My 2017 Subaru Forester is the closest to a new car that I’ve owned, and unlike many of the cars I’ve owned, it’s far from an unusual vehicle – there are two nearly identical ones in my San Francisco neighborhood, down to the color and trim level.
My mother was the original owner (or, rather, lessee) of this Forester. It replaced a 1996 Chrysler Town & Country minivan that was starting to show its years. When her minivan started to exhibit a troubling oil consumption issue, she enlisted my help in finding a new car.
My mom’s old minivan
She seemed most interested in a compact SUV – more for ease of getting in and out and cargo capacity than for any ability offroad. I initially suggested a Mazda CX-5 and I recall we also looked at offerings from Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, and Honda.
During our search, she asked me what car I’d buy if I had to get a new car. At the time I tended to buy older used cars – my 1995 Legacy was still serving me well. I said, though, that if I were to buy a new car, I’d probably consider a Subaru Outback or Forester, though I pointed out that I tended to use cars a bit differently than she did, and AWD was a big selling point for me but probably wasn’t something she’d ever need, as she lived near Sacramento and did almost all her driving around there.
Our next stop, though, was a Subaru showroom. The Outback seemed too large, the Crosstrek seemed too small, but the Forester appealed to her. The styling, though boxy, provided very good visibility, and the interior was comfortable and easy to get in and out of. While earlier generations of the Forester had been essentially tall station wagons, this one was a crossover SUV in the mold of a Honda CRV or Toyota RAV4. The ergonomics and controls were fairly conventional, which was a definite plus for an older driver such as my mom – the Forester started with a key rather than a start button, it had a handbrake and an automatic transmission shift lever that operated much like those on cars from previous decades, and the HVAC system was operated by a familiar set of knobs rather than a touchscreen.
There were some attractive lease deals being offered, and my mom was uncertain how much longer she’d be driving, so a 3-year lease seemed to make sense in her situation. The dealer, though, only had Foresters on the lot in neutral colors such as white or silver, and my mom was looking for something a bit more colorful — ideally in red. The salesman let her know that they had additional cars coming in and a week or so later, phoned her to let her know they had one in Venitian Red Pearl on the lot. It was a 2.5i Premium, one up from the most basic trim level. We went to look at it, and she rather quickly decided that this was the car for her, and after signing the paperwork she headed home in her newly-leased Forester. We ended up selling her minivan to Carmax not long afterward.
It served her well for several years. She garaged it, drove it gently, and took excellent care of it. She scrupulously followed the maintenance schedule – it had a 6-month/6,000 miles oil change and service interval, and there were occasions that she took it in at 6 months, having not yet put on 6,000 miles.
She had one fender bender in it – in her case quite literally. The driver’s side fender was dented, which was fixed at the dealer’s body shop & covered by insurance, and I was surprised at the various ancillary trim pieces that were also replaced due to very minor damage. I’ve given the car a close looking over numerous times after the repair work and have never been able to find any evidence of crash damage.
Some years later she decided to downsize and move closer to me – moving to a seniors-only apartment building in Oakland. She kept her Forester but was driving it less and less. She had moved from Roseville (a suburb of Sacramento) and found traffic and parking in Oakland far more difficult. I would occasionally borrow it, partly just to keep it from deteriorating due to sitting, and partly because my 1995 Legacy was starting to get rather long in tooth.
The Forester proved to be a very capable vehicle on trips out of town, and I took it on a few trips to Tahoe where snowy and icy roads showed the efficacy of the stability control, ABS, and full-time AWD. It also was noticeably more powerful than my Legacy, and despite the higher ground clearance, handled well on winding mountain highways. The CVT, which I was initially leery of, also worked well on such roads – it always seemed to be in exactly the right “gear” and had none of the hunting between gears that the 4-speed auto in my Legacy sometimes exhibited.
I spend a lot of time in Tahoe these days, and my Forester showed up on street view.
Toward the end of the lease, my mom had a few scares driving and decided that it might be time to end her career as a motorist. Though I was starting to think about replacing my Legacy with a newer used car, my mom’s Forester at the time seemed too new, too nice, and too expensive a car for me – the lease buyout was around 70% of the original purchase price, and I was initially thinking of picking up some kind of Subaru newer than my 1995 Legacy but not as new as my mom’s then 3-year-old Forester.
When I began to look at used Subarus, though, I found that they retained their value quite well. An 8 to 10-year-old Forester or Outback with over 100,000 miles would end up being only a few grand less than my mom’s lease buyout.
After going over the numbers with my wife, it started to make sense to buy out my mom’s lease. Her car was in great shape, had low miles, and was very much a known quantity. We had taken weekend trips in it and both liked it (my wife was especially fond of the heated seats). As my mom was no longer driving the car, we ended up buying out the lease a few months early to save her unneeded payments.
Being a newer car, dealer accessories were still available, and as I’d be parking it on the street in San Francisco, I put on color-matched side moldings, which came with an elaborate paper template to align the adhesive-backed pieces of plastic when installing them on the doors. The moldings have somewhat helped against dings, but the car still has a number of chips & dents on the side after several years of parking in SF. The photo below shows both my old and new Subaru parked in the side-by-side spots commonly found on San Francisco hills — you may see why door dings are so common here:
The Forester came stock with a mini-spare, but after a flat on a Friday night led to a weekend trip being canceled, I switched to a full-service spare. The spare tire well in the Forester can hold a standard spare, although I had to remove the Styrofoam tray above the tire and make a small spacer to elevate the panel above the spare tire a half-inch or so. Oddly enough, I’d switched my Legacy over to a full-size spare some years into my ownership of it but had never had a flat.
As an aside, and to stave off any well-meaning comments, Subarus, like all vehicles with full-time AWD, are sensitive to mismatches in tire diameter. There’s substantial debate over just how much mismatch they can handle, and for how long, but I feel confident I could drive several hundred miles over several days on my full-size spare, whereas a mini spare is far more limited in both mileage and maximum speed.
One thing that surprised me about owning a newer car is how much larger the owner’s manual has become. My Forester came with a several-volume manual in a vinyl slipcase. The audio/multimedia system has its own manual that’s thicker than the whole owner’s manual on my 1995 Legacy. As a point of contrast, my 1968 Falcon’s manual was not much more than a small pamphlet.
While my mom had preferred to have the Forester serviced at the dealer, once I owned it, I decided to do my own oil changes myself, as I’ve done on all my cars. This is as much a function of time as of money – I can generally drain the crankcase, swap the filter, and have fresh oil in a car in 10-15 minutes, whereas taking it to a shop could easily eat up an afternoon.
Despite having done oil changes for nearly four decades, I hit a snag on the first oil change I attempted on the Forester – the drain plug had a small 14mm hex on it, and I rounded off the bolt head attempting to remove it. I sheepishly took it to a shop, where they removed the plug with an extractor and did the oil change for me. I shortly thereafter learned that this is a common issue with Subarus of this vintage, and swapping to a drain plug from older Subarus with a 17mm hex can prevent this. I made the swap, and have done several oil changes since without a hitch. Subaru later put out a TSB about this very issue and introduced an updated plug:
On the subject of oil changes, the motor in my Forester has a top-mounted oil filter that makes swapping it out extremely easy:
I recently received a Fumoto oil drain valve due to a rather odd promotion the City of San Francisco was running — they were providing them to residents who worked on their own cars, presumably to avoid spilled oil on streets and sidewalks. It’s currently in my garage, and I’ll likely swap it in on my next oil change.
The Forester has otherwise been trouble-free. The battery died after about 4 years, and I replaced it with an AGM battery which has so far given me no issues. After about 50,000 miles, the rear brake pads were getting fairly thin, and I opted to do a brake job myself – the discs showed almost no wear, so I reused them. I did the front pads shortly thereafter – they still had at least 30% left on them, but I figured it made sense to replace them at my leisure rather than right at the end of their life when I might be pressed for time. It did feel a bit strange to be working on a car much newer than the typical ones I’ve owned, especially after I’d botched something as simple as an oil change, though the absence of rust, caked-on grease, and grime, or damaged fasteners made the job go very smoothly.
The Forester, like most Japanese cars of the past few decades, has jacking points on the pinch welds. On older cars I’ve owned, these sometimes get mangled over the years. In an effort not to do so on my Forester, I purchased a set of pinch-weld adapters for my jackstands and jack. It has made lifting the car so much easier, and I wish I’d picked them up years earlier – in the past, I’d sometimes drop the pinch weld directly onto a jackstand or futz around with wooden blocks, neither of which felt like a good approach.
A pic of the pinch weld adapters lifted from eBay.
The only work I’ve had to do has been expected routine maintenance and even that has been fairly minimal. This is the first vehicle I’ve owned with a cabin air filter, and I’m always amazed at how much dust and dirt it’s carrying when I swap it out. The 2.5-liter motor has a timing chain, so there’s no looming timing belt replacement in the future.
In years past I was somewhat disdainful of crossover SUVs, but they seem to be taking up a niche in the vehicular ecosystem similar to that occupied by station wagons in the 1950s through 70s, and after owning one I can see their appeal.
While I rarely take it off-road, I do sometimes go “off pavement” on logging, fire, or unimproved roads, and I’ve found my Forester to be capable in such situations – the “X-mode” switch near the shifter puts it into a heightened, all-terrain traction control mode at low speed, which does seem to make a difference in marginal situations.
When X-mode is engaged, an amusing graphic appears on one of the dashboard displays, showing AWD power distribution, Stability Control/ABS status, and the orientation of the front wheels.
And while there’s a burgeoning aftermarket for this generation of Forester, and I’m one who’s prone to tinkering and upgrading most machinery I own, I don’t feel any inclination to modify my Forester — I have an old Falcon and a vintage BMW motorcycle that keep me busy enough, and the Forester seems more than adequate as-is. I also have never activated the Starlink subscription — the added connectivity and security features it provided never seemed worth the $149/year that it costs.
I tend to hang on to cars these days, and I can see myself continuing to drive this Subaru for some decades, and hopefully getting somewhere close to the life I got out of my 1995 Legacy. A 1995 Subaru and a 2017 Subaru are conceptually similar vehicles that differ mainly in details — they’re both all-wheel-drive, powered by a flat-4 internal combustion engine, driven through an electronically-controlled automatic transmission. I’m curious how technologies such as electric cars, fuel cells, or autonomous vehicles will play out over the next few decades. When it comes time to replace my Forester, whatever car I get in place of it may well be very different.
As someone who still does my own oil changes, I love the top mounted oil filter, similar to the one on our 2015 Golf. On my 2nd gen Forester Turbo, the oil filter was underneath, and well hidden by the under-engine cover. And, there was a small oil cooler sandwiched between the filter and the block, with a short but vulnerable short hose elbow that could snagged and cut by the filter wrench if I wasn’t careful. And I wasn’t careful – twice. Fortunately the dealer stocked that hose; I suspect I wasn’t the only one who made that mistake. The second time I cut it, on my very next oil change, I bought two hoses but I had finally learned and never needed it.
My wife has a 2017 Outback (her third, also having had an 05 and 11.) But we have always had them serviced at the dealer. I don’t want to do oil changes because of disposal issues. So I mainly watch fluid levels and tire pressure. Never had any problems with any of them. She keeps them until they rack up 100k miles or 6 or7 years. They hold their value, are reliable, comfortable, practical and good looking. IOW, a great value.
Good article! I look wistfully at your presumed ski trip photo. It’s been a long time since I went on a ski trip. I used to do it regularly when I lived in Arizona, but only once in the 15 years I’ve lived in Texas.
I am in love with that oil filter set up. It even comes in a little bowl, so you don’t make a mess. Most all the American cars I’ve owned seem specifically designed to make a mess. Guess it’s an Asian thing, as our 2014 Hyundai had a top mounted paper filter that was very clean to change and our 2016 Toyota Highlander is bottom mounted paper, but has a valve to drain the oil (which I always mess up anyway).
I’ve never heard of a pinch weld adapter, but I think I’m going to get some. Great idea!
I wish you had shown the valve that the city gave you. I’m curious about that. Does it work well?
Speaking of the city and the street parking you mentioned, are break ins and vandalism much of a problem there?
Here’s a picture of the Fumoto oil valve. It goes in place of the drain plug, and you can fit a piece of hose over the nipple and drain the oil directly into a container. The lever on the valve is spring-loaded and uses a sort of “up and over” motion to open and close so it seems unlikely to come open by accident. Thefts and vandalism are definitely a problem for street-parked cars in SF, and although the issue has been getting a lot of press lately, it’s been a problem for decades. As a long-time SF resident, I’ve learned not to leave anything visible (even pocket change or envelopes) in my car, and to avoid parking on certain streets that seem especially theft-prone. By SF standards I’ve been fairly lucky – maybe one breakin a decade, though I did have my ’95 Legacy stolen.
Thanks for the picture. I think I’ll try that!
These are super practical cars for the long haul. I have had my 3rd gen Forester for 13 years and counting. 5-speed, Premium package. It is hands-down the longest I have ever owned a vehicle and I still can’t imagine getting rid of it.
My sense is that although they do typically need some repairs around the 100K mile mark – head gasket, viscous coupling, throw-out bearing – once fixed, they’re good to go for another 100K. I don’t do any work myself, so an independent Subaru repair shop is invaluable.
CVT is a feature that will keep me out of Japanese brands forever, Mazda is the only brand that doesn’t use it but they have other things going on that keeps me out of those,
Theres an outfit here called oil changers no appointment needed and I tried them a couple of weeks ago, fast and efficient, I never even had to get out of my car except to pay, Ive been doing my own oil changes since forever but next time the little wrench shows up on the speedo display I know where Im going. I can get my hands dirty maintaining my old HIllman instead of my daily drive.
I’m not sure a Subaru with their notoriously oil-burning FB engine is the right answer for someone getting rid of a car due to oil consumption. A PCV replacement likely would have alleviated the Chrysler’s issue. I know people with FB Subarus who are burning a quart every thousand miles on their 3rd and 4th replacement engines…
Also, stock up on wheel bearings and the pretty underbuilt front lower control arms.
The last generation of Subarus also seem to suffer from really odd electrical gremlins, often related to windows and locks. And for about 3 generations, a check engine light will disable the cruise control system (Toyota also started this shenanigan a few model generations back).
As Subaru sales skyrocketed and peaked over the last few years, they really seem to have phoned in their quality control.
I also own the same year Forester which I bought new and have had more than a few problems with. First the wheel studs kept breaking when I tried to loosen the lug nuts. Some research uncovered that there is a TSB on rust accumulation inside the acorn lug nuts. Changing to different lug nuts solved this. Next I had to replace both front axles. Next problem, both front control arm bushings needed to be changed. I bought the manual 6 speed to avoid CVT problems but the throw out bearing started squeeling loudly whenever the clutch was pressed necessitating a complete clutch replacement costing $2700. More research revealed another TSB, incorrect grease used in the throw out bearing. That with two cracked windshields were the most expensive fixes. Now I wish I got a Rav4 or CX5 which I was looking at but neither came with the combo of AWD and manual trans.
Good article, but is the Forester really ” Sube’s Small SUV “? I guess if you don’t call the Crosstrek an SUV but a Crossover Utility Vehicle.
I came close to buying a Forester a couple of times in the last 2-3 years, 1 I looked at was old enough to have a ” regular ” automatic transmission and 2 others were newer with the manual transmission. I am kicking myself, as I have had a few instances where having a small wagon would have been ideal. What kept me from ” pulling the trigger ” was the lackluster fuel economy, though admittedly nothing else combines/combined AWD, manual transmission, in a versatile vehicle.
3 of my sisters have owned Outbacks, and swear by them. Though one had a poorly modded turbo GT that she traded within months of buying it and another has since moved on to an Assent(?)…because it’s new and she had to have a bigger SUV even tho she is an empty nester.
And yes, all complain that they are expensive to maintain.
I have a 2018 Forester which is the last year of this generation and it has been great. It is my third Subaru. My first was a 1998 Outback Sport 5-speed that I owned for 18 years. It was remarkably reliable and I would have kept it longer but there were rust problems due to some sub-par body work after a tree fell on it. I live in southern Ontario, which is snow country, but I did not think I needed AWD until I got this car. This car changed my mind. I realized that winter driving is much more than not getting stuck. With good winter tires it is remarkably stable in fairly deep snow. My concern is make sure I don’t get overconfident.
I replaced it with a 2013 Crosstrek with CVT which I kept for 6 years. It was fine, but not outstanding. Like most newer cars I found the rear vision quite limited and it did burn some oil. It was not really a problem, but I would have to top it up every couple of months. My ’98 never used a drop of oil.
My cousin, who lives near me has a 2014 Forester (first year of this generation). She had some medical problems and could not drive for a while, so I drove her in the Forester quite a bit. It also had an oil burning problem, probably a bit more than my Crosstrek. The only other significant problem was with the sound system. It started producing very loud static sounds, even if it turned off. The eventual solution was to replace the front part of the wiring harness. Otherwise it has been very reliable and trouble free.
I found I really liked the Forester, and I decided to get one to replace the Crosstrek. I chose to get a 2018, the last year of the that generation, thinking it would be better sorted out than the first year of the next generation. I have had it for just over 4 years and it is working out well, and unlike my cousin’s 2014, it does not burn any oil. Before these cars with CVT I had only owned manual transmission cars, but I quite like the CVT.
We’ve owned two Foresters from this generation; both equipped with the 6 speed manual transmission.
The first was an early 2014 model, purchased in May 2013. We unfortunately experienced serious problems with oil burning, necessitating two separate engine replacements. The first engine began burning a quart of oil every 500 miles within the first few thousand miles of ownership. The dealer where we purchased the Forester really jerked us around, first claiming that the car was abused because we didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission. That claim was total BS – our two previous cars were 5-speed Honda Accords that were both traded at 150,000+ miles and still had their original clutches. Then, after doing a lot of on-line research, I discovered that the dealer was overfilling the oil when performing consumption tests to make it look like the consumption was within normal limits. After many trips to the dealer and getting the Subaru zone rep involved they finally agreed to replace the short block.
The replacement engine was even worse than the first – going through a quart of oil every 250 miles. The dealer treated us somewhat better, they replaced the engine again with much less hassle, and our consumption problems went away.
But a year or so later, just outside the 36,000 mile warranty, the AC compressor grenaded and sent shrapnel throughout the entire system. After a lot of fighting with the dealer and Subaru of America, they reluctantly agreed to do the work at no charge since the engine had been out of the car twice under warranty. The repair cost would have been almost $3K had we paid out of pocket.
So after all these bad experiences, why in the world did we buy a second Forester? It’s pretty simple — my wife loves the design of the car and loves driving a standard transmission. Real chicks drive sticks!
When I discovered that the newly redesigned 2018 Forester would only be available with the CVT and knowing how much my wife loved the old one, I proactively began shopping for a leftover 2017 Forester (but not at the dealership where we purchased the 2014 model). I found exactly what my wife wanted, negotiated a great deal, and we upgraded to a new Forester that was almost exactly the same as the model we traded in; other than color. And – knock on wood – it’s been great for the past 4 years.
Yikes. How did you catch that first dealer adding oil to hide the oil consumption?
I picked up the car at the Subaru dealer when the consumption test was to begin, drove 10 miles, then immediately pulled back to the dealer’s garage and said “check the oil level, and I’ll watch”. It was well above the top fill mark. This happened twice.
Oh, cool! Sheesh.
That oil level thing is unconscionable, I mean really, running a deliberate scam? Dealer, service writer, mechanic, the whole train of people in on it.
Regardless, I’ve long had a soft spot for Subies. In spite of working on a friends back in the 70s with inboard front drum brakes. (facepalm)
I like to get off road a bit on vacation, my wife is slightly smitten by Foresters, although Outbacks appeal more to me, but engines really seem like a weak point. Not only do head gaskets need to be replaced at similar intervals as some marques timing belts, but the oil consumption too? I still might succumb to temptation one of these years. Or not, who knows.
It sounds like you got a good buy getting your mom’s Forester. There is a lot to be said when buying a used car that is a know quantity. We have a few Subies in our family, including a 2014 and 2016 Foresters and a 2016 Outback. The Outback is my wife’s daily driver while the other’s are owned by siblings. I have serviced our Outback since new, including oil changes. Our car had the 17 mm drain plug, so no issues there. It is certainly one of the easier cars to do oil changes on. The filter location is super easy to get at, I just don’t like that prefilling is very difficult and it always spills some oil in the “cup” when removed. It is 100 times better than the cartridge filter I have on my Toyota truck which also requires a skid plate removal. I have done all other servicing on our Outback and it’s relatively easy to work on. We also got similar brake life from our car as you did, but due to rust I replaced the rotors with the pads.
There are lots of comments about the FB engines and oil consumption in this thread. For our car, I did the first two oil changes at half intervals, then followed them with the full 6K (10K km) intervals. I also followed a strict break-in routine for the engine. I have had negligible oil consumption over the past 6 years and 80 k miles. The service manager did warn me that he has had to replace a number for short blocks under warranty for oil consumption, but obviously not all cars have this issue.
I hope you get a long life out of your Forester. For us, we are probably not keeping our Subaru much longer. I have not been overly impressed with the quality of our car as it has had a number of warranty issues, including premature rust on the doors which required two doors to be replaced and other little problems (steering rack repair, shift interlock malfunction that jams the key, failed seatbelt retractor). The dealership has turned us off Subarus due to the poor warranty service. On top of that, our Outback has been just “ok” as a car. Both my wife and I are very indifferent to it as a vehicle.
This thread reinforces my experience – there seem to be two kinds of Subarus: Ones that are highly problem-prone and ones that are fabulous. There rarely seems to be anything in the middle. My sister’s Outback of 5-7 years ago was one of the first kind.
I am right there with you that there are few better buys than a car from an aging parent – so long as it is a kind of car you can be happy with. My mother used her cars more lightly and kept them longer, but we bought her last three. My middle son is still driving the 06 Lacrosse.
Your mother’s experience with the T&C is surprising. There were lots of common problem areas of Chrysler minivans of that period (transmissions, a/c systems and electrical gremlins, usually) but engine oil consumption was not one of them. Both the 3.3 and 3.8 in those vehicles developed reps as good as any engine ever built by Chrysler. But clearly the one your mother got was an outlier.
My husband and I are on our second Forester and recently purchased an Outback Wilderness to replace our Ram truck ( no longer needed). We gave our first Forester (204,000 miles) to a teacher who desperately needed a reliable, snow-capable car. After 5 years, she still drives it in winter to get from snowy Montana mountains to school. I love the Forrster.
I love my ‘13 Outback, but it hasn’t been without some challenges. Nothing egregious, but annoying. Tracing down a “burning too lean” issue that keeps triggering the CEL. Everything related has been replaced (190k miles). Uses some oil but not huge amounts, and that’s been my experience with my 3 prior Japanese brands as they approach 200k miles.
Waiting to see what hybrids they have in ‘24, would certainly consider another Subaru. If no Outback hybrid then I’m keen on the Maverick and RAV4.