Look out Audi, Subaru has you beat.

I'm a disgruntled former owner of an Audi 100 Wagon which I've written up in another EP review. I loved my Audi but hated the unreliability and costly repairs. When my Audi became too costly to repair I looked around for something to replace it that would have some of the creature comforts and performance features I'd grown to love about that horribly unreliable truckload of overpriced and poorly built German engineering.

I wanted AWD, heated leather sets, a good sound system, good handling and control in all weather, and a reliable, well built driving machine. The Subaru Legacy Outback Limited Edition Wagon (phew, say that fast three times) looked like just what I'd been wishing for. I ordered one of these last January and picked up my brand new car in early February. Trading in the Audi felt so good. I felt I was getting away with something by trading in an incredibly poorly built lemon for a bright and shiny new vehicle with a pristine reputation for rugged reliability, plus point for point/feature for feature, a great match up to the old Audi.

I've now been driving this car for a few months and it's been great. Right after I got it we had a 12" snowfall. My commute home from work that day was slow and tedious due to all the older rear wheel drive cars still on the road being unable to get good traction on a poorly cleared rush hour freeway. Once I got close to home, I could see my street was not yet plowed. There was close to a foot of snow clogging the street. By this time, I had already spent 4 hours inching the 24 miles home on clogged freeways. I had no patience to worry if my car could get through the unplowed street so I just turned in to it and drove straight through as if it were a warm sunny day. Wow! The Audi would never have been able to do that with it's low road clearance (if it were running that day).

This car has been good in all kinds of weather and road conditions so far. Dry days, rainy days, heavy snow, freeway driving at 85 mph (we drive fast in NJ), and around town have all been a good solid feel.

Creature comforts abound in this fully loaded version. The leather seats are comfortable and offer good support. Driver's seat is fully powered, up down, back tilt, seat tilt. Front seats are heated, good for cold wintry days. Climate control is manual but works well. Defrosters on the rear window and even special heater elements in front to keep the wiper blades from freezing in place in the rest position. Side mirrors are also heated, a real plus in a cold snowy climate. The rear view mirror dims automatically and includes an electronic compass. The premium sound system includes a 6 CD deck at the bottom of the console, an AM/FM/Weather radio with cassette, and a single play CD at the top (7 CDs total!). The premium sound package comes with tweeters at the front door posts for clarity, mid range in the bottom of the doors, and a subwoofer system buried under the seats. Sound quality is very good, best I've ever heard in a stock wagon.

The engine is a horizontally opposed 4 cylinder "boxer" design. The design keeps the engine weight closer to the ground than most engines for a fairly low center of gravity, a good feature for cornering. It's not a high powered engine (170 hp) but is powerful enough for the car's weight. For the power hungry there is the LL Bean version option with a 220 hp 6 cylinder engine of similar design. The engine idles very smoothly and is a very quiet engine. There is practically no engine vibration transmitted to the passenger compartment. In fact, the engine is so quiet that if you are not careful and don't check the tacho you may think the engine had stalled.

I chose a manual transmission and am impressed with the smoothness of shifting. 1st gear torque is good for peppy dead starts. Engine revs are a little high at higher speeds (80 mph = around 4K rpm) but the engine is very smooth and quiet.

There are just a couple of things that could be improved. The steering wheel tends to get in the way on entry. It has a tilt adjustment but it doesn't go quite high enough to give good leg clearance. I'd add a notch or two on that. Also, I have noticed that when I take a group of big adults out and the car has maybe 700 lbs of human flesh to haul around, the suspension gets a little soft at this kind of load. Some kind of load levelers or stiffer springs may be in order. But this is not a big problem, just something that surprised me the other day.

For safety, this car comes with front airbags for driver and passenger, side impact bags for the front seats, and reported good crash test results.

All in all, I'd say this is a great car for the money.