2005 Subaru Legacy

I leased a 2005 Legacy 2.5 GT in mid September 2004. I am writing this review in early April 2005, with just over 11,000 miles on the car.

First the positive: As I anticipated, this car is just a blast to drive. It's got loads of power, it hugs the road, and it's got incredible traction on snow and ice. I live in Denver, Colorado, and I regularly drive up into the mountains. Most cars experience noticeable drop-offs in power as they get to high elevations, but the Legacy always has plenty of power to spare. The fun of accelerating up the steep stretch of highway 70 past Georgetown, while everyone else is struggling just to maintain their cruising speed is an not an experience to be missed.

The interior layout is generally quite good, with a very comfortable drivers seat that really helps make you feel totally in control of the car. Visibility is also very good.

Now the negative: By far the most annoying feature of this car is its seat-belt alarm. I'm sure that the folks at Subaru think they're doing everyone a tremendous favor, trying to ensure that everyone in this car always wear their seatbelts. But they just went to far, and only ended up making the car extremely annoying. Now, I always wear my seatbelt, but sometimes even I need to take my seatbelt off while the car is still running. Three examples: 1. Going through a drive-through. My wallet is in my back pocket, and I can't reach it without removing my seat belt. As soon as I do "chime, chime, chime, chime" there goes that -expletive deleted- seat-belt alarm. 2. My cell phone rings. It is in a holster, attached to my belt, under my jacket. To get it, I have to release my seat belt, unbutton my jacket, and grab my coat. Then I am trying to answer the phone while driving, and there's that seat-belt alarm again! 3. I've got a heavy package on the passenger seat. The car (which has a weight sensor on the passenger seat so it can disable the airbag for small passengers) detects the weight of the package, decides that it is a person who needs to be buckled in, and chimes incessantly at me for a half an hour as I drive the package to its destination.

So - you get the idea. There is a method for turning the seat belt alarm off (you have to buckle and unbuckle the seatbelt 20 times within 30 seconds of starting the car), but I haven't been able to make it work, despite attempting it probably 20 times or so.

That is by far the most annoying design flaw, but here are a few more also.

The cruise control only works up to 80 mph. For this car, it should work up to 100 mph at least.

One of the neat features I was eager to try out was the windshield-wiper heaters. These are to help ensure that snow and ice doesn't freeze to your windshield wipers. This is a very important feature for those of us who live in cold climates, or regularly drive through Rocky Mountain blizzards. Unfortunately, the heaters turn themselves off after 10 minutes. I guess maybe nobody at Subaru expected a snowstorm to last more than 10 minutes. The problem is that by the time you notice that your wipers are getting covered with ice, and you turn the heaters back on, it is too late - and they can't ever catch up again.

The rear defrost similarly turns itself off after about 20 minutes with the same results. You notice your rear window is becoming coated with ice, and you turn the defrost back on, but it can't ever catch up again.

There are no dashboard controls for the main cabin lights; you have to reach up to the ceiling to turn the cabin lights on or off. It's an odd oversight - every car I have ever been in has dashboard controls for the main lights. I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want such a control.

You can't get a factory-installed radio with either XM or MP3 playing capabilities. The factory radio is pretty good, and I like it, but I really wanted both of those options.

There's no change compartment on or near dashboard. Another small but annoying oversight. There is a very nice little compartment for sunglasses, though.

The buttons on the remote are overly sensitive; it's far too easy to lock the car by bumping a button when the remote is in your pocket. This keeps happening to me!

The auto-dimming rearview mirror doesn't dim the lights of close cars. When they get a fair distance away, suddenly they get much dimmer. And of course, the lights you most want to be dimmed are those of very close cars and trucks.

With DRLs (Daytime Running Lights), you can't flick your lights at people - to warn them about deer on the road, for example.

The climate control system is far to complicated and automated. Mine is always doing strange things, like suddenly becoming ice-cold, even when it is set to manual, as opposed to auto controls.

This last problem may be due to some kind of electrical fault in my car, and not a design flaw. What makes me say that is that my car does have one real, actual problem, and it is clearly an electrical short of some kind. On very wet days, when it is raining hard, my gas guage will suddenly go to zero. The check engine light and the low battery light also come on. The car continues to drive just fine, but it's a little disconcerting. The first time it happened, I got to a gas station as fast as I could and filled up with gas. When I restarted the car, though (after putting in about a gallon of gas), the guage still read absolutely empty. I have yet to bring the car back to the dealership to fix this problem, since it hardly ever rains that much in Denver, but that problem makes me suspect that there might be other symptoms as well.

One final word. According to the dealership and the manual, the engine requires 91 octane gas or better. But I have been using 87 octane and have noticed no diminishment of power or any other kinds of problems.