The Subaru Forester is a classic model that everyone has seen on the road many times. It’s simple; it’s a good, affordable car for almost any situation. It’s big enough to fit a full family, or all the things you might need to bring along on a good outing. You’d think there’d be no way to over-complicate it, right?
Obviously that’s a rhetorical question. There are plenty of ways that Subaru found to make driving the new Forester a mildly annoying task. The amount of sensors it has for traffic and cabin functions causes the car to constantly interrupt your flow with deafening dings and other sound effects.
As a perfect example, when driving my family on a residential road, not going more than 35 miles per hour, I was keeping about two car lengths behind the car in front of me when that car braked. No big deal. I naturally braked to slow down. But the Forester simultaneously detected the slight distance change and proceeded to blow out our eardrums with an alarm that caused much more panic than was necessary for such a routine traffic situation. The incident further weakened my mother’s already reluctant trust in me behind the wheel. That’s the most unforgivable part.
Honestly, though it can be really irritating for the car to backseat-drive itself, it’s probably not too hard to learn to tolerate it. Or if you’re an amazing driver, maybe you’ll never even trigger an alarm. But either way, it’s not the death of the car. The Forester is still quite solid and has a lot going for it. For starters, it is inexpensive. And it is big enough to let you do pretty much whatever you want with it. It has good driving capabilities for just about any situation. And as most Subarus, it is basically indestructible.
The Forester now is Subaru’s mid-size SUV. If you don’t need as much space, you can look into a Subaru Crosstrek. If you need more, the Subaru Outback might be the choice for you. Overall I love this brand and I think the Forester objectively is a great car. I wish the sirens weren’t there, but that’s more of a nitpick, and some people most certainly benefit from them. I’d recommend this car to anyone.
John Wilson is an unmarried 20-year-old in his second year of college. He began driving as soon as he was eligible at age 16. Already he has shared driving responsibility through several cross-country road trips. He drives his family’s cars, and hasn’t shopped for a vehicle of his own. Here he gives observations and impressions of today’s cars from that perspective.
For a different perspective on the Subaru Forester, see a separate Car Sense review here.
(Photos courtesy of Subaru of America)
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