Subaru Forester (2002 - 2008) 2.5 XTEn 5d Owner Review

Bought this as a practical addition to our existing family fleet as I'd convinced my wife that we needed something safe (5* safety) and 'utilitarian' (massive inside, seemingly necessarily boring) following the arrival of our second child. Truth is I'd fancied one of these for years. Found a fantastic example with FSH in amazing condition at a great price. Took me 7 months to find one like this with the Prodrive Performance Pack and it was totally worth the wait. Saw a few pretty sorry examples before I bought mine so don't rush - see as many as you can. A shade over 5s to 60, sounds discretely amazing and will embarrass a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S when the kids aren't in it, as I found out recently... It's ridiculously fast for something with the aerodynamics of a post office. Brilliant in any weather. Storage bins everywhere, hugely spacious and practical. A proper Q car. Subaru dealer parts prices are a bit steep but a bit of research gets around that. Only upgrade I've carried out has been an uprated Whiteline rear anti roll bar, bushes and mountings and thats been the best £200 I've ever spent on a car as it now truly handles like a performance car, although it was excellent beforehand. There's very little about this car that I don't like. It could do with better soundproofing as it's noisy at speed and the clutch is a little bit heavy in heavy traffic. The standard double DIN stereo is truly dismal but very easily replaced. It's a bit thirsty but that's probably mostly down to me. For a 2.5 turbo, it's actually not bad at all. My brother hates this car - because it can absolutely destroy his brand new £30k+ Golf GTi, so he says it's 'ugly' :) Insurance is very reasonable with me being just the wrong side of 40. The tax is pretty horrible but who cares - I'll happily pay an extra £25 per month in tax to drive something that's this much fun - because driving actually can still be fun - and who'd have thought that you could find arguably the most fun you've ever had from a car in an 'anonymous Japanese estate'. :)