Fuckin'A right.  Brings all the hate.  

I hope he loves the Wilderness, it was the first model launch I lead. Lots of time away from family to get a smooth launch in the chaos of COVID clown world.

Wife has had two subies: '13 impreza that was traded in on a '19 crosstrek (both manual)
Daughter has a '15 crosstrek (cvt)
I have a '15 wrx.

Zero issues at all with routine maintenance.

I do not get the hate.

I find it difficult to beat the capability of a Subaru hatchback that gets 27mpg mixed and mid 30's on the highway.
Mine:

Wife's

Daughters:

Low center of gravity for sports car use.

Subaru sucks.  Toyotas and Mazdas are much more reliable.

Head gaskets haven't been a problem in > 10 years.  There are two Subies in the family now.  200k combined miles.  Both have been great.

Subaru makes the best AWD system in the business.  Period.  I have owned many 4WDs over the years, & still do, and my Subie will go on snowy/wet roads safely where I wouldn't trust the 4WDs unless they were chained on all four tires.

Toyota and Honda are more refined, but in a drive-off the Subie wins hands down.

I have a love/hate relationship with Subaru.  Both of ours have been great cars until the head gasket and cv joint issues took place.  Then they were great cars again until the head gasket and cv joint issues happened again.  Legacy Outback wagon and a Forrester SUV,

They are great in the winter and in the rain, that's for sure.

The head gasket problem on the EJ2.5 engines was because the sleeves were right up against each other from cramming 2.5l into a 2l case. I still drive a 20+ Y/O EJ20 on the original head gaskets.

As a drivetrain, the boxer lets you arrange an AWD system with a longitudinal engine with a very low COG, the tradeoff is you have a lot of weight forward and a tendency to understeer. The engines are pretty light though, and the understeer balances out under throttle. The RWD sports car handles great.

Inline engines are a bit more efficient, fewer parts, but the COG is higher.

People particularly like how you can get a vehicle with decent ground clearance and interior volume with the driving characteristics it has. They're very stable, even when it's slippery.

I owned 5. The boxer rumble is seeet.

Boxer head gasket issues. Sounds like shit. Gutless.

CVT just makes the gutless issue worse plus they are shit for reliability.


Every subie in my family has had head gasket issues except the brand new one that only has a few K miles on it. It'll have head gasket issues soon enough. It is sketchy how slow it is. I am genuinely terrified at how it is unable to merge into highway traffic. I've driven stuff with far less power and weighing more that is not that slow. I have to take one on a 14hr trip soon and I am actually concerned about it's performance on the highway Incase I have to merge or pass. It won't do either.

How much? What years? What kind of center? These are all relevant.

I've read and heard first hand that the oil leaking isn't an issue with models post 2013ish?

Also, most cars burn some oil, I often wonder how many people confuse some consumption with leaking.

Jokes on you. Lol

I’m a fan.

2020 WRX tuned for E85. 42k miles and hasn’t seen the dealership since I bought the car brand new.

My beater car I use to drive all over town and to the range is a 20 year old Forester with 205k on it. It leaks oil like a mf'er, I just fill it up every couple weeks. Not a bad car at all.
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I've had:
New 2006 WRX
Used 2012 outback
New 2021 WRX

All seemed just fine. I had my reservations about the CVT in the outback but never had any issues over 100k miles.

Those were absolutely ridiculous cars, similar to the GNX and Syclone. I love that SRT was able to get Chrysler to produce it. Hagerty should do a video on them, it's right up their alley. I can see those being in high demand in 10n years or so.

And many of them took a crap between 40 and 60 thousand miles . the early air cooled VW engines were simple and pretty easy to work on but if you pushed them and worked them hard They didn't last long

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I used to be a mechanic and love subaru boxer engines. I drive an older 2001 but have had an older impreza 1.8l as well. I first got turned on to them when working on them at an independent shop. If you have mechanical ability they are so easy to work on. So easy to pull the motor, replace an alternator, water pump,radiator, its all just easy.
Iv had to do head gaskets on mine multiple times but still running the original engine and has over 200k miles on it. I cannot say its the right vehicle for someone who doesnt work on their own stuff if you do its easy work.

I did have a somewhat catastrophic failure almost two years ago with it. Lost compression on #3 cylinder. Pulled motor down and found one of the exhaust valves was bent and made contact with the piston 3 times. 3 different marks as the piston bent the valve each time it hit. I was really scratching my head as to why one of two valves would hit. Pulled valve springs off and found the issue right away. Both valve guides for exhaust valves on that cylinder were migrating further and further down till one got far enough to keep one of the valves from closing. The force of impact on the 3rd smack broke the tip of the guide off and then the valve was able to move back enough to stop hitting the piston.

I bought two new exhaust valves and one new guide and new valve stem seals, hammered new guide in and hammered one old guide in. Installed the springs threw the the heads on installed engine and been daily driving it for almost 2 years now and just did new spark plugs which is the first time iv done anything besides change oil.  

A boxer engine has its drawbacks but has its benefits too. For me living in the rockys the four wheel drive subaru's have make for an ideal daily driver. If id didnt have to deal with snow and ice 6 months out of the year a honda or toyota are better options for daily driver.

Boxer engine vehicles will never get as good of mileage as a transverse mounted engines out there due to the friction losses inherent in longitudinal mounted engines. But they are naturally balanced smooth running engines with a lower center of gravity. There are things to hate and things to love.

Toyota own 20% of Subaru.

Many parts are shared. Toyota puts their name on a Subaru built vehicle.

Subaru has made boxers since 1966.

Until VW realized by the 1960's that water cooled inline fours and fives were the future.

I have a 2005 STI with 166k miles on it.

They are unique and cool engines with tons of personality. They get treated poorly and blow up sometimes.

Take good care of it and normally you won’t have issues. They are pretty easy to work on also!

Welcome to October, Mr. July. Everyone now realizes this was an example of mass formation psychosis and is of no real-world consequence. Not a single example on record of RTV in the pickup screen being proven as the cause of oil starvation / engine failure.

@littlepony
And yachts belong in the water!

This

Fixed it for you.

I want the engine and drivetrain of the top one with the suspension and ride height of the middle one.  


Though now that the Crosstrek can be had with the 2.5, maybe they're a bit less slow.  I'd still prefer the WRX engine, or at least the 2.4 turbo from the Outback Touring

My ex wife and I owned a 2011 Outback. That poor car got abused pretty badly. It was her car primarily so maintenance wasn’t exactly at regular intervals.

Two teenagers learned to drive in it. The same two teenagers borrowed it to go out so God only knows how it got driven.

A shit ton of road trips. I don’t drive slow on long trips sooo there’s that.

We took that damn thing to places in the Colorado mountains it had no business going. But it did and got back every time. Never had a mechanical problem in the 11 years we owned it. Not one.

I just gifted it to my 16 yr old niece. She loves that stupid thing.

I’ll be paying my 2020 Ranger off soon and I’ll most likely get another Outback for my second car. The Outback will be my snowboarding/icy roads car.

brought new '13 outback 2.5 with cvt now with 155K miles

at 140K, replaced cvt at $7K which hurt

replaced headlight bulbs, struts, brake pads (x2), flush brake lines, rear camera, tires and routine fluid changes
that's it

still runs strong

would buy another  

I have put 150k miles plus on a: BRAT, XT6, RS 2.5 and an STI. I never had an engine problem. But then, I did not fuck with the timing or A/F ratio. I drove the RS 2.5 at 130mph 5 days a week for 5 years commuting on the Autobahn and tracked it at the Nurburg ring and the Hockenheim ring.

I'm no expert, but my hunch is that the low center of gravity actually makes a significant difference.

It definitely does. Subaru declined to put a turbo on the 2nd gen BRZ (and sister Toyota GR86) because being a bottom-mounted turbo on this engine, it would have raised the engine in the chassis and compromised CoG.

The main advantage is engine length.  In AWD Subarus the transmission is parallel to the front axles, having a longitudinal inline four hanging way out past the front axle would result in crap weight distribution and require a longer hood.  The alternatives would be a transverse engine setup (lame) or pushing the engine back and adding a transfer case, additional driveshaft and separate front differential, which would drive up both cost and weight while probably being less efficient.  

Back to the OP, been beating the snot out of my FA20 for 86k miles, the only engine issue I've had was a dirty mass air sensor which was basically my fault.  No leaks or notable oil consumption.

I've had a modded WRX and currently own a '17 forester 2.5i premium 6 speed. I think they're *meh* at best from Subaru. I think they should have gone over to a regular engine a long time ago now at this point. Porsche's still kicking ass with their flat sixes though.

What year Ural? My 2013 was a maintenance hog. 2020 has been infinitely better. They started doing engine updates (finally) around 2018, along with switching over to EFI.

2017. It has EFI but I hear the newest EFI is much better. The new engines look much better as well. But lets be honest....they are still Urals

They are. I'm half heartedly shopping for a 2022 now since my first reply.

80+ year old flat twin is best flat twin.

Not a fan of the weak 6 cyl engines. The non boosted engines are of the weakest build in all of the automobile world, them and Honda. Sub 300hp and sub 280hp are the norm.

How about a 90 year old 12 cylinder 1200 horsepower boxer ?



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I currently own a 2002 Impreza outback sport (which is really just a hatchback Impreza, but Subaru has dumbass model naming), and a 2017 outback. The '02 has it's original head gaskets and chooches just fine. Aside from a mildly more annoying timing belt change, the boxer engine configuration hasn't been an issue for me. Plug changes aren't particularly difficult, and stuff like the accessory belt, air filter, and oil changes are no different then on any other car.

With snow tires the '02 is unstoppable in the winter with the '17 only just behind it. They have decent interiors that aren't luxurious but have held up to kids remarkably well. Mileage is meh and they aren't fast but the snow performance, cargo capacity and reliability have more then made up for it all. In the winter it's nice knowing my kids ride in a car not even my wife can put it in a ditch.

All Subaru flat 4s will have head gasket leaks at some point.

Newer models (non turbo) after 2013 are the least affected.
Turbos without MLS gaskets can usually be replaced.

Transmission problems are rare...

Just change fluids and dont fucking abuse the shut out of it.

My wife's 2013 Subaru Forester's engine blew at 96k miles, head gasket issue. Had issues burning a lot of oil for years. We replaced it with a used 2015 motor that only had 50k miles on it, so we'll see how that goes. Other than that, a clutch, brakes far too early, (my wife drives line a maniac, an a/c leak, and needing ball joints replaced (damn rough Colorado roads, not being maintained by our wonderful Dem pols) its been pretty reliable. I hate the car but my wife loves it, I think it's some sort of Stockholm syndrome. The thing I hate the most on it is the underpowered 4 cylinder engine that struggles going up mountain passes.

I will say it's awd is awesome in the snow when paired with good tires.

Toyota disagrees with you, as they own 20% of Subaru.

Oil consumption and head gasket issues. No thanks

They all burn oil and eventually piss it out of the seals because oil is constantly laying on them. Spark plug seals always seem to leech oil into the plugs.

I’ve had 2. I wouldn’t buy a 3rd.

that you Alton?

I'm not sure if this is true, but I was once told that Subaru's tend to leak oil because gravity is constantly pulling the pistons down, thus wear is greater on the underside of the pistons and less on the top.

Inline fours don't experience this problem because gravity isn't pulling the pistons toward one side of the cylinder or other.

If that were true Porsches would all leak oil for the same reason.