We have had an 09 XT for about a year and it's been great.
The 04's are quite a bit quicker though.

I keep seeing the lowered Forresters and think they'd be a cool ride. I'd still like an S40 t5 or Legacy GT first.

The classifieds section at SF.org is pretty robust... lots of enthusiast owned vehicles in great shape with appropriate mileage. It looks like there are a lot of members in SoCal as well, lucky for me.

If the wife insists on new, then we're stuck with an automatic, asI think I'm reading that they went to auto-only in 2009... and I think an XT w/leather and no NAV will be about $27k-$28k.

If she insists on manual tranny, then we can start looking at 2008 and earlier and I'm confident we can find the perfect car for $15k... which would be awesome.

to get leather in an 09 XT I believe you have to go with the limited package, those are too spendy. You can get a base XT which has everything you need for about 23k. Installing nav is easy, you can order a trim panel from japan that fits a double din perfectly, and the subaru nav unit blows anyway


rumor has it they might bring the turbo diesel forester over, might be worth looking into for 33mpg

the cloth seats are like a neoprene and wear like iron.

Thanks Philip (and welcome back). Good advice on the NAV. Looking at the PDF, you can get the leather in the Premium, but not a leather wrapped steering wheel and a few other interior amenities. The wife is going to go test-drive a few this weekend. I think the lack of a manual tranny is going to be a deal-breaker for buying a new one... but I don't mind saving $10k and buying a used 2006-2008. I think a used XT Premium is the ticket.

NEED HELP
I registered at SubaruForester.org and I think the Navy server onboard is kicking back the registration email. I can log-in there, but can't post or look at all the forums because I haven't activated my account because the email never got through. I've looked for an hour and can find no way to contact the forum via email or sending a message. I tried the CONTACT US page, but it keeps telling me I don't have the rights. Does anybody have a login there that can PM the ADMIN for me and have them activate my account internally, or send me a real email and not a VBulletin computer generated one. My login of course is SamNavy, and my ships email is samuel.keslerATcvn68.navy.mil.
Thanks if you can help!

mine was set on buying a NA until I made her drive the turbo, SOLD!
the turbo does come a little better equipped though.
Not much snow in SAN but the thing is unstoppable in the snow.

samnavy,
I PMed the admin at SF.org. If you search my username, you can see some old posts by me. I used to have an '04 FXT and at one time had the most whp over there (411whp IIRC). Sold the car a couple years ago but am rockin an '05 LegGT wagon with some minor mods.

Frank

I was set on the car too for a while but gave up searching because I could never find a a decent priced xt that was also a stick.