Nashwill

We saw this guy at the LA Auto Show. Unlike a lot of y'all, we both like the Forester best of all the Subies, both in the looks department and as a practical proposition: it's exactly the size we need, no bigger and no smaller. And I think the new Sport is the sexiest little box I've ever seen. We are both officially In Lust...

Dunno how many other SoCal Subaritics are in here, but the Forester is in need of a little attention and we have a (possibly unfounded) prejudice against using dealers' shops. There are several garages in Pasadena that advertise themselves as Subaru fixers, but we like to get recommendations whenever we can. That's how we found one of the best (and the cheapest!) Alfa mechanics on the West Coast, but he works only on Alfas. Of course a guy could starve to death if he worked on nothing but Subies! Anyway, if anyone's got a recommendation I'd love to get it. Nothing really serious, probably - it's just throwing a little oil now and then and making noises like something's rubbing, and the front brakes put up a terrific vibration on first application at high speed, so we do need to get it looked at soon.

Okay - I do drive hard. My point is that a modern car with a fancy electronic EMS driven hard should get better mileage than a 45-year-old car with a carburetor driven the same way, especially if said modern car is rated at 27 mpg highway (yes, it is an automatic)! And I flog the bejeezus out of the Alfa and still get about 20 urban/27 highway.

New to this forum, and to the current generation of Subarus: we got a 2001 Forester a few months back. We love everything about it except that we can't get more than 20 miles out of a gallon of gas, whether it's around town or over the road. This is the fourth 2.5 liter car I've owned, and easily the most technically advanced, but it gets worse mileage than any of the others. I've had a '59 Daimler V8, a '60 Falcon straight-6 (with 2-speed automatic), and an '87 Alfa Milano V6, and they all returned 25-30 mpg on the highway. It can't just be weight - it's only about 300 lb more than the Alfa. What gives? Will Owen

Yeah...what kind of gas mileage are you getting? This is my 4th 2.5 liter car (though the only 4-cylinder), and the most modern by far, but it's the only one that won't give me over 21 mpg. That just ain't right! Nashwill

Hello - just got here. I'm a longtime Alfa guy who's managed to fetch up with a 2001 Forester, and I'm pretty happy with it, except where I'm not, but we'll discuss that later... This is actually my third Subie. #1 was a 360 van that I spotted out in rural Tennessee and just had to have. So tiny, so cute, so amazingly handy for carrying great big items, so intent on killing me...! Yes, the geniuses who designed it accomplished the impossible: a chassis/suspension that could not handle the full force of 16 hp. (Can discuss later.) The other was a '90 Justy, and I really liked that car a lot. In fact, if anyone knows of one for sale, I'd be happy to hear about it. The Forester has taken over daily-driving duty from our still reliable but increasingly fragile '87 Alfa Milano. There are some striking similarities between the two - they both have 2.5 liter engines, though the Alfa's is a V6. Their dimensions are within a couple of inches of each other, except the Forester is almost a foot taller, and almost 400 lb. heavier. Both supposedly 5-passenger 4-doors, both a lot more comfortable for 4 people. The Alfa is of course RWD - I enjoy driving a car like that more in a sporting way than either a FWD or AWD, though I have to say the Forester's drivetrain is amazingly neutral - it's almost impossible to tell which end it's driving from. It just grips and goes. Not much more to say by way of introduction, except that I'm looking forward to sharing the Subaru Experience with y'all. Oh, and I'm in the LA area.