KELLY C.

2017 Subaru Forester

(1) To be fair, it's the nature of every All Wheel Drive [AWD], but think long and hard about buying an AWD unless you can afford an entire set of tires in event one of your tires is destroyed, after having some mileage on them.

Too, you should be honest with yourself regarding if you are going to, routinely, rotate your tires.

All the tires MUST be the same height. Were it otherwise, different tires on your car would turn at different speeds than the other tires, placing extreme wear on the drive train system. For example, if you had fifteen inch tires on the front and sixteen inch on the back, they would have a different rotation speed of at least five miles an hour. Something your transmission and transfer cases would not long tolerate.

NOTE: An American car manufacturer's vans were eating transmissions. They, finally, tracked it down to that people were swapping out just the front or back tires, resulting in front and back tries turning at different speeds.

(2) At just under 50,000 miles, I'm told the suspension A frames, to which the tires mount, require all new bushings. That's at least a $1,500.00 repair, unless I do it myself (I can by the name brand frames with the bushings for $150.00 each.

This appears to be a common problem with Subarus and its more than sad, since many of us have driven vintage rigs with 150,00 miles on them and they are still going strong, though with cracks appearing.

(3) The heating and cooling system cabin fan has been making an annoying noise for the last year. A bit of digging around shows this to be another built in defect of Subarus.

(4) Less than genius engineering pops up in several places:

(a) A primary place is, the oil change drain plug. The drain plug for the transmission is right out in the open and more than a few professional mechanics have confused it with the hidden [to the side] oil drain plug. That's a $200.00, or far more, mistake in waiting.

(b) USB ports. What kind of fool thought it a good idea to put the USB port for the stereo at the bottom of that 5"x"5 square, 10" deep console between the seats? The only safe time the driver could access it is when parked, and with a flashlight in hand.

(c) Are Japanese engineers built differently than the rest of the world, and that being the reason for the most horrible headrests I've had the displeasure of using? They -kind of- adjust, and they are made from some new space age material the physical characteristics which are somewhere between rock and softer rock [covered with cloth].

I was given a variable speed Jet 1442 with everything working, but the speed control was missing parts to the point is was inoperatble.

I ordered a replacement speed control here. It arrived in a reasonable amount of time, and the quality seems as good as I could hope or expect.

The old machine is off and running again, thanks to eReplaementParts.