2001 Subaru Forester L - Blue Ridge from North America - Comments

Clutch chatter when cold at 50000 km.

Head Gaskets (both) at 89000 km.

Ignition coil at 89000 km.

What's next?

This is my wife's car and she loves it, I on the other hand find it handles pretty poorly (rolls too much in the corners), doesn't have very much rear passenger room. It is hard on gas and rather gutless on hills. The best feature is the AWD which I bought it for. With winter tires (Blizzak's) the car is great in our Canadian winters.

I am now starting to experience the poor reliability and service of Subaru. I have maintained this car on a regular basis and it is 90% highway driven. The original tires are beat, only used in the summer. They lasted about 50000K. I have experienced the dreaded clutch chatter. I found out the dealer will quietly replace these under special customer care on low mileage cars. There is a special kit to supposedly fix this problem. I am trying to get them to give me one under this care warranty when the head gaskets are replaced (tomorrow). I have also just replaced an ignition coil which is 300.00 CDN installed.

Overall, I will not be keeping this car past the 100000 km.

I have owned 2001 Subaru Forester L (manual) 65K kms. Known problems are:

1) Big dealerships usually does not have best mechanics.

2) Cold clutch issue. This is known problem with this vehicle. It is actually very annoying the way how Subaru has handled this. Instead of recall, they have replaced clutch to customers who complain the most. Even with clutch replaced don't expect this vehicle to shift like a Toyota or Honda (you cannot shift gears with just one finger click-click), but cold clutch issue will be gone.

3) I had engine check light on. Catalytic sensor need to be replaced which is expensive to be done in service.

4) Fuel consumption in the city is not that good at all for manual transmission. About 11.5-12.5 l/100kms. You can try to buy after market air filter, race type. That should reduce fuel consumption by approx 5%.

5) Original tires are bad. They don't last long. I can recommend Goodyear triple tread (or something like that).

Overall I think that this is a good vehicle, but 1980s and early 1990s models have better quality. Automatic transmission is better choice for this 2001 model year.