An amalgamation of Japanese Euro engineering

I considered this car because it fulfilled my requirements for what I needed it for which was a road-warrior car. I travel a lot for business, upwards of thousands of miles a week. I'm a big fan of european All-wheel-drive cars but am just starting my career and that is far out of price range. What I ideally wanted was a BMW 325xi (awd) or an Audi A4 (awd). When you limit yourself to an AWD car that is specifically a CAR not an SUV you are pretty limited in your choices. Luckily I found Subaru. I did a lot of research on this car and I am extremely pleased with my purchase.

There were 3 things I wanted in a car.

I wanted a car that was capable (in my case AWD for Nebraska winters)

I wanted a car decent on gas mileage.


I wanted a car that was safe (for all the interstate driving i did)

Capable, Fuel-efficient, Safe. Others included comfortable, wasn't a big boat and specifically having a/c and cruise control.

With that being said it does all those things very well. The AWD was my NUMBER ONE criteria. Winter driving sucks in a car that isn't meant for it, especially RWD, I've had FWD before and i've been stuck more than enough times. Why don't I just get an SUV you ask? Well criteria #2, fuel efficiency. I average about 30mpg on the highway not fantastic but pretty good for the sacrifice of having 4 wheels being powered beneath you all the time. Which leads us into critera #3 safety. The car has 6 air bags, two standard front air bags, two full-size curtain side air bags, and front-seat side airbags. Received best government safety ratings of any car.

I got the standard model but I was okay with that. It would have been nice to step up to the Legacy "Limited" model, which includes leather, sunroof, dual-zone climate, auto-dimming mirror, fog lights, etc... but I'm a recent college grad so I could go without spending that much more money. The nice part about the "Limited" trim level is you could upgrade to the all-weather package that includes heated seats, wipers, side mirrors.

Other nice features is a digital display that gives you information on avg mpg, outside temp, real-time mpg, and elapsed time (time since you started up the car to when you turn it off, very cool feature for figuring out exactly how long it takes you to get somewhere, or testing different routes to work everyday).

Exterior: The pearl white is amazing, but I got a good deal on a silver. The back looks european the front looks japanese. Looks pretty sporty for a sedan. There's no antenna.

Interior: Very well done, I have the black cloth interior. Very cool fabric in the seats. Gauges are nice, climate control simple as can be, radio controls is so-so. Good sized trunk.

Engine: 185hp which is enough to get this car moving, feels responsive and the sportshift feature in the manual works better than i expected, allows you to rev all the way up to the redline, GREAT for merging onto the interstate, I love it. I like driving a manual but wanted something where I didn't have to work so much all the time.