hi Wazuans,

Anyone who has experienced Subaru forester?

Fuel consumption
Reliability
Maintenance Cost

I am thinking of getting one soon.

toyota has the largest share in kenyan mkt. with the hard economic times and increased fuel cost this is a car to avoid. the car has a 2ltr engine and is turbo charged.

Fuel consumption: depends on how you maintain your car. Gives as good as it gets. Also depends on whether or not you’re a lead foot. If you’re constantly flooring the accelerator coz of the thrill of the turbo blast, you pay more. Like most cars, most efficient when doing long distances as opposed to start stop town driving.
Reliability? Never had issues.
Servicing: Service with genuine parts and you should be fine. The same goes for normal replacement parts. Again, go genuine and you’ll be fine (especially for parts that go under the hood). You replace and forget.
Cost is relative. Compared with toyota service parts – more expensive but they last.

Yucks:
Space: not so much legroom at the back. I hear the later models improve on this.
Windscreen noise at some speeds; first time you hear it you’ll think something is wrong with the car.
Resale value is low: which isnt a problem if you’re buying to keep.

very reliable, genuine parts last and are costly (plugs @ 7,500) but last you 20k-30k km, i think better fuel ratio in Nairobi than on long distance because constantly utilize the turbo.
download a manual for your model, order your parts in advance from UK,UAE etc saves you tons.

what are the pro's of having a turbo charged engine?

Are you serious???

maybe you can explain how esp for a model like forester 2008/9 model...since i i thought turbocharge also known as forced induction forced more air into your car thus more fuel is needed.thus decreasing fuel economy

Forced induction basically means a greater volume of air gets into the engine resulting in more efficient combustion for a fixed volume of fuel.

Using a reasonably driven 2009 Forester as an example, the 2L turbo should be less thirsty than the 2L non-turbo under similar conditions.

I won't mention the more powerful STI versions because these are tuned more for performance than fuel economy.

thanks man.

let us know in due course esp on the turbo maintenance ,fuel consumption and such.

I too would prefer a turbo model over an NA model especially if the turbo model has a lower cc capacity. There is nothing to fear about the turbo models and if one is conscious with the right foot you can actually get higher mileage than an NA equivalent. People like to say that there is no replacement for displacement which is true depending on purpose however I like to think of turbo vehicles as having power on demand, of course depending on the size of the turbo you have to deal with lag but generally speaking turbos are more fuel efficient as some posters above have indicated.

Maintenance also isn't an issue. You don't have to use synthetic oil for turbos and conventional oil won't necessarily break down a turbo. You just have to be cognizant of the fact that if you use conventional oil you will probably be changing your oil more frequently due to high heat the turbo generates which by the way uses engine oil for cooling. The issue I think many people have is they get addicted to the turbo whoosh and power and take shortcuts to make more power i.e upping the boost with an MBC or EBC without any other supporting changes. Well, that does give you more power but it's fleeting. You'll get problems sooner or later. Another issue is with the quality of gas. If you up the boost and don't increase the quality of fuel then at the very least you'll need to things such as remap your ECU, lower your compression etc.

Generally speaking, a turbo model does not necessarily mean increased costs in fuel consumption, reliability or maintenance. There are other factors within your direct control that will affect those key metrics mentioned.