My wife was also looking at a Crosstrek. I just read the article on how the 2013 Crosstrek plus a number of other models have an oil burning issue that Subaru refuses to acknowledge or fix. I am trying to decide if this will affect my decision to buy from the company.

I was just in another training session and my instructor asked a Toyota engineer when he was in japan why we don't have nearly as many special serice tools as the domestics , he replied why make special tools when we can just make better cars . He was dead serious too , we have kaizan at Toyota it means constant improvement , we don't want to leave someone stranded on the side of the road so we have lots of recalls to fix things before there are problems. That's why I love working here.

It seems like every major dealer has had a massive recall of some sort in the last few years, including Toyota.

Ugh I hate car shopping... I hate being a girl and trying to go car shopping. I hate being indecisive. I miss my old truck.... I miss when I was getting 800k to a tank even with it being a V8 *sigh*

Another thing I was seeing and heard about is the head gaskets on the subarus is an issue sometimes around 100,000km give or take. No guarantee it will happen, but not a fun job to fix. My bf didn't seem entirely worried about it however but they are really buried in there.

Anyone have any input on the Mitsubishi RVR? Seems comparable. Im unsure if their 2.0 or 2.4l engines. Some places say one thing, others say something different, quite a few reviews about ****ty fuel economy however, but people then don't post what their getting! Argh.

I think the Rav4 is just a bit out of my budget :/

Have you looked at the jeep diesels?

List price on a new one is $67K, that's a lot more than an Audi.

Thats an awefull nice house down payment.

Yuup! haha, the new jeeps are nice.. but man are they ever expensive.

I think every vehicle out there is way over priced. I paid almost $70,000.00 for my 2007 GMC 3/4 ton

To be fair the Jeeps do start at $40K which is about right for a full size SUV that actually tow and go off pavement. The catch is if you want the diesel you're forced to go up a couple trim levels. At that point they are in the same class as the ML350, X5d, Touareg and Cayenne and it's the cheapest of the bunch so they do offer good value.