New car in the next year..Forrester or RAV 4

lisaross

DIS Veteran
Joined
Dec 29, 2005
Messages
3,833
I really want the Suburu Forrester but am also considering the RaV 4 -

pro's con's on both please??? thanx
 
We were in the market for a car at the beginning of the year. The auto show came to town and it really helped us figure out which 2 cars we liked. It was nice being able to go back and forth between the cars and have the freedom to really look at the cars and figure out the pros and cons of each car. It also helped eliminate cars from our list.

So, if you have the opportunity, it is worth the price of admission.

Sorry, I can't help with either car. I know that there are people who will rave about each one and it really comes down to which one you like, the price, and what works for your family.

Best of luck and congrats on the new car!
 
We are in the market for a new SUV as well. We test drove the Forester 2.5X Limited last week and fell in love with it. I'm 99% sure that is what we are getting. We like how they make their vehicles as low an impact on the environment as possible, you get a lot for less money (more on this in a minute) and the 4WD.

Next Friday we will be test driving the CR-V (which we have now) and Rav-4. I doubt we'll buy the Rav-4 since my mother in law owns one and well....I just can't drive the same car she does. But, just in case, we will test drive it.

I have priced all 3 cars out with edmonds and other sites and I put in all the same options on all 3. The CR-V and Rav-4 came out about $2000 more than the Forester.

I'm curious, which Forester color do you like the best? I love the green but I'm afraid it will look dated in a few years (and we keep our cars for 10+ years). So I think I'm going with the Steel Silver with platinum leather.
 
No idea about the color..My car now plymouth Voyager will be 12 years old in September - we are just about to hit 100,000 miles! It is a Mauroon color so i know what u mean about outdated color BUT when we bought it they had only that one left...

Since i bought that car i've loved the forester - now i see them allover

We are in the market for a new SUV as well. We test drove the Forester 2.5X Limited last week and fell in love with it. I'm 99% sure that is what we are getting. We like how they make their vehicles as low an impact on the environment as possible, you get a lot for less money (more on this in a minute) and the 4WD.

Next Friday we will be test driving the CR-V (which we have now) and Rav-4. I doubt we'll buy the Rav-4 since my mother in law owns one and well....I just can't drive the same car she does. But, just in case, we will test drive it.

I have priced all 3 cars out with edmonds and other sites and I put in all the same options on all 3. The CR-V and Rav-4 came out about $2000 more than the Forester.

I'm curious, which Forester color do you like the best? I love the green but I'm afraid it will look dated in a few years (and we keep our cars for 10+ years). So I think I'm going with the Steel Silver with platinum leather.
 

I had to make the same choice two years ago.We went with the RAV4 beause we got a good trade in with our old Camry. It's also bigger. Other than that it was six of one, half dozen the other.
 
I see them all over, too. I smile and drool a bit, too :)

You are lucky to only have 100,000 on your 12 year old car. Mine is 11 years old and has 131,000. If course it was driven across the country when we moved.
 
FYI-the news last night reported that car dealerships have had a drop of 30% in their inventory of new cars due to the tsunami in Japan and lack of production of parts.
 
The subaru will probably get slightly better gas mileage, but will be more expensive to maintain.
Both will run very well with limited repairs for the first few years, but since you have kept your current car so long, you should look at the long-term repair costs. I think it's Edmunds that lets you see the real cost of ownership?

I have a CRV, and I'm mostly happy with it. I drove a Rav 4, and it is almost exactly the same as my car. I've driven a bunch of Subarus, can never remember which one is which, but they all have such a great ride.

I think either way you will probably be happy with your choice, since they are both nice cars. Just try to check the long term cost of ownership.
 
We ended up going with the RAV-4 several years ago and we absolutely love it.

Of course we have the 3rd row seat that you can only get on the RAV-4 and it was one of the reasons we went with it. Hubby is from the UK and it means when his family comes to visit we usually only have to take one car when we go places which is nice. Also when my parents come over and we go out. It isn't a huge space for legroom but my 6'2" nephew (15 at the time) said he was quite fine in the back.

I must admit both my hubby and I love driving it as it has great handling. You can't go wrong with either.

Hope that helps some.
 
I bought a Forester in February and I love it! I was initially interested in a CR-V but when I compared the two side by side, I felt like I got more for my money with the Forester. It came down to two things: a) the all-wheel drive versus 4-wheel drive and b) how the back door opened. I looked briefly at the RAV-4 and found that the backdoor swings outward, not upward. Swinging outward is not the most helpful when trying to transport oversized items.

I didn't get to drive the Forester much last winter so I'm interested/excited to see the AWD in action.
 
I bought a Forester in February and I love it! I was initially interested in a CR-V but when I compared the two side by side, I felt like I got more for my money with the Forester. It came down to two things: a) the all-wheel drive versus 4-wheel drive and b) how the back door opened. I looked briefly at the RAV-4 and found that the backdoor swings outward, not upward. Swinging outward is not the most helpful when trying to transport oversized items.

I didn't get to drive the Forester much last winter so I'm interested/excited to see the AWD in action.

I think you nailed it - with the Forester, you seem to get more bang for your buck. I like that, too.
 
I have no complaints about my Forester, I actually traded in my Outback for it last year. I feel like we have a lot of room, plus I live on a dirt road so during mud season it handles like a champ.
 
I bought a Forester in February and I love it! I was initially interested in a CR-V but when I compared the two side by side, I felt like I got more for my money with the Forester. It came down to two things: a) the all-wheel drive versus 4-wheel drive and b) how the back door opened. I looked briefly at the RAV-4 and found that the backdoor swings outward, not upward. Swinging outward is not the most helpful when trying to transport oversized items.

I didn't get to drive the Forester much last winter so I'm interested/excited to see the AWD in action.


I've never really understood the difference between AWD and 4WD. Can someone enlighten me? I have a Chrysler van that is AWD and love it. It's great in the snow. But now I'm looking at SUVs, and they are generally 4WD.
 
I considered both the Forester and Rav4, but bought the Hyundai Tucson AWD/4WD. Less $ and longer warrenty. I moved down from a HUMMER H3 that was also AWD/4WD.

*AWD is the power can basically float around all 4 wheels. 4WD is the power is locked 50/50 between the front and rear. 4WD works better in deep snow, sand & mud. My Tucson has a button to put it in 4WD.
 
I considered both the Forester and Rav4, but bought the Hyundai Tucson AWD/4WD. Less $ and longer warrenty. I moved down from a HUMMER H3 that was also AWD/4WD.

*AWD is the power can basically float around all 4 wheels. 4WD is the power is locked 50/50 between the front and rear. 4WD works better in deep snow, sand & mud. My Tucson has a button to put it in 4WD.



So AWD is always on? 4WD you would always have to engage it manually by pushing a button?
 
I know most people love their Subaru-so I will probably be the lone dissenter.

We bought our Forrester in 2004-in 2009 (at, 74,000), we started hearing a clicking noise when turning the vehicle. We took it the dealer and they "thought" it might have to do with the transmission and it was going to cost us 800 bucks. However, they couldn't guarantee that this one repair would work, and said we might even need a whole new transmission.

This was before they started offering the warranty that they offer now on the drivetrain, so we were out of luck (since we were just past the five years, 63,000). I don't know about your city, but the dealership we bought from is now offering a lifetime warranty on the drivetrain.

Seeing as how we didn't know what the problem really was and we thought it ridiculous that we needed a whole new transmission at 74,000-we traded our Subaru for a Honda CRV.

There were a few reasons we just threw in the towel:

1) We live in a hot climate where it rarely snows, so the AWD was more of a nuisance than anything else (every time we lost a tire, which can be often in a large city with lots of freeway debris, we had to buy FOUR all new tires). We just didn't utilize this feature, and really it was our fault for not considering it more when we bought the car.

2) We live in the South, where not a lot Subaru's were around yet (however, I have been seeing them around more). Trying to find a reputable mechanic that specialized in Subaru's was impossible. That meant the dealer-whom I absolutely hated. They sold us our car and wanted nothing more to do with us.

3)The parts for a Subaru were extremely expensive compared to Honda.

3)We were concerned that this was just the beginning of more and more problems and we just didn't want to deal with it. But, maybe, we got a lemon.

OP, I think you live in a cooler climate up East, if I recall your info correctly? So, some of these points may not be valid for you-but just thought I would throw them out there.

Hope I won't get flamed too much since I know most Subaru owners love their vehicles :).
 
I know you didn't mention this as one of your options but I bought a Nissan Rogue in February and so far I'm very happy with it (it's a 4-cyl though so not a lot of power on hills if that's of any importance). I had a Rav-4 two years ago and I prefer this over the Rav, I've owned another vehicle in between but my Rogue feels roomier than what I remember about my Rav and the rear door is the lift gate style rather than swinging to the side like the Rav. I was actually originally looking at the CR-V's but they didn't have any color combinations I wanted so the salesperson asked if a Rogue was an option. I wasn't familiar with them so I drove one, I thought it was a smoother ride than the CR-V and that's what I ended up buying and what reviews I read at the time were very positive. I got the pearl white with black leather interior and I get around 26 mpg on average.
 
I dont have either so I cannot comment on that. What I can warn you, as I was not aware, is when you have an AWD, you must replace all 4 tires at one time. We had a rock embedded in a tire on our Nissan Murano and were given a hard time when we tried to replace the 1 tire. It has something to do with tread depth and computers. We had to contact a Nissan mechanic and he basically told us to replace the back 2 first and then as soon as possible replace the front 2.

From what I was told at the tire place (I could have been misinformed but it is something to look into) Suburu will not allow you to only replace 1 or 2 tires, you must replace all 4.

This means if you get a nail in 1 tire you must replace them all, which can be very expensive.

We replaced ours within 2 months because on the very next month I ran over a nail on 1 of the old tires (Thank Goodness).

Hope this information is useful!
 




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