forester

Been driving the new (for me) Forester for a while now...seems like a good car. It runs well so far and certainly drives well. It's gotten better gas mileage on trips than I expected, for being as loaded down as it has been. It's generally convenient and easy to drive/use, and hopefully it'll stay that way for a long time. I see a lot of Subarus on the road these days, new and old, and especially up here. I figure close to half the worldwide sales of Foresters and Outbacks must come from the greater Boston area.

The best part so far has been the ability of that thing to haul large amounts of stuff. For both moving trips I've been able to pack it with more than I expected in less time than I expected. I even managed to bring my prized wicker chair with me to Taxachusetts, meaning I will actually have something besides an old camping chair and a bunch of boxes to sit on. I also brought all the "optional" stuff that was at the bottom of the list -- cushions, vacuum, etc. Heck, I could have even packed my old computer had I wanted to.

It does have some quirks, though, that I will need to "fix" at some point. For one, the obnoxious seat belt alarm beeps at me every so often if I don't fasten the seat belt, even if the car isn't moving. Uh, hello, the risk of flying through the windshield is rather small at 0 mph, no? And if I'm so audacious as to put it in gear without a seat belt on then the alarm goes nuts and doesn't shut up until the belt is fastened. Be assured I'll be looking at a car manual soon to figure out how to disable that useless and maddening feature.

Also, the car alarm goes off if I use the key instead of the remote to unlock the key. Of course, this makes one wonder why there is even a keyhole in the door. I guess if worse comes to worse, I can drive it home with the horn blaring. Or maybe the extra time a thief would need to disable the horn before driving off with the car would be enough for me to get there. Who knows...bizarre.

The dealer let me down a lot I think, but I can live with that as long as the car itself holds up. The windshield washer fluid container was empty when I bought it, which proves that the Moore folks didn't even do a basic fluids check. The brakes have already started to squeak a little -- not an immediate problem but not something I'd expect to hear so soon after driving the car off the lot either. I've already had to replace a headlight bulb, which certainly shouldn't be necessary at 50k miles and was never a problem on my old car with 120k miles. (Granted, this would be hard for a dealer to catch and replace prior to failure, but it makes me wonder what else might be wrong that could be about to go out.) Given all that, I have no reason to assume the dealer did anything at all to the car prior to selling it, despite owning it for more than a month according to the title paperwork. Yeah, that's a little disappointing. If any of y'all ever consider buying from Moore Cadillac in Richmond, beware.

So...overall, pretty good so far, but I'll reserve judgment for several more months and hope nothing major comes up between now and then.