I’m thinking that we might all know people who buy a new car of the same make every few years. Maybe it’s a string of Cadillacs, or Fords, or Chevys, or something else. How boring that must be, I once thought. Then I bought two Corvettes back to back, then two Foresters. And I have now bought my third. It may look kind of boring, but seven years of advances keep it from being overly so. Even when the new features are in a familiar-looking package, learning the new tricks is not exactly boring to an old dog.
On the plus side of the changes between Foresters two and three is the addition of Android Auto. This supports connecting my phone to the car’s infotainment system. Although I still rely on a Garmin for trip routing and playback, it is really convenient to ask — by voice — for directions to a restaurant and have the route displayed on the built-in screen. That screen is nearly a foot tall and flush mounted in the dash, which I appreciate every time I’m stopped at a light next to someone in a car with what looks like a detached laptop screen stuck to their dashboard. Android Auto also provides easy access to the podcasts I follow and some other goodies, too. What the infotainment system does not provide is a CD player, and I miss that. I’ve substituted a couple of USB thumb drives filled with the content of several CDs, but I’m still thinking of buying a portable CD player.
On the negative side is the continued growth of the Forester from what I thought was its near-perfect size at its 1998 beginning, and the automatic start-stop system. Regarding size, the car is not uncomfortably huge, but it is possible that I would have been more comfortable in a Crosstrek, and that’s probably where I’ll go if and when there is another Subaru purchase for me. My previous Forester missed the addition of auto start-stop by one year. It is a feature around which I have heard the word “hate” used at least as much as with any other. I don’t hate it, but I do find it annoying, and “tolerates” probably best describes my attitude towards it.
Unlike the 2011 to 2018 trade, this move was not triggered by a collision or any other major event. There was nothing wrong with the 2018 car, but it was nearing 150,000 miles, and oil consumption was creeping higher. I knew the time was coming when I would be spending money on something. I decided it would be spent on a new car and went for the first year of a new generation of Forester rather than the middle (as with the 2011) or end (as with the 2018). I bought the car without ever having seen a 2025 model. No exciting colors are available for my desired trim level (Premium), so I went for the red to avoid the blue. They tell me that the Crimson Red Pearl on the 2025 is different from the Camellia Red Pearl on the 2011, but they sure look alike to me. It was the first 2025 delivered by my salesman and the first or second delivered by the dealership.
That was just over a year ago. The car embarked on its first road trip the next month. The opening photo was taken quite recently to mimic similar photos used in the My Wheels posts for my first two Foresters. The photos at left are from that first road trip. The first is a spontaneous snapshot taken as I walked back to the car after taking a picture of something else on the National Old Trails Road near the beginning of the trip. The second was taken near the end of the trip after a blowout ended it just a little early.
On the car’s third road trip, it was “mooed” while parked in front of the Midland Railroad Hotel in Wilson, KS. While I think the Moo Moo Subaru movement is a fun one, I have no plans to become a mooer. As this is the only time this has happened, I have donated the tiny bovine to the menagerie of similarly sized critters at my nearby Le Peep restaurant.
By the end of 2024, the new Subie had been involved in a total of five documented trips, but not a single one since then. That’s certainly not the Forester’s fault. It’s mine, and it is about to be remedied. It and I are off on our first road trip of 2025 in less than a week.
My Previous Wheels: Chapter 40 — 1997 Schwinn
My Wheels Checkpoint: Chapter 41 — The Wheels So Far