Driving position & visibility
The Forester has great visibility, feels airy and roomy for this size of vehicle and controls are relatively simple and straight forward, excepting goofy miniature info screen controls and blue tooth, but I believe they have improved for 2017. The large sun room is really nice for both front and rear passengers.
Powertrain performance
I was sceptical at first of the CVT but now I really enjoy it. However CVT is extremely noisy below 10 degrees Celsius and whines like a sick cat
Cargo capacity
Cargo Capacity is good for this size of vehicle and I like the way the cargo cover stores under the floor out of the way when not needed
Discounts & incentives
Bought in october 2014 so had some good factory rebates, at the time I believe vehicle was good value for feature content (touring model). Only option I would have liked is heaated sterring wheel
Rear seat room & comfort
Excellent rear seat comfort and rear seats are 60/ 40 and easy to fold flat. rear seats also have recline function which is nice ... excellent leg room
Handling
The 2014 Forester is the worst handling winter vehicle I have ever owned. The understeer is so bad on snow/ slippery roads that I consider it dangerous. Also the vehicle handles very poorly on gravel roads, which to me is strange as I had 2002 Subaru WRX wagon which was a marvelous handling vehicle with that rally feel and drive. I believe the understeer is attributed to very poor tires, Yokohama Geolander and the very large front overhang of the forester over the fron axle and very short overhang on rear axle .... leading to a very poor front to back weight distribution .... my BMW 335i xDrive is infinetly better in snow even with Continental run flat tires on it
Controls and instruments
The air confitioner works great however the heating and defrost system along with the so called heated wipers are completely useless. This vehicle is not a Candian winter car, it is a good vehicle for fair weather driving
Quietness
This vehicle is noisy and prone with rattles, poor door seals and structural integratity, with the large sun roof, is comprimised. Also the ride, unloaded, over concrete freeways with breaks is like riding on a roller coaster
Fuel economy
Fuel econmy is OK in summer, again would be good vehicle for california. However in Canada where we get lots of cold weather fuel economy is very poor, in fact it is worse than my BMW, which has twice the horsepower and my Honda Van, what gives? Plus you are freezing inside in the winter
Dealer practices
Unfortunately the Dealer I purchased vehicle at had a service department that is not well trained and to me seemed totally incompetent, I hope this is not representative of all subaru dealerships. I had to go into dealer over 5 times to address same issue and after last occurence they put in new BIU but did not program it to include all my options. After bringing this to their attention they seemed dumb founded and did not even have tools to reflash BIU ....
