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Subaru

bdfreetuna

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keep the faith
So far I've had a 1990 Subaru Loyale, a 1995 Legacy Wagon, and a 1998 Forester (which I still drive). The Loyale sucked but it had low and high range 4WD so it was a beast in the deep snow. The Legacy was a beautiful car and drove in an awesome manner which belies the fact that it was a wagon. Got that up past 300k miles before giving it away. The Forester is now around 220k miles and getting to the point where it's been banged up quite a bit over it's lifespan.

My next car will be a 2009 Impreza Outback Sport. But I am going to beat up the Forester for one more winter :smash:

Upcoming XV Crosstrek does look pretty cool, like a perfect ski / mountain bike car really. But I don't want to shell out for a brand new car especially when I know how long Subarus will run. Rather save a little gas money too.

Subaru BRZ looks like pure sex to me and if I had the money I'd use that as a ski car in a heartbeat. Oh nevermind I just realized it's a Subaru without AWD ??

http://www.subaru.com/vehicles/brz/index.html
 
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riverc0il

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RWD actually, definitely not a good option for snowy driving. A cross over with Toyota. Very un-Subie but I am sure it will be a massive hit and extend Subie's presence outside of its typical northern snowy market.
 

jaja111

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RWD actually, definitely not a good option for snowy driving. A cross over with Toyota. Very un-Subie but I am sure it will be a massive hit and extend Subie's presence outside of its typical northern snowy market.

Being in the industry I can attest to the current sales of the Toyot-aru being dismal at best. I've driven one (the Scion version - same damn car) and it was underwhelming in daily driving, sort of joyless until you started to really rail on the thing. It has a WIDE envelope of handling ability with even marginal tires and maintains a great level of predictability and composure. Pushing luck for a ticket is fantastic - i.e. good track car but going to the store though is rather... well.... blah.
 

deadheadskier

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+1

with the demise of the legacy wagon and ginormousing of the Outback, Subaru no longer builds a wagon.
 

SkiFanE

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I have an Impreza and it works fine with the single back seat down to put the skis through. I can only fit three, but you need to put the seat down in an Outback too...

Ideally if you're traveling with more than two you have a roof rack/box, which all Subarus are equipped to handle. Outbacks and Forresters already have the crossbars (usually) too.
We bought a new car in August. Subaru didn't make cut for test drive. I admit I have a long time dislike for the brand. Mt bro lives in VT and has had a couple and said they rust, not just body.

AWD was a requirement, and we ended up with Mazda CX5. What ultimately won us over was the back seat i think they call it 60/80/20 folding. So you can fold down 20% for skiis and still fit 2 people in backseat. Plus its very fuel efficient, in 30s. Since we travel 400 miles skiing every weekend, it saves tons over minivan. And with split seat we can take on ski trips.
 

Geoff

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+1

with the demise of the legacy wagon and ginormousing of the Outback, Subaru no longer builds a wagon.

They do. They just don't sell it in the United States. You can still buy one in Japan, Australia, and Europe.
Here's the Brit Subaru Legacy link. They don't even sell the sedan there.
http://subaru.co.uk/vehicles/legacy/

Even more annoying, in the UK, you can get it with a 2.0L turbodiesel boxer that puts out a healthy 258 foot-pounds of torque with 55 mpg highway. It's only 150 hp so 0-60 won't exactly snap your neck back but it will do fine climbing hills and accelerating up on-ramps.
 

riverc0il

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Even more annoying, in the UK, you can get it with a 2.0L turbodiesel boxer that puts out a healthy 258 foot-pounds of torque with 55 mpg highway. It's only 150 hp so 0-60 won't exactly snap your neck back but it will do fine climbing hills and accelerating up on-ramps.
Is that UK MPG? Their imperial MPG is higher than our MPG measurements. Assuming that is imperial MPG, that would be still be 45.6 US MPG, better than a VW TDI.

Why Subaru doesn't see fit to bring that over here I don't know. WV sells WAY more TDIs than gas Wagens in the USA.
 

deadheadskier

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They do. They just don't sell it in the United States. You can still buy one in Japan, Australia, and Europe.
Here's the Brit Subaru Legacy link. They don't even sell the sedan there.
http://subaru.co.uk/vehicles/legacy/

Even more annoying, in the UK, you can get it with a 2.0L turbodiesel boxer that puts out a healthy 258 foot-pounds of torque with 55 mpg highway. It's only 150 hp so 0-60 won't exactly snap your neck back but it will do fine climbing hills and accelerating up on-ramps.

kinda like how Mazda offers a 6 wagon in Australia and it's one of the better selling vehicles in that country.

Somebody really needs to come up with an affordable import company to bring car models that are available in other countries here to the States. I really have a hard time believing that the vehicles available overseas are built to emission and safety standards that are that much different than here in the USA.

In the UK and Japan you can get a manual transmission AWD diesel Mazda CX-5. I'd buy that car tomorrow if it was available to me here. You can't even get a manual transmission AWD gas model here. that blows
 

deadheadskier

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Call the company Green Imports. Suckers like me would pay hefty premiums for the vehicles and never realize any savings with the fuel economy over the increased purchase price, but at least we'd get a manual transmission vehicle with all wheel drive and torque, which is really all I want.
 

Geoff

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Call the company Green Imports. Suckers like me would pay hefty premiums for the vehicles and never realize any savings with the fuel economy over the increased purchase price, but at least we'd get a manual transmission vehicle with all wheel drive and torque, which is really all I want.

You'd really buy a grey market car with no warranty?
 

deadheadskier

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You'd really buy a grey market car with no warranty?

Good point. I wonder how the re-insurers would react to such a situation. Mazda doesn't offer a very aggressive warranty. 3 years, 36 miles bumper to bumper on new cars. It cost me $1500 to extend that to 7 years 100K on my recent Mazda 3 purchase. I'm not much of a wheeler and dealer when buying cars. I research the msrp going in and what the average sale price is and as long as I'm within $500, I'll buy the car. With the promotions going on when I bought my 3, that $1500 extended warranty expense brought the cost of the vehicle to $300 more than MSRP. I can live with that. I'd imagine reinsurance on an imported grey car wouldn't be that much different / more expensive.
 

Geoff

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nobody can answer this? When I saw the "Subaru doesn't make a wagon any more" I was confused. 4 door with hatchback to me is a station wagon...

Put an Outback side-by-side with a Legacy wagon (but not in North America where you'd have to use the Legacy sedan). The Outback is a crossover SUV (barely), not a wagon. Much higher. Less aerodynamic. It costs you MPG and the handling degrades some.
 

mlctvt

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Is that UK MPG? Their imperial MPG is higher than our MPG measurements. Assuming that is imperial MPG, that would be still be 45.6 US MPG, better than a VW TDI.

Why Subaru doesn't see fit to bring that over here I don't know. WV sells WAY more TDIs than gas Wagens in the USA.

The reason Subaru of America didn't bring in the turbodiesel Legacy Wagon was it only came with a manual transmission and Subaru USA thought they wouldn't have enough buyers for it with manual only. They didn't(maybe still don't) have an automatic transmission that could handle the torque of the 2.0 Turbodiesel. I would have bought one but I'm an owner of the ultra rare one year only Legacy GT Wagon with Manual trans. Since Subaru gave up on wagons, my wife and I will probably be giving up on Subaru. She currently drives a WRX wagon. Our next car(s) could be either the VW TDI wagon or the CX-5 hopefully diesel with manual?
 

mlctvt

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nobody can answer this? When I saw the "Subaru doesn't make a wagon any more" I was confused. 4 door with hatchback to me is a station wagon...

All of the new 5-doors have less cargo space than the previous wagon version. The rear roof line comes down at more of an angle than the more squared off wagons cutting out cargo space.
 

SkiDork

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I think its nitpicking to say they aren't wagons... When I was a kid a station wagon was a huge freakin boat... My friends dad had a Town and Country station wagon, nothing today compares to something like that...

1967chryslertcwagon022407.jpg
 

darent

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Has anyone noticed how much the new Ford escape looks like the mazda CX5, my wife has a 2008 escape and wants to get a new one I was looking at her materials and was surprsed at the resemblance
 
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