Faults:

Everything went wrong!

Transmission replaced at 120k.

Control module at 125k.

Head replaced at 165000k.

Many ongoing electrical gremlins.

The door trims all came loose, and the rear plastic shroud on the tailgate fell off.

General Comments:

I hate it!! I was told how wonderful these things are, and how reliable the boxer should be.

We had this thing serviced on time every time at a Subaru dealer, drove it gently and never took it off the bitumen.

The slightest flick resulted in big dings in the bodywork. It spent 8 days back at the dealer with 2 months of acquiring it, and then was back a further 5 times for warranty repairs thereafter. I traced the original owners, who were a retired couple, who traded it as they had had no end of issues since they took delivery of it new.

Faults:

I once pulled out of a gas station on a 50 MPH road too close to oncoming traffic, so I did a few redline-shifts to ensure I got up to speed fast enough.. When I got home about 5 miles later, I had steam coming out from under the cowl.. I blew the head gasket.. Even though the car should have a rev limiter and prevent me from doing any damage to the engine with high rpm activity, I blew one or both head gaskets..

Idler pulley bearing failed at 100,000 miles.

Something is wrong in the driver door window track that is scratching the window when it goes up and down, and I've been told that this is common with Subarus, which have no window frame.

General Comments:

Very reliable, even on a rebuilt engine.

Original wheel bearings still at 161,000 miles..

Everything still works, except the illumination bulbs in some of the feature buttons, such as the heated mirror button, the cruise control button and one of the heated seats buttons.

Faults:

Head gaskets went at 168 000 km.

Have had to replace wheel bearings at least twice on each one.

Love the AWD.

General Comments:

I am wondering if anyone has had a case where the head gaskets have gone again, after already replacing them? Mine were done at 168 000 km. and it seems I am getting the head gasket symptoms again. Is this possible?

Faults:

Number 3 cylinder threw a rod bearing. Was advised to replace the engine. I have yet to put 10,000 miles on it myself and have only had the car for a year and a half. Was informed that the excessive piston slap that these engines have, may have caused this failure.

General Comments:

Love this car.

Comfortable interior, roomy for it's size.

All-wheel drive handled great.

Great in town and on the highway.

However the engine failed after 100K.

Gas mileage nowhere near EPA estimates.

Faults:

Engine completely went out at around 120000 miles. Cost of repair was about 5k.

Needed new axles.

New struts at about 120000 miles.

General Comments:

Slow acceleration and slow in general.

All of the repairs we've done on it so it could run, cost more than a new car.

This was my first car, so I just kinda got stuck with it, and I hate station wagons, but that's more of a personal opinion.

Poor gas mileage at least for the engine and how slow it is, about 19 mpg, maybe 23 highway.

It does handle very smoothly and is rather comfortable.

Fun to drive, but just because it's a manual transmission.

Faults:

I have owned this car since 1999, and have had a few problems with it.

The transmission is the major problem at the moment. I reverse out of driveway and then put car in drive; it stalls, and then after a brief delay, finally goes into drive. I have it at the shop at this time, $2,300 dollars to rebuild the transmission. I am not happy knowing that this is a common problem, and yet I still have to spend money that I do not have to fix it.

I also have a problem with a scraping noise coming from the rear of vehicle. I have had it at the shop on at least three occasions, and although the mechanics can hear the noise, they cannot locate it, to repair. This includes the Subaru dealership. I am not a happy customer.

I also have the issue of an oil leak; that of course is going to cost even more money to repair.