2025 Subaru Forester vs. the Subaru Outback and Crosstrek that I Sold Which is a better car

Welcome back guys, or if you're new to my channel, this is Automotive Anonymous, that's our 2025 Subaru Forester, and today's video is primarily going to be focusing on the topic of if we were to buy a new Subaru today, which one would we buy? We've owned this 0.25 Forester for about 5 months, putting over 2,000 miles on it, and if you follow my channel, a lot of you guys know that we just sold our 2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness, which had over 44,000 trouble-free miles, and before starting YouTube a couple years ago, I've even owned a 2-liter Crosstrek Premium for over 40,000 miles, so we've been fortunate enough to get to own all the major power plants and all the major models of the Subaru lineup, and today we're going to talk about a lot of things, including where does this shine, where does the Outback shine, which one is better, and if we had to buy a new one today, which one would we go with? But first of all, there are a few housekeeping items that we need to talk about, and if you guys like Subaru, the Forester, or the Outback, or my video, please be so kind to consider liking my video, I really appreciate it, it helps me know you want to watch more stuff like this, and it helps me know that this video is insightful for you guys, thank you so much. Starting with the fact that these days, we mostly just buy white and silver vehicles, because unless they're muddy, they don't really show a lot of dirt, debris, and scratches, and then I always have the front windows tinted by the tint lady in Southern Idaho, which if you reference this video, she'll give you a substantial discount. The factory tint on the rear is probably in the low 20%, the front is 35%, so it's the legal limit, but on an overcast day like today, it does look a little bit darker than usual, which is going to help protect you from this guy, it's going to help the interior stay cool, block some more UV rays, and overall just give you a better driving experience, so definitely check her out, I've never had to wait for more than about 30 minutes, and in fact, when I had the RAV4 tinted just a few days ago, she did that job in 17 minutes we were in and out, which is phenomenal, but also this Subaru is going to be our long-term car unless something happens to it. We did buy a 10-year, 100,000 mile warranty, which, you know, 2,000 miles in five months so far, like I've mentioned before, we really aren't driving it a whole lot so far, but it is going to be more of our winter vehicle and a road trip vehicle, but if you do want a substantial discount on an extended warranty, that's actually the Subaru Gold Member Plus warranty, check out Twinfull Subaru, I'll link them below as well, because they are going to give you a good discount below MSRP if you reference this video, and actually there's one more discount you guys could potentially get if you are considering trading Subarus, buying a new one, maybe becoming a first-time buyer, is if you do check out Subaru of America's website, you call their customer service advocacy line, you might actually be able to talk them into sending you a $500 emailed coupon that you can use after all other negotiations on your Subaru, that's what we did on this one, so we really did get a pretty good deal, but the first thing that I want to mention for how this compares to the Outback is this is a compact crossover, just like the Mazda CX-5, the Toyota RAV4, and the Honda CR-V, whereas technically the Outback is a mid-sized crossover SUV, the Outback is about a foot longer, so it does have a little bit more length, although the interior volume is not substantially greater, so one of the things that I have noticed with the size difference in this, and where the Outback honestly shines, is when you open up the hatch, having about 30 cubic feet in here is fantastic, but to utilize all that you have to stack pretty high, you don't have the extra foot of length that the Outback has, so some items are going to be harder to fit in here, you are going to have to have the seats reclined forward, which you can see there's a difference right here, but there's just not the same depth that we have on that vehicle, so the Outback has historically been a better road trip car for us, we've taken it you know up to about a 2,000 mile road trip before, it did phenomenally well, this one we've only taken on to maybe a 500 mile weekend trip, because again it's hardly been used, and it is not as stable on the road, it weighs a few hundred pounds less, it doesn't have as long of an overhang over the wheels, just to keep it planted and less likely to rotate down the road, so this is a very good car, around town it is much more convenient, and it's often the one we actually choose to drive, because it fits in parking spaces better, it's not necessarily more narrow than the Outback, they're both about 6 feet wide, but the reduced length really helps out, and the increased visibility that this offers, while the Outback is fantastic, this thing is just unreal, I haven't really driven any other vehicles that do better than this, but also visibility is kind of something you get used to, just for reference the other day I drove a Hummer H2, and a sixth generation Camaro for reviews that will be out soon, or they're on my membership program right now if you're interested, and you just kind of get used to having worse visibility, but when you drive something like the Forester, even though there is a trade-off in cargo capacity being a compact crossover, the visibility is fantastic, the next thing to talk about is the price, and how much you guys are going to be paying, this premium MSRP for about $35,000, that's the MSRP we were able to get it quite a bit cheaper with Subaru's discount, but they also offer that discount for basically everyone, you can check out their website if you're interested, but you might be able to get up to a couple thousand dollars off potentially, but this vehicle for being $35,000 MSRP compared to the Outback Wilderness three years earlier that MSRP for around $41,000, it really doesn't feel like you're missing a whole lot, sure the wheels might be a little bit cooler, a little bit better and more substantial on the Outback, but a vehicle has to come with wheels either way, so that price difference right there might only be worth a couple hundred dollars, sure the suspension is a little bit different, but the biggest thing is the turbo engine, you have a couple thousand dollars more under the hood, but overall the only feature that this is really missing that the Outback had that we care about is this doesn't have reverse automatic braking, otherwise it feels like it's basically about the same vehicle, but for $6,000 cheaper and that's even counting inflation over three years from when we purchased the Outback, which a modern Outback is now probably MSRP like $44,000, so this feels like a more affordable vehicle, it feels more reasonable, but unfortunately when we did buy this insurance did jump up maybe 30 bucks compared to the car that this replaced, and insurance on this then became more expensive than the Outback, but I think that's just because it's a newer vehicle, so it currently had a higher value than the Outback, so in a couple years I expect that price to go down, but also having the non-turbo boxer engine, ultimately around town I don't really miss the power, I don't really notice it too much, it's going to be more noticeable when you are passing semis and farm equipment and other slow-moving vehicles, or you're going up a mountain pass or you're at elevation, and personally I don't really floor this vehicle very often when I'm not close to home, if something were to happen I don't want it to break down, which I know seems kind of strange especially when I've never had any issues with our Sabres, but with three other vehicles I've had major power train components fail while driving, so I don't like to push vehicles if they're on road trips, if they're away from my daily therapy commute, things like that, and especially when CVTs on average are more likely to go out when you are weighted down driving through the heat of the summer on a road trip, so like when we drove to the coast about a year ago in the Outback, I don't think I floored it once just because I didn't need to, and I don't expect this vehicle would need to be floored either, you just have to be cautious and careful and know how the power delivery is, and when you need to put the foot down a little bit more, and when you can relax and use you know your kinetic energy that you've already created to coast along. I think one of the more refreshing things too with this vehicle is the miles per gallon, around town it does maybe get four or five higher than the Outback with the turbo engine, at highway speeds though it is about the same, they both get in the low 30s or my Outback could get in the low 30s, the worst it ever really got at highway speeds was probably about 28, and then at interstate speeds, which in this area is 80 miles per hour, this again shines with about you know six or seven higher than the Outback, this actually got about 30 miles per gallon if I remember correctly on our little bit of a road trip before, and the Outback it's anywhere from 20 to 24, so this does do better there, which is just a nice touch even though the gas tank is a little bit smaller, it seems like the max road trip and range is fairly similar to that vehicle, but probably the most inconvenient thing with owning the Forester over Outback right now, is the stage of life we're in right now, let me show you this on the interior, if I have the seat roughly where I would like to sit, where I'm not cramped, I'm not too close to the steering rack or anything like that, check out the back seat, kind of like the hatch, there's a little bit less room, which you might be saying, oh that looks like a lot of room, and it really is, and the door opens very wide on the Forester, but there would be a little bit more room for me to have my seat where I want it to be in the Outback, as well as having more room, so say if you do have a car seat or say like a hybrid car seat like this one, that does have a stroller component added in, so it is a little bit bigger as a car seat, it's going to be harder to fit in, and I often am going to have to slide forward, that way we don't rub on the back of the seat, and it's just going to be a little bit more inconvenient, but the Subaru still does a much better job than a lot of those smaller crossover competitors, ultimately I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all, I don't think I would personally go back to a Subaru Crosstrek at this point, after having more room and more capability, I think that might be a little bit too small for this stage of life, because the Forester is already on the smaller end of that spectrum for what works for us, and for the occasional road trip and all the things that we want to do with this car, but overall they're both fantastic, there's a reason both of these vehicles sell over 100,000 units every single year, I really like the Outback, and I think a lot of you guys know that it's more stable on the road, because most of its miles for my driving, my daily route is interstate and highway driving, it's not around town, which is what this Forester is used for, so the Forester is what we want to drive when we take it out around town to do some grocery shopping and things like that, but the Outback is what we want to take on longer road trips, on day trips, on things where we need the extra stability and the extra power, even though we're not flooring it, it's still appreciated, but for you know almost a $10,000 savings for one of these premium Foresters compared to the non apples-to-apples Outback Wilderness, I think this is a fantastic vehicle, it's worth the money, I think they're both worth the money, but other than a few complaints like the sizing of this, and the things that you're literally buying it for, it does everything we want it to do, having that 10-year warranty means this is going to be our family car, our stress-free car, we just aren't likely to have any financial surprises with it, which I really appreciate, and honestly had I gotten an extended warranty on the Outback before I ran out of the possibility to have the bumper-to-bumper warranty ending, maybe I would have kept that vehicle, but also for my daily driver I usually swap that out every couple years anyways, and I'm excited to share the next vehicle with you guys, but as long as there is always a Subaru in the family, I will always be happy, nothing handles like these in the snow, on ice, in wintry weathery conditions, if you haven't driven a Subaru in the snow I highly recommend you do, and then I'd love to know your guys' thoughts and opinions, what do you like more, the Forester or the Outback, what do you think of the 2026 Outback, do you like it more than the current 6th generation, or not as much from what we know so far from the spy photos, I'd love to know all that in the comments, and anything else that has triggered a thought in your mind based off of this video, I wish you guys the best, I hope you take care, and thanks so much for watching, if you got anything out of this video please consider liking it, comment, as mentioned, and subscribe, until next time, see you guys!