Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Ford Freestyle AWD Wagon, good or bad?

My daughter wants a different car and is pushing for a Subaru Outback wagon. I'm concerned about the reliability issues with that vehicle and wondered if anyone here has any experience with either the Ford Freestyle or Taurus X AWD wagons.

I'm looking at a 2007 Freestyle with 132K for $3,500 from the second owner.

Daughter will be away at college most of this next year and then on to graduate school, both of which will at least a 6 hour drive from rescue by dad.

Your input will be most appreciated.

260Remguy;
Good morning to you sir, I trust this finds you and yours well.

As part of my former job I was in charge of maintenance for a small fleet of company vehicles, most of which were Ford at the time. During the same time my wife bought a 2009 Forester - our first Subaru - with just under 100,000km on it. In addition I've been a lifetime student of most things automotive and like to stay abreast of what's a good vehicle to drive and what isn't.

Oh, lastly we were buying transportation for both of our daughters at the time too.

Anyway for me, the most recent type of Ford gas motors need to be maintained very well in order to last. I'm not sure if it's smaller oil galleries up top or exactly what is the main contributing cause, but IF the owners don't keep up the oil change schedule and use good oil, then they do not last. So much so that when we were looking at picking up a Focus for one of our daughters, a good friend and licensed mechanic said, "No don't do it Dwayne. I would buy one from you and you could buy one from me, but unless you know it's been serviced regularly and properly it absolutely will fail."

Okay that out of the way, most Outbacks that we see up here are the 6 cylinder models which are definitely more power than the 2.5 liter 4, but are quite a bit less fuel efficient.

I'd stay away from a 2.5 that was made before 2008 unless you have proof they've already dealt with the head gasket issue. If the 2.5 has 168,000km on it then it's going to need the timing belt changed and up here the shops do the belt, tensioners and water pump at the same time then, so it's at least $1000 day.

We've had very little issue with the Forester and it's absolutely unbelievable in icy, snowy conditions.

That said, it's got less interior room than the 2003 CRV that we ended up getting for our youngest daughter and in many ways there's things I like better about the Honda of that vintage than the slightly newer Subaru.

Our other daughter drives a Matrix and my daily commuter car is a Corolla and besides changing oil and tires - well spark plugs at 150,000km too - they are flat out trouble free rides and very economical too.

Hope that helped and was useful for you or someone out there this morining.

Dwayne

Thanks Dwayne.

When my daughter was still in the Air Force, they used Freestyle AWD's as transport between F E Warren and the missile alert facilities. True POS's, according to her. Not very reliable, iffy on snow covered dirt roads. The full-size Ford and Chevy trucks were much in demand, as you had a better chance of getting to and from the MAF's.

The two best things about the Subaru is there safety rating and all wheel drive which is different then other makes. Probably the best at their price.

Is that the one Ford got sued over the junk cvt tranny?

Some good advice given here that needs to be heeded. My mechanical engineer buddy had AWD fords and will not own another.

Not exactly the rigs you're asking about, but, my wife has a 2007 AWD Ford Fusion w/3.0L V-6. She bought it new and it's got ~65K on it now. Had to re-fill one CV boot with grease, Ford garage gave me the grease, we clipped the metal strap, used a needle to get the grease in, re-strapped and it's been fine ever since. Some absolute dolt put the center driveshaft carrier bearing directly above the catalytic converter. The bearing is "greaseless" and not replaceable so when it goes bad, you have to buy a whole new driveshaft assembly @ $700. Those are the 2 repairs she's needed, everything else just routine maintenance. Gas, oil changes, just put on new tires. My wife still really likes the car and hasn't taken my truck to work due to bad roads in 10yrs. I had a '14 Subaru Legacy that I put 80K on and IMO her Fusion is every bit as capable handling crummy roads and is far more comfortable to drive. It's quieter and rides nicer IMO.