We’ve had 3 Legacy sedans, 1 Outback and 1 Impreza (for our son). They have all been good for dealing with the highway traffic conditions (18 wheeler trailers whipsawing into our lane of traffic) and winter weather we experience here, and they are cost effective. My wife and I don’t run them as long as many of you, and we usually trade them off after about 8 years with about 80,000 miles on them, and we don’t have to write a very large check for another one.
Our latest one is a 2017 sedan that had the CVT go out in 2-1/2 years with 27,500 miles on it. The shift would move and the engine would run but the car would not move. The dealership changed a wiring harness and that didn’t fix it. The service advisor called HQ and they said they knew the issue and were sending out a rebuilt CVT. It was replaced under warranty and, shortly thereafter, we got a notice that Subaru was extending the warranties on the CVTs to 10 years/100,000 miles. In October of 2021 the shift lock assembly was replaced because the lock was not releasing and it took multiple tries to get the key to turn in the ignition. The service advisor said that she wished they would just do a recall on it but that Subaru does a lot of warranty extensions to avoid doing recalls. Although the car technically was out of warranty, it was replaced under warranty. Shortly thereafter we got a letter saying they extended the warranty to 8 years/unlimited mileage. A couple of day ago we got a warranty extension to 15 years/unlimited mileage on the electronic parking brake connector lock tab. When we decide to get another car, we are going to investigate other brands now that AWD is more common in lower priced sedans than when we first started buying Subarus.
One of the other ones (the Outback, IIRC), had the O2 sensor go out twice. Once it cost $400 and the second time it happened Subaru treated it as a warranty claim. I think this was a known bug by the time we needed the second one. I don’t remember anything about the 1998 sedan.
Our son ran his 2011 Impreza like he stole it. He made multiple cross-country trips. He started needing to add oil every 1500 miles after it turned 100,000. He sold it to a friend at about 105,000 miles when we handed down a 2012 Legacy with 50,000 miles on it. The Impreza is still going strong 3 years later. Our son is at about 105,000 on the hand-me-down Legacy. His two cars have only had routine maintenance and brake pads and a couple of rotors (his fault). They live outside in some pretty tough weather.
There are a lot of Subarus on the road around here, and nobody can draw any assumptions about one’s political leanings or association preferences unless someone advertises them with bumper stickers.
