Beware of the head gasket problem with the 2.5L Subarus. The repair cost isn't worth it, but I wasn't able to purchase a new car at the time, so I actually had a newer rebuilt dropped in at cost and 18 months later-- another blown headgasket! Coolant was fine, oil was fine, car drove fine-- no warning at all, just a sudden huge surge in temperature heading up a hill...and my Subaru was done. This is a problem that will not go away and Subaru is well aware of all the complaints. In all fairness, I got 360k out of my 2000 Forester before I moved on to another car, so I can't complain too loudly, but this is a problem that you are destined to have over and over again...so good luck and be cautious when racking up those miles on the 2.5L.

It's a $3500 fix, and comes to $5k with the timing belt and to fix some other issues. It isn't worth fixing at that rate - and I'll be flogging it and buying something else.

Overall it's been an ok car. Got it in 2010 with 110000km. It's had strut issues, cv boot issues, alternator issues - but otherwise has been good. It's religiously serviced every 5k. Too bad the head gasket issue is so prevalent and so expensive to fix.

I was thinking of buying another Subaru - but it looks like the new models now have an 'oil consumption' issue. Pretty sad that Subaru has known of head gasket issues since the 90's and they never fixed it until 2010, and now they have a new problem that they probably won't fix either.

I'm giving up and buying an ugly CRV.