I think it’s well established that my Subaru Forester ownership was a little underwhelming and, for the last year, I’ve been on the hunt for a replacement. Well, I’ve finally sold the Subaru and bought something new: meet our new 2024 Honda CR-V Hybrid Sport in Radiant Red. Here’s why I think ‘Big Red’ is a perfect replacement for the Subaru Forester.
There were a lot of arguments I made for different vehicles, and I’ll explain why I didn’t end up with those (sorry everyone who wanted me to get a Maverick). If you’re in the market for a new crossover-sized vehicle I can hopefully impart some helpful advice, as I think my situation is fairly common.
The CR-V solves a lot of problems I had with the Subaru and, equally importantly, allows me to keep telling people to buy hybrids without the hypocrisy of not owning one. I know I’m in the honeymoon period, but the CR-V so far has (mostly) met or exceeded my expectations.
How I Got Here
In 2016, my wife and I had a kid and moved out of New York City. A car would be required to ferry our new kid around to her various appointments, daycare, playdates, et cetera. We lived close enough to a train that the Forester would primarily be my wife’s car and I suspected I’d buy something fun for myself as a cheap project car.
I hadn’t been as active in car reviews at the time, and there were great deals on Forester. Having recently driven one around for a week I thought it was good enough for our needs, fairly safe, and cheap enough to pull the trigger.
The Forester ended up being my Joker/Honda-ownership origin story. You can peruse this tag page to see all the issues I had in eight years of ownership, but I can summarize it with the following points:
- My Forester needed way more non-warranty maintenance in the first 60k miles than I budgeted for, including new control arms on both sides and two rear wheel bearings.
- It ate headlight bulbs, and tires, and was constantly just out of alignment.
- The fuel economy was worse than the already low EPA estimates.
- I grew to despise the CVT.
- It looks and drives like everything else.
I’d been sensing something big was about to go wrong with the Forester around the time I got an email from Carvana giving me a better-than-expected amount of money for the car, and that was all I needed to finally pull the trigger.
Why I Didn’t Buy A Maverick, RAV-4, Kia Carnival, Or Cross Corolla Hybrid
I think I’d have been happy with any of the range of cars I tested to replace the Forester, even if some of the vehicles were not entirely serious (I wouldn’t have really purchased an F-Pace SVR because I cannot afford an F-Pace SVR. If I could have gotten $60k on trade-in for the Subaru that might have been a different conversation).
There were, ultimately, four serious contenders.
Kia Carnival Hybrid
I thought the regular, non-hybrid Kia Carnival was an excellent family cruiser. This one surprised me and was also the one my family seemed to enjoy the most. And then I found out that they were coming out with a hybrid! I was excited until they said the Carnival Hybrid was going to start at $41,895, or almost $3k more expensive than the Sienna. Too rich for my blood.
Toyota RAV4 Hybrid
In theory, a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is price-competitive with a Honda CR-V. In practice, the high demand for the RAV4 meant that it’s likely going to be more expensive. I think it’s totally worth it, but after driving a PHEV model I didn’t feel compelled to fight for one. My family also thought the seats were a little stiff and uncomfortable.
Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid
Like the RAV4 Hybrid, the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid in AWD trim has a little motor to power the rear wheels, and this gives the vehicle a way to travel in a low-speed EV-only mode. I’m a big fan of this and the Corolla Cross Hybrid overall. I built one and the MSRP was only around $33k for a model with everything I wanted. When I showed this to my family they asked if we could drive it. I told them we already had! They didn’t remember it all. Also, actually getting one for $33,000 seems like a huge PITA.
Ford Maverick Hybrid
If it were entirely my choice this is what I’d have gotten. I think that the Maverick is a handsome, versatile, and efficient choice. Being a Texan I love the idea of a truck and I’m sure, with a tonneau cover, it would do everything my CR-V Hybrid does and some things it doesn’t. It’s also a few grand cheaper even after all the price increases.
My family didn’t buy these arguments. The lack of an AWD version of the Maverick Hybrid was a big issue, as almost every other hybrid comes with the ability to power all four wheels. And up here it’s sometimes necessary, although I argued I’d just get steel wheels and snow tires. The lack of a full-time, waterproof storage area was also a point against it.
I tried.
Why The CR-V Hybrid
We do regular traffic meetings and talk to Beau about the site. We were in one of these calls a few weeks ago reviewing our traffic when a few of my previous Subaru articles popped up. I recounted all the issues I was having and Beau joked “You know, we sell cars here…” as a reminder that, when the time finally came, I could consider buying a car from our sister company, Galpin, and one of its many fine dealerships.
Because I wanted something reliable and hybrid, I’d had my brain locked in on a Toyota product given the company’s stellar reputation, even though my wife and I had a good experience with our last non-project car: a Honda Civic that will seemingly be around longer than an Olympics commercial break (friggin’ Peacock). So why wasn’t I actively considering the CR-V Hybrid?
I’ve had the chance to drive a few fifth-generation CR-Vs and I never loved them. The CVTs in the gas-powered models were just as clunky as what the Subaru had, the performance was lackluster, and the costs always seemed high to me. They were not bad cars, they just weren’t for me.
Was the sixth-generation version any better? Friends had told me good things, and I thought the new CR-V was the most attractive version since the original, so I decided to borrow one. After a few days, I was convinced this was the one.
Let’s go back to my original issues:
My Forester’s non-warranty maintenance was too high/it eats tires and bulbs
The CR-V has a reputation for being light on service needs. This is something I’m going to have to prove over time, but already I’m getting two years of free oil changes and tire rotations.
The Forester’s Fuel Economy Is Terrible
I’ve now put more than 1,000 miles on the CR-V Hybrid under a mix of circumstances, and ‘Big Red’ has averaged 38.6 MPG. If I’m being charitable, the Forester averaged 24 MPG on its best weeks. That means I’m getting over 50% better fuel economy. It’s awesome. I’m also finding myself hypermiling more than was possible in the Subaru.
The CVT in the Forester is trash
There are few good CVTs and I suppose the Forester is somewhere in the middle, but being an average CVT still means it sucks because almost all CVTs are bad. The Toyotas avoid the low-speed torque issues you get with most CVTs by using an electric motor to provide low-speed power. The Honda CR-V Hybrid has gotten around this problem by basically not having a traditional transmission. It even fakes shifts in a way that I don’t hate!
The Forester had an unremarkable driving experience
The Forester wasn’t particularly great to drive. It was fine. The CR-V is also fine. It’s maybe a little more fine because it feels more solid and is damped a bit more towards comfort than the Forester. I have to give the Forester points for having better steering feel, even if it only reminded you that the car had again wandered out of alignment again for no discernable reason. Given that this is mostly a school bus that runs around town, the tradeoff for a little less steering feel for a little more comfort is one I’m fine making. I still have my BMW if I want to feel something.
I also find myself “sailing” the car more, which is my version of hypermiling. There’s no dedicated and selectable EV-only mode you get with PHEVs and other hybrids like the Toyotas. This is a bummer as I think I’d be able to get a bit more mileage out of the CR-V Hybrid if it did. The flip side of this is that the transition from gas to electric modes is smoother than any other vehicle I’ve driven, and it allows me to back off throttle a little at 40-60 mph and ‘sail’ the car on automatic EV mode for long distances.
I’m not sure how much gas I save and it’s possible the answer is: Very little. On the other hand, it’s kinda fun.
Why I Got A Honda CR-V Hybrid Sport Instead Of A Sport Touring
David Tracy and I both share an inclination towards thrift, which is why it’s so amusing that he spent almost as much on a used BMW i3 that was decontented as I did on a fancy new Honda CR-V Hybrid. A follow-up article is hopefully coming wherein we debate who got the better deal (it was me [Ed Note: I have a carbon fiber body. [drops mic]. -DT]).
You’d think I got the base model CR-V Hybrid Sport because I’m cheap. This isn’t the case. I got the base model CR-V Hybrid Sport because I’m cheap and it’s an incredible deal. The car I reviewed was a CR-V Hybrid Sport Touring, which is the top of the line, with the Sport-L in between.
This is a hilarious way to name trims: Sport, Sport-L, and Sport Touring. Why is “L” between Sport and Touring? Why are they all named “sport”? I don’t know.
The CR-V Hybrid in Sport trim has everything I want in a car:
- CarPlay/Android Auto
- A sunroof
- Auto power front windows (something the Forester didn’t have, just driver-side)
- Roof rails
- Rear A/C (also something the Forester didn’t have)
- Rear USB C ports (ditto Forester)
- Cloth seats (I don’t like the leather-trimmed seats on the Sport Touring)
- Blind spot monitoring/emergency auto-braking/lane keep assist/adaptive cruise control
- Dual-zone automatic climate control
Even better, it doesn’t have a couple of items I didn’t want:
- Power liftgate – It just seems like another thing to break and I don’t need it. I get it if you do and it’s not a critique, I’m just not a fan
- Wireless phone charger – These barely ever work and just take up space.
- Navigation – That’s what the CarPlay is for!
- Bigger wheels – The 18-inch wheels are already big enough
The one item the Sport doesn’t have that I’d want is wireless CarPlay, but that requires going up to the larger infotainment screen. Is it worth another $3k to jump from the Sport Hybrid’s starting AWD price of $35,850 to $38,850? Nah.
I did splurge for the “Radiant Red” paint for an extra $455 and that was it. The only option I needed! My car MSRP’d for $37,655 with destination and handling fees. I know a guy so I paid a little less than that. Overall, what you get on a Sport trim model is impressive and I deeply appreciate a good value.
Honda also has reasonable financing deals right now if you have good credit, so it was really a no-brainer.
Wait, You Bought A Car In LA? How Does That Work?
It just so happens that The Autopian has a new partner in car shipper Nexus Auto Transport. It was a total fluke, I promise. The nice folks at Nexus Auto Transport reached out to me around the time I was looking to transport a car and they were super cool and said we could put a timelapse camera on the truck to film a cross-country journey. It worked and it looks awesome!
Look for that post to come in the next week or so along with everything I learned about the process. In the interim, if you’re looking to ship a car I suggest you reach out to Nexus Auto Transport.
I was so happy to get my new car, and I’ve had a great time driving it thus far. Here was it this weekend:
Look at that sea of whites, blacks, greys, and grey-blues! She’s always easy to find. I don’t love the black wheels, if I’m being totally honest, just because I’m worried about keeping them clean. They look great here, though.
I plan to write up the whole ownership experience and we can find out if my gut is trustworthy or not. The next story, barring any surprises, should be about what I learned from shipping a car from one end of the country to the other.
Did I make the right call?
This is probably the right choice. I let out a yawn, but sometimes yawning is more enjoyable than, you know, screaming.
Thank you for at least getting it in red.
There were some great last minutes recommendations from the staff and I definitely considered buying a relatively low mileage LX430 for shits and giggles.
Do you mean LS430 or LX470? Either would have been cool.
The LS would have been dope – everyone would think you are the CEO of a biotech startup. They really are special cars – not for me, but when you want to roll around in luxury it has your number.
LS would have been rad but yeah, let’s get real, the CR-V hybrid is going to give you 10+ years of shuttling, as intended.
If you someday write a series on why you’re dumping your CR-V hybrid, I predict it’s because you got tired of looking at it. Not so much because of its oddly bulky front overhang which makes it look like it would tip forward if you slam on the brakes, but because your soul will start decaying once you notice you can’t drive a mile without seeing a half dozen other CR-Vs with at least one looking just like yours.
After writing this I got into my car and was behind an identically spec’d one in grey. The red, at least, seems slightly less popular. I think if I get too bored I’ll swap on the HPD bronze wheels https://honda.oempartsonline.com/oem-parts/honda-18-quot-wheel-bronze-hpd-8w18tgs100?origin=pla&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-5y1BhC-ARIsAAM_oKn_-DY6fn1N3kkrB6x5mIBcnxTMC_P34f1-4kyNxD8PPTYOj3cNlVIaApaoEALw_wcB
“you can’t drive a mile without seeing a half dozen other CR-Vs with at least one looking just like yours.”
Perhaps a negative for some people, but that just sounds like parts will be plentiful and cheap to me.
Congrats on the new purchase.
It’s not what I’d have picked for you (nor myself) but it’s certainly an improvement, and your logic is sound.
Of course the article comes out within days of Mazda starting to release info about the CX-50 Hybrid coming later this year.
I know! If it comes in at a competitive price I will definitely be curious if I like it.
We thought we wanted my “Elise”’s next car to be a CX50, but the CX5 has a more functional interior – if only we could get the fancy seat covers in the CX5 we would have been styling. The CX50 doesn’t really have a good place to put an insulated bottle – water is needed for hiking & outdoor activities- and the CX50 seems to be bigger on the outside without making the inside have any more usable space
My wife is on her third CX-5 – she’s been leasing them, thankfully – and I have about a dozen family and friends who have them. With such limited paint choices I’m almost compelled to get the different model just to be different, haha. Plus I like how the -50 looks over the latest -5, especially in Meridian spec.
Agree on the limited paint (non) color selections – I don’t understand how Mazda can have the best red paint ever and all the other colors are just so blah. Agree that the looks of the CX-50 are better, but the interior isn’t as good and if you have a modern (small!) garage like ours every half an inch counts. I never thought to inquire about the garage when our house was getting built, I assumed all garages were roughly the same, but our house has a two car garage that is 4′ smaller in each dimension than the ones from our parent’s generation. While we couldn’t make it wider, I wish the builder’s salesperson had told us we could add 3′ to the depth for relatively low money – one of our few regrets about this house – the other was a conscious choice we made not to add the extra foot to the basement ceiling height (to 8′), thought we wouldn’t need it because the house was otherwise generously large – but we should have spent the money – we use the basement a surprising amount and the extra headspace would have been nice if we ever finish it off.
A dedicated avenue to buy through Galpin combined with a reliable shipping partner could make a very nice Autopian member benefit. No need for a discount, merely a promise not to get fucked over is all many (most?) of us are looking for. Just sayin’. . . .
That’s a real thing! If you’re a member just email me matt@TheAutopian.com and we can definitely help out there.
Thanks, Matt! Will do.
I didn’t even think of this when we just bought our latest car but I will certainly do it on the next one. Thank you
That’s great to know. Think I can get a deal on the Maverick you didn’t buy? 🙂
The best choice for family harmony, but you should’a got the Mav. We love ours, and it road trips like a champ, and with a hard tonneau works great as a stuff hauler. CR-V isn’t the wrong choice.
The nice thing is I can always borrow a Maverick when I’m in the mood.
Congrats. My dad bought one of these probably 6-8 months ago and LOVES it. I had a lot of seat time when they vacationed with us in San Diego this year and I understood why. It felt like a quality product and drove nice. The paddle shifters acting as the regen-brakes makes driving a game too! I really liked them, and don’t blame anyone for going that route.
That being said, I just bought an AWD EB Maverick for my personal fleet out of state and I pick it up in 2 weeks!
if I suddenly come into a bunch of money I’ll probably buy a used Mav just to have it. A beater XL Mav would be dope.
RIP Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid!
You might be the only person to ever say RIP (unironically) to the Corolla Cross Hybrid.
I think we already covered the exclamation point last time.
A fitting end to this saga
Truly, lol.
It pays to know people. In general, I find that the “Honda tax” is almost as egregious as the “Toyota tax” both new and used. That’s put me back to looking at Mazda.
My most recent quest is for a used CX-30 in the rare and discontinued FWD version; no need for AWD here. And since I refuse to own a monochrome car, Mazda limits me to red or blue. Cars.com shows me ~100 for sale nationwide, with under 50k miles. Ugh.
I have the exact same CR-V in the same trim and color. About 25k miles in and ZERO complaints whatsoever.
That’s great to know!
We got a Hybrid Sport L in March in that same color. Been problem free so far, and also average around 38 combined around town and some highway driving. I can get it up into the low 40s just around town by mild hypermiling, using downshift paddles to eke out as much regeneration as I can, etc. All without being a D-nozzle to those behind me.
I haven’t done the shifty-paddles regen trick ,that’s awesome.
Turns the car into a game… I enjoyed it more than I care to admit.
I’m interested in the upcoming shipping article (but a week late). I just shipped a car using a different carrier/broker recommended by the Dealer. I paid for an open carrier but to my surprise and delight, it arrived in a closed trailer. Also, google maps said the drive would be 22 hours for me to complete. they did it in 24 hours. I was expecting 3-4 days.
I wish I had known you had a shipping partner, because last week, I bought a 2020 Lexus GS 350 F Sport RWD as a daily driver (needed something in the fleet that wouldn’t irritate me and that had a reasonably low cost-of-ownership). The car was so difficult to find in the condition, options and mileage that was acceptable to me, I ended up flying all the way from Oklahoma to North Carolina to buy it, then driving all the way home (1,000-ish miles). I am now suffering because I am very behind at work, due to that two-day vacation away from my desk. I had been asking about shippers on a Facebook forum, but wound up just going and getting the car myself.
Even as something of a Toyota fan, I think the RAV4 is incredibly overrated. The CR-V (and particularly the Hybrid) is a much more desirable car, in my eyes. If I thought the Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson were built to last, I’d be recommending the hybrid versions of those to everyone, too. There’s also the Venza, which I briefly owned a 2021 Limited example of, but that’s being discontinued.
The auto-industrial complex has convinced everyone that if they don’t have AWD, they will fly off the road and into a ditch from a gentle summer breeze. I seem to recall an article on another site some years ago that showed most AWD crossovers couldn’t transfer enough power to the rear wheels to propel the front wheels off rollers.
Maybe so, but it can be a good nice-to-have. It’s also one of those things where you may take a bath on resale for not having it, if the car is commonly had with it (no one wants a 4Runner or Grand Cherokee with RWD)…so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
AWD is probably the most overrated feature. I drove a lowered Civic for 8 years living in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I got stuck one time, and that was when I was stupid enough to try to drive in 8 inches of unplowed snow (I’m not sure why I thought that would work). If you live in an urban area that gets a lot of snow, FWD and snow tires are perfectly adequate.
I used to regularly pass struggling AWDs with greater ground clearance in my FWD Legacy with AS tires. One reason I stopped buying Subarus was their move to AWD only.
Family vehicle is an Outback. Regularly go on trips through norther Indiana in the winter (from WI to OH) and regularly get blasted by a blizzard just West of South Bend. An Outback with proper winter rubber is freaking awesome!
Okay, that’s weird. Subaru went to AWD only because the only reason anybody bought Subarus was for the AWD. Why did you like your FWD Legacy more than an Accord or Camry?
Personality and character, though I did think about an Accord wagon, but finding one with a stick at the time was difficult and a good deal more expensive. I also liked the looks of the Subaru better and it had better ground clearance while still cornering pretty flat, the seats were better, the chassis more rugged (I love the old wishbones Honda used, but if I’m bombing snow-covered gravel roads sideways and driving over traffic islands and curbs at a decent speed, their advantage doesn’t matter, but their higher number of wear points does), and it had more usable interior space. Camry has always been an abominable POS to drive. Absolutely soul sucking horrorshow and it would take a terrible turn of events for me to buy another one. My GR86 wishes it had the raucous character and bulletproof feel of that Legacy (and throttle response and clutch feel and steering feel and flat torque curve). I drive that thing 3500 miles cross country with about 160k—under 50 hours straight on the return trip—I just changed the oil, did a quick check, and went without any concern of problems (and it never gave me any. New cars do not inspire such confidence.) The AWDs were a different story—felt heavy, draggy, and got terrible mileage, though the turbos had much of the character and were a little quicker (but not much with a 16.3@86 1/4 mile—quite respectable for a car in 1990, particularly with “130” hp—and I got about 8 mpg better). The FWD had no worries about a center differential when pulling the parking brake for handbrake turns, better potential transmission life with less stress to the drivetrain (the transmission was originally designed for a lighter car with an engine with half the power. They made it stronger internally, but gear size was still constrained by the small, flexible case, which is a major reason early US WRXs were known for having glass transmissions, though moron drivers were also a problem), and actual competitive mileage in the FWD with no discernible downside as any improvement in snow was of no particular use and with 130 lbs/ft, it didn’t need the extra traction nor was torque steer an issue (I’m sure the equal length axles vs unequal length in the transverse engined cars helped, too).
Interesting, I have driven AWD Legacys and I didn’t think they felt draggy(although they’re not fast), and my friend says he gets ~25mpg in his.
I have two Accord wagons and quite like them.
I really liked the 3rd and 4th gen Accords. I wish Honda made cars like that still (Subaru, too, for that matter).
I drove probably more than a half dozen mk1 Legacys, mine being the only FWD one, and mine felt like a rally car in a soccer mom suit while the non-turbo AWDs had none of that personality or eagerness (the turbos were nice, though) I beat the hell out of that car and it shrugged it all off and even when something did wear out, a smart raccoon could fix it with a small tool box. I usually got around 27mpg in mine driving it like a rental car, though only about 25 cross country because of the uh, well, I averaged somewhere around 75 mph including the stops. Funny thing is, I didn’t really want it that much when I bought it—I first wanted a manual Accord wagon, then because they were either trashed or expensive, a manual AWD Legacy wagon, but couldn’t find the latter in anything but a horrid light violet or sand color with an even worse tan interior. Then I found my Majestic blue (fairly close to WRB, which came later) with blue interior and figured I could live without AWD since my previous GLs had been FWD. Turned out better than I could have imagined.
I’m gonna look for that article now, that sounds like the best possible illustration of the uselessness of “AWD”. Because the fact is that most “AWD” cars literally and objectively do not fit the universal and traditional definition of AWD.
I have spent the last three snowy Idaho winters daily driving a 2wd F150(extremely little weight on the driven wheels) on all season tires. Does it do as well in the snow as a Subaru? No. Has it gotten me everywhere I needed to go, safely, easily, and expediently? Yes.
And that’s a RWD 1995 F150. Any FWD car is automatically 2x better in the snow.
Fuck me, guessing you have decent tires. The single vehicle with the worst traction I’ve ever driven was a 2WD RCSB ’93 F150 with the 302. It could barely cross a wet metal grated bridge without wanting to step out of line.
Not decent tires at all, the first two winters were on some extra cheapo Chinesium Linglong all seasons. I have since gotten some Falken all terrains which are noticeably harder rubber and actually have marginally worse traction in all conditions(including snow). Cheap tires that wear out in 10k miles are actually pretty grippy, as you’d expect from the super soft rubber. Not sure why people think cheap tires are bad for traction or unsafe or anything.
It’s a 2WD single cab long bed ’95 F150 with the 300 six and 5spd. It is, like your experience, the vehicle I have driven with the WORST traction. I figure that if I can drive this thing in the winter, then anybody can drive anything in the winter, and all of these “AWD” crossover buyers are falling for a horrible scam.
Weirdly, I don’t think this is the worst vehicle I have driven in the snow. My dad’s 2007 Expedition long wheelbase 2wd is fine when you are going down the road, but it gets stuck SO easily in the snow. The only word I can use to describe its snow capabilities is “feeble”.
I just drove my dad’s (soon to be my) ’95 F150 Supercab LB 4×4 with the 351 and auto last weekend…think I heard the rears spin at one point, but they’re so far away I couldn’t tell. 😀
Worst snow car I’ve had was my ’79 Pinto. It would spin out if you looked at it funny.
my thinking exactly.. have a rwd Sport Trac, driven in CO winters, summer mud etc, gets me down the road or offroad just fine.
I think you got a solid deal. The Carnival, cool as it is, shouldn’t have been in the running unless you’re planning on having at least 2 more kids. It just isn’t necessary otherwise. A CUV was the right move imo.
Also, I guess I’m in the minority that prefers wired CarPlay/Android Auto. Wireless drains the battery so fast you have to plug it in anyway, and at that point, why not just use wired? Agreed that wireless charging pads suck. They’re better heaters than chargers.
I want to see surveys or something because I truly don’t understand the value proposition of Subaru’s crossovers in 2024. Their exterior design is dated, interiors are middling to bad, fuel economy is terrible, actual off road capability is not there, the driving experience is not engaging, they score no better on safety tests than other major OEMs, etc. I’m told the interior space and packaging is good? And I guess the prices are competitive? While I don’t think Matt’s experience is 100% typical, they’re at best middle of the pack on reliability. It’s lazy to just say people are drawn in by their marketing and I don’t want to do that. But maybe that’s it I genuinely don’t know.
When they talk about the Cult of Subaru, they aren’t kidding.
Yeah, Wireless CarPlay is especially overrated, for the reasons you mentioned. I also have an issue with a late-model BMW X5 wherein if it’s too close to power lines, the wireless CarPlay stutters, stalls and disconnects. The ramp in Oklahoma where I-44 merges into OK-74 as you head west (or vice versa) consistently causes this. Sometimes, it doesn’t reconnect on its own until I restart the car. I thought it was just my car, and specifically because I retrofitted the touchscreen back after it was deleted at the factory due to a parts shortage (the antenna for CarPlay is probably in the screen bezel)…but I rented a ’23 F-150 and it did it, too.
I don’t understand the people complaining about lack of wireless, either, for the same reasons. OK, maybe some people like it, but I see far more people than I would ever imagine posting like they’re really bothered by a lack of it. In the summer, my older phone frequently tells me it stopped charging due to heat anyway, so forget a wireless pad. As for wireless connection to the stereo, I wouldn’t trust a Bluetooth connection with anything as I’ve always had problems with it for any period of time over an hour on all kinds of devices. With wired, I get in the car, I plug the phone in, slide it into the cassette-like slot, and forget about it, so where’s the big advantage—saving something like 5 seconds? Then with all the dumb crap in cars to save electrical power to reduce the apparently massive parasitic drag of the alternator if it has to charge an extra few milliamps, a wireless pad seems like a waste—how about I have a radio I can leave on for more than 5 minutes with the engine off before having to turn the car off and accessory mode on again to get out of the battery saver mode (would also help if the stereo was the old school type that could run on a hand crank for hours instead of needing to have 57 different computers running for me to be able to listen to a song or two while in the car wash)?
I’ve spent some time defending Subaru here, even if I do find my wife’s Forester to be sort of mediocre.
Subarus tend to be tried and tested in our environment when it comes to snow, light offroading, general durability and designs that tend to wear the wear that comes with our area. The marketing certainly is a part of it, Subarus tend to be the ying to the rural bumpkin’s RAM yang.
They have their issues and Achilles heel(s) but enough people around here have had good experiences with them. Damn near everyone we know owns one, or even two. And they all seem to be pretty happy with them. It also helps that the local dealers tend to be the least scammy of the bunch.
Yeah I definitely get the pull of buying the brand you’ve always bought and your friends have. It’s powerful and frankly the way lots of people buy cars. And dealer experience is not nothing.
“actual off road capability is not there”
But it’s a hell of a lot better than literally any other crossover for sale. Having AWD instead of “AWD” is an extremely competitive advantage.
Hope you picked up some Dockers, too.
Congrats! I’m sure it will be a great vehicle to own!
Yeah, but the engine cover… aluminum. Pick up yer mic!
We have a Lexus tiny hybrid ct200h. It will go about two miles on EV only and only under 20mph or so. Tiny hybrid battery, but then it’s a tiny car. It is for parking lot driving. “Sailing,” though, really is where the car makes up the MPG. Go downhill long enough on Cruise Control, say 1000′ vertical, and the battery fills up and the regen starts whining something terrible.
Nice choice! Cant wait to see the full time lapse
“ If I’m being charitable, the Forester averaged 24 MPG on its best weeks.”
I cant believe my full-ICE mid-engined, 300bhp sportscar gets better mileage than it.
Yeah my Cummins gets 21-22 and that is a 30 year old truck and I have lead foot haha
Good luck with Nexus. My shipper (recommended by the seller) called me the day before he arrived and gave me some BS about his inability to navigate the turns and grades in my neighborhood and insisted I meet him a couple of miles away to take delivery of the car. Hopefully the new partner doesn’t give you a similar load of jive.
Where do you live, Mount Crumpit?
I was thoroughly disappointed that they evidently didn’t bother to pop my address into the map and check it out before TAKING the darn job, or at least before hitting the road. I charitably conceded to meet him at the bottom of the hill on the main drag, but he refused. I don’t believe for a minute that the rig was unable to make its way through town, but I felt like he was holding the car hostage. Oh well, I guess there’s a law that says you can drive newly-purchased vehicles without license/registration and insurance, so it all worked out. But he sure put me in a grinchy mood!
Outrageous.
I had to meet mine at a Stop&Shop parking lot for similar reasons. Plus, it was just easier on him anyway. Left my old car right in the lot for a day.
I wouldn’t have been so bent out of shape if we had arranged it beforehand, but calling from the road was just a dick move. Live and learn.
Sad part is that this seems to be SOP. Had a similar issue with another transport company, although in my case, the dropoff was a short block away on a much bigger road, because my residence was on a smaller street. Still would have been nice to coordinate this more than 20 minutes before dropoff; like you said, a quick Google Maps check was all the driver would need to figure that out.
Am I reading this correctly, the Subaru had a power window for the driver and a crank for the passenger???
Not only does that seem almost punitively cheap for very little cost savings, it’s also logically flawed as the driver can reach a crank for their own window but can’t lower the passenger window from their own seat without power.
Forget lug nuts, CVT, and everything, this alone is reason to sell the Subaru and never look back.
I believe he means auto-up/down, not non-electric.
If you’re right, it’s an odd way of describing it, as well as IMO an odd must-have feature, but it would make more sense from Subaru’s perspective.
This is correct. I changed it to “auto power” to make it clearer.
That’s one of those features I didn’t realize I loved until I bought a car with it.
It’s also a weird omission on my 2015 S 550 Coupe (originally a $150,000 car). The front two windows have full express-up/down, but the rear ones do not. I think it’s deplorable that they couldn’t find money in the budget for it, at that price echelon.
Wow that’s really surprising. We have an 05 w211, ordered pretty much as a stripper—small engine, no sunroof, etc.—and that has them for all four windows. Wild that something which was bog standard in an E class wasn’t standard in a 10 year newer S class. Such a weird little corner to cost cut too.
And yeah, it’s a small thing, but once you’ve had a car with them, you really do miss them in cars that don’t have them.
true, even my wife’s base 2015 Jetta with the 2.slow has all 4 auto up/down power windows.
I bought a blue ’24 CR-V in January (not the hybrid, unfortunately) and our family has loved it. One of my only gripes is that CarPlay is not wireless—that seems like it should be standard these days—and just the general annoyance of nanny lane-change and brake alerts. We did consider that red, or the special-order blue, but we needed a car and they had one on the lot we liked.
Black wheels aren’t that hard to keep clean. Mud will show up on them but mud shows up on silver wheels too. Breakdust on the other hand isn’t nearly as noticeable on black rims.
Yup, they’re just as ugly dirty as they are clean. I really wish black wheels and the damn black with machined faces fad goes away, but it’s been about 20 years already and that they’re still putting them on even high end cars.
Ugh. Another black wheel hater. I can’t understand why anybody thinks silver is a preferable option to, well, anything.
A lot of commenters probably would welcome other color choices for wheels, but that was largely left in the 90s. But it’s not about preferring the color silver itself. All-black effectively hides the wheel design, which is ironic since it’s usually coupled with more style/design-focused choices on a given vehicle – not for pragmatic choices.
Of course there’s a lot more to it when it comes to the wheel finish as well: cast aluminum, machined finish, chrome, etc. The differences in those finishes can make a difference in the overall design even with the same basic wheel design.
Black hides the wheel design if it’s a deeply dished wheel with thin spokes and the whole design just melts into an inky abyss in the wheel well. But I don’t like that style of wheel in any color.
My 1992 Accord has the stock alloy wheels painted black and it doesn’t hide the design at all. You can look it up if you want, but this wheel design is very flat(positive offset, shallow dish) and is a mostly complete disc, the opposite of thin and spokey. My 1995 Jeep Cherokee Sport also has the stock five spoke steelies painted black, and it also doesn’t hide the design at all, for similar reasons.
Tire sidewall size also has a lot to do with it. If the wheel is a 22″ with a rubber band tire and the wheel is the visual center, then a darker, less visible wheel color is not desirable. But, again, 22s and rubber bands look like a$$ no matter what color the wheel is. If you have 15s or 16s with a nice girthy tire, then a slightly less visible wheel can push some of the visual bias outwards to the tire, and make a more balanced and cohesive look for the wheel/tire package overall.
I agree that, on ugly new cars, black wheels look ugly. But that doesn’t mean black wheels are bad, they can look great on a different visual style. That being said, no matter what kind of car it is, silver wheels are played out and ugly, and I will take anything over another boring frickin silver wheel, no matter what. Seriously, purple wheels might be ugly, but at least they’re not grayscale homogeny EXACTLY LIKE EVERY SINGLE OTHER CAR IN THE LAST 45 YEARS.
That color, man…
Just… chef’s kiss.
I’d like it a little brighter… like a ’64 Mustang.
A little brighter would be cool, but I’m just happy it’s a real col
Best Top-Shot this month, if not the past few, and this site is always packed with A+ top shots.
Hahah, I was also an extra in that movie so it’s super appropriate.