Subaru forest L is a great car for its all wheel drive action. This car can take on any hill or weather really well for a four cylinder engine. It holds the road good and for a smaller car has a smooth ride. The back seat could use a little more leg room but if you are alone or just two people riding it has tons of cargo space with fold down backseats and the roof rack. Also I have slept in the back with the seats folded down and had plenty of room for me and my wife. I am 5'10" 210lb. Like all Subaru for the most part you will have to do the heads at 90-100k miles but other then that and as long as you maintain them they can easily go 300k plus miles. We get about 22 mpg prob can do a little better but 22 is fine with us. One of the best things about the Subaru is they have fuzzy logic memory, meaning they remember how you drive em so the car kinda learns to suit you and your driving patterns (pretty cool huh). The is only a single cup holder in the front and it has odd placement in front of a heating vent but that is far from a deal breaker. So all in all if I had to rate this car I would have to give it a 9/10 cause nothing is perfect but these come pretty dang close. Ps its the only car I have ever drove that when I see other people in Subaru's we all smile and wave excitedly at each other. Truly a unique car community.

This car is still going strong at 10 years and 130,000 miles. It's big enough to schlep furniture I buy on Craigslist (I fit a queen size bed frame in there once!) But it drives like a car and easily fits into reasonably sized parking spaces. The dashboard is laid out in a way that makes sense to me (no gimmicky lights or bells and whistles), and the seats are comfortable for long drives. I think the best thing about this car is the all wheel drive. I live in Pennsylvania and sometimes we get quite a bit of snow. I have never, repeat NEVER had to shovel this car out. I just drive out of the parking lot behind my building while I watch my neighbors shovel out their cars. It's also great in the rain and on winding roads, where it hugs the road. I feel very safe driving this car, because it has excellent crash test ratings. It's easy to drive. The only negatives about this car is that the interior can be somewhat noisy, and the CD player conked out at about year 6--I've never bothered to replace it. And the gas mileage is not great (about 22 mpg average) but I figure that is the trade off for the all wheel drive. A few somewhat expensive repairs came up after 100,000 miles, but that, I think, is to be expected.

I bought this vehicle for the NH winters, because it had a remote starter and all wheel drive which were nice for snowy day. It's not fast, it doesn't handle very well compared to past cars but it has never broken, and it's never needed anything but wear and tear items like tires and brakes. It rides really high which is nice on the highway because it makes the ride comfortable but it feels like a boat going around corners.