I'm looking at these two for a new-to-me daily driver. Somewhere in the 2003-2007 range. Good, bad, ugly experiences with either? Any major repairs or problems I should see coming?
Toyota RAV4 or Subaru Forester?
- Thread starter shootsacanon
- Start date
In the year range you specified, the Toyota will be more interesting, SUV like. The Forester is kinda station wagon bland. New ones are really cool, full SUVish. Both have great quality. Performance wise, the Subi of course will kick ass with the boxer and AWD.
RX330 / 350. Consumer Reports just listed Lexus as the most reliable car manufacturer out there.
I didn't know Lexus made a taco truck.
Not sure how far you drive but the RAV has a small fuel tank. We have several at work that we use as company vehicles. They run well mechanically but it seems we are always having to fuel then up. Not because of bad mileage but because of tank size. I think it's like 12 gals or something.
We put 160k on a 2004 without any issues until my son totaled it. It does have a smaller fuel tank and get 275-325 miles per tank if I remember right. Easy to do maintenance on.
The Subaru styling doesn't bother me; I kind of like the utilitarian look, and the added performance. At the same time, I'm not sure I want to trade performance for reliability, if that's an issue between the two.
Lexus seems to always be up there (though I haven't kept track of it lately) but I'm not wild about premium gas and $$$ part prices when something does give out.
Interesting. 12 gal is pretty small. I put on about 1k per month, which I think is pretty average. Do you see anything come up repeatedly as a repair issue?
We had a '96 and an '06 RAV4s. '96 was very, very good. '06 was very, very bad...continuous rattles, weak AC, cheap plastic interior hardware pieces, started using oil like crazy, no help from Toyota until after we dumped it. Turned me off Toyotas.
