The high maintenance costs is good to know.
It's more than a Civic, but no more than I used to pay for my Ford or Fiat in the UK. The bigger hassle is having to get the oil changed twice a year, rather than once.
Does the interior ride have that many rattles? that would bug me.
People keep saying it does, but I've yet to notice any. Maybe it's because I have the stereo turned up to block out the noise from the studded tires
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Are there any known issues with this generation's engine, CVT, AWD system, or anything else?
Up to the mid-late 2014s, the 2.5 engine could burn significant amounts of oil if you got a bad one. That's far less common on the 2015s, and only seems to have affected manual cars so far.
Only Subaru CVT failures I'm aware of are due to manufacturing faults (one), or people putting normal transmission fluid in there, instead of CVT fluid (two or three).
Btw, many of you speak of the XT. I know reliability is supposed to be pretty good with the N/A engine. I thought the turbo 4 is supposed to be not as good. Are they a problem?
The XT doesn't burn oil like some 2.5s, but there have been a few people finding significant amounts of fuel in the oil. There have also been several ECU firmware changes, and the perennial question of whether the turbo hoses are attached properly (see the long thread in the FA20DIT forum).
Things that mildly bug me:
1. The peculiar operation of the dashboard button for the power tailgate: it doesn't work unless you unlock driver and passenger doors first, even though the button on the key does. Just to make it more confusing, it does work if the passenger door is locked but you've previously used the button on the key to open it.
2. Having to manually lock the car with the key if you want to leave it locked with the engine running. Though our Civic is the same.
3. Doors don't auto-lock when you drive.
4. Erratic operation of the power tailgate. Some days it just doesn't feel like opening or closing, probably due to ice somewhere in the mechanism.
5. Lack of a coolant temperature display.
6. Highway fuel consumption. In the summer, we basically get 30-35 (Canadian) mpg everywhere, whether city or highway. We can get up to 40 on the highway, but only if we drive slow. Though, to be honest, I wouldn't be complaining about 35 on the highway if it only got 20 in town, so it's partly due to the impressive city fuel economy.
7. Having to use secret codes to get decent sound out of the stereo.
8. Having two different ways to set up Bluetooth to a phone,
one of which doesn't actually work.
9. Speech interface doesn't understand an English accent. Or, at least, it doesn't understand mine.