Tuesday, 28th of December, 2004
Picture - Here's a great way to lose your job as a car dealer. Spotted in yesterday's Autoweek.
Friday, 24th of December, 2004
The best car deal for $18k right now lies in the '05 Subaru Forester 2.5X. Though normally I toot the Legacy horn, the way incentives are working now it's proven that one can be acquired for $179xx, with a couple extras like the chrome exhaust tip and tinted windows. It's obvious the new Legacy has taken quite a step up in attention to details, but I had no idea the Forester has been making strides as well. Even a base Forester comes with:
As the dealer said, "we're fancy now!" The base model definitely doesn't skimp. The new metallic treating of the center console has been adapted here too - Subaru is not about to get left behind in the interior department, and the beige-black iteration looks quite nice. The instrumentation is borrowed from the Impreza, so it reminds me of driving a WRX, with the fiber-optics needles and such. Black is a great color for the base trim, by the way, because you get that beige interior and all the plastic components of the body match the painted body panels.
Speaking of the Impreza-like driving experience, that's really what it is, a tall Impreza - completely car-like handling that reminds me of every other Subaru I've driven. Even though Subaru wants to call it an SUV for marketing purposes, I'd think it's an insult to lump the Forester into a class of dumb-handling SUVs. Though the tall seat height of the Impreza plus the suspension lift of the Forester definitely puts the driving angle somewhere between a minivan and the Outback. Inches make a lot of difference in a car, and there are definitely lot of inches between the seat position of my Legacy and that of the '05 Forester, enough to totally wack out my sensation of speed and not feel like I'm sitting lower than all the other cars on the road.
The naturally aspirated 2.5L probably doesn't get much attention next to the turbocharged version on the XT, but it is a sufficient engine for a 3090-pound vehicle. Gear ratios on the 5-speed are short like in pretty much every other NA Subaru I've driven, so it does pick up and go really well, especially after 2500 rpm or so - the 20-or-so horsepower difference is fairly significant between this and my 2.2L Subaru.
I think they've flipped things on me though - I think power the manual and the power lock switches are completely reversed on the Forester versus my Legacy. Hmm.
Thursday, 23rd of December, 2004
Monday, 13th of December, 2004
Sunday, 12th of December, 2004
Tuesday, 7th of December, 2004
Wednesday, 1st of December, 2004
