good towing car with braked capacity around the 2000 kg mark, MPG is no real different to a Surf.

[dieselboy]

Plenty of aussie Forester youtube videos driving through flood water etc..

[andycook]

Yes got 2 of them

Have one of the older ones (2002 plate) a n/a (non-turbo)for 10 yrs - its getting a bit rusty underneath now, but passed MOT a couple weeks ago fine (I replaced the two rearmost front wishbone bushes before the MOT)
its great in snow and has more ground clearance than normal cars.
yes its been reliable in the 10 yrs, we never broke down, but had to get a couple parts replaced under warranty
1) lamda sensor on exhuast failed and caused "check engine" light to come on
2) replacement clutch - but could have been related to towing a heavy trailer esp when reversing.
this is my daily drive now, whilst landcruiser is saved for overland trips and laning

and recently got the wife a 3yr old 2.5XTen - leather seats, satnav etc etc - much much much faster than the non-turbo one!
as KOI says sub-6 seconds 0-60 (compared to 11-12secs in the non-turbo one)
tighter handling too
it has viscous LSD centre and rear diffs
i really does give tail-gating audi's a shock when you leave them behind after a roundabout for example
recently bought a set of vredstein wintrac tyres to fit on some 16" subaru alloys I am refurbishing, ready for the winter

so far the turbo is averaging about 28.5 mpg
and the non-turbo about 30-31mpg