Used 2012 Subaru Forester Consumer Reviews
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Does the job!
I leased it about 2 1/2 years ago and just bought out the lease. It is not beautiful nor is it elegant, but it does the job. I live at the end of a dirt road in Vermont with a daily round-trip commute of about 50 miles. It always starts and it makes it through the deep snow, better than our Toyota 4Runner. Even with my canoe on top, it handles okay--not as well as my old Morgan +4 but that wouldn't have made the grade in Vermont. Runs much better with a little extra air in the tires. All in all, I find it practical, serviceable, and reliable. This is contrary to some of the other reviews but maybe I just got a good one--or they got bad ones.
RAV4 would've been a HUGE mistake!
I was either looking into buying the Forester or the RAV4, and I'm very glad I went with this car. I drove a RAV4 4CYL as a rental car for a long duration. It had a comfortable ride, got great gas mileage for a small SUV, was well equipped, had good front and rear leg room, and the performance was surprisingly good for a 4CYL engine. Sounds like a great car until you come to the driving dynamics: it's boring. And let's not forget the rear horizontally opening door with the exterior mounted spare tire. I feel like I might accidentally swing the door in to my child's face if I'm not careful. The Forester is everything the RAV4 is plus monumentally better driving dynamics and overall value.
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My last Subaru
Between my wife and I we have owned five Subarus. A baja, an outback, a SUS and two foresters. This is the first I bought at a dealer, but what a disappointment. As soon as the warranty ran out, I noticed the car was low on oil. Now it is going through approximately 8 qrts of oil between changes. Nearly twice the capacity of the entire engine, every six months. I contacted Subaru corporate and was told "too bad. let us know when you want a new one." After some research I've found this is pretty much normal for this era of Subaru. I'm now checking the engine every few trips to make sure it doesn't run out of oil. In the beginning era of cars you often had to check oil like this. Most car companies fixed this in like the 50's. Seems Subaru is regressing. In addition to this nightmare of an engine, we used to own a 2004 Forester, our new 2012 has no new features, it like the same car with a much worse engine. This will be my last subaru.
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Great Replacement and my first Subaru
I purchased my 2012 Forester as a replacement for my 2007 Rav 4. The Rave could not get up my driveway in a low snow storm (2-3inches) My Forester had no problem. At 50k miles I did however have a problem with oil consumption. I went to my local Subaru dealership who performed and oil consumption test and told be they would have to replace my engine. Since I had a bumper to bumper 100k warranty I was good. The dealership gave me a 2015 Forester to use while engine was replaced. I have had to troubles since,
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Oil Consumption Issues
Dealership never sent me a notification about oil consumption issue. Found out at another dealer.
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