Henry Rifle Forums

I'm buying another small trailer for camping and will be buying a new tow vehicle for it. The Suburu 3.6R Touring seems to have the right stuff. Who owns a Suburu?

See the separate thread on my new Raindrop here: http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3418

We owned six subarus over the years, and all but the last were great cars. I put over 200k miles on number five, a Forester, and we took excellent care of the car. We traded it for a crew cab frontier to have more room and better access for the wife's service dog. The forester sold off the lot before we completed the sales paperwork on our new truck.

Number six wasn't a bad car, just a design change made the interior too small for a big guy with limited mobility. Lol.

The fact that you don't see many used subarus says a lot... the owners just keep them forever.

We just got a 3.6L Outback and really like it - can't talk too much about reliability because it only has 1000 miles on it, but so far it's been a great little car - plenty of power and still gets about 27 mpg on the highway - even driving in the mountains. I don't know if we got the "Touring" edition, but the one we have sure has lots of electronic and electric gadgets (power rear hatch, eyesight lane keeper, rear camera, moon roof, navigation, etc....) - so far everything is working fine - seems to be a comfortable driving car on the road and the AWD makes it capable off the road. We've owned Jeep wranglers for over 25 yrs and this Outback has almost the same ground clearance as our standard Jeeps - should be a good vehicle to take camping....

tractortad wrote:We just got a 3.6L Outback and really like it - can't talk too much about reliability because it only has 1000 miles on it, but so far it's been a great little car - plenty of power and still gets about 27 mpg on the highway - even driving in the mountains. I don't know if we got the "Touring" edition, but the one we have sure has lots of electronic and electric gadgets (power rear hatch, eyesight lane keeper, rear camera, moon roof, navigation, etc....) - so far everything is working fine - seems to be a comfortable driving car on the road and the AWD makes it capable off the road. We've owned Jeep wranglers for over 25 yrs and this Outback has almost the same ground clearance as our standard Jeeps - should be a good vehicle to take camping....

Thanks. Its always good to hear from someone that actually owns one.

My son has an '08 Legacy sedan. He bought it slightly used. Had to have a head replaced at around 100k. It has a 2.5 4 cyl.

Other than that it's a nice car. When we went looking for it I hadn't driven a Subi since the "Brat" days. I was impressed.

My fiance has an Outback for a company car. I just looked in the garage. It's a 2017. It has lots of things on it. It didn't say what model or engine size. She has had two Outbacks and a Forester before. It's comfortable and should fill your needs. I've always found the Subaru vehicles to be well built and fairly trouble free. I say that, but she puts lots of miles in just a couple of years. None of them ever see six digits of mileage, so I can't say what type of endurance they have.

Good luck with yours.

Just remember as you go up in trailer weight it's not pulling power it's stopping power. Most vehicles pull fine but brakes are not heavy duty enough to do the proper job even with trailer brakes. I see lots of SUV guys pulling campers etc and they haul fine but....just my $.02. Best of luck.

RanchRoper wrote:Just remember as you go up in trailer weight it's not pulling power it's stopping power. Most vehicles pull fine but brakes are not heavy duty enough to do the proper job even with trailer brakes. I see lots of SUV guys pulling campers etc and they haul fine but....just my $.02. Best of luck.

Even though the trailer only weights 1,400 pounds I ordered it with the electric brakes. My old trailer weighted 900 and I didn't need brakes. I'll have to put the brake electronics on the Suburu.

You never know when Bullwinkle will make a dash across the road. Always good if everything stops at the same time.

I have a 2015 Outback, have nothing to say but good stuff about it. Only thing is it seems as though Subaru thinks everyone needs a moon roof. Most of the fancier items are only available in the levels where they become standard. Only the base models are available without. I'm 6'7" and have plenty of head room in the Forester without a moon roof but, start hitting my head as soon as you add a moon roof!

My youngest some has a 2006 Outback Sport he bought used. Only issues he has had is due to vacuum leaks after the head gasket was replace by the independent dealership he bought it from prior to his purchase. One's in his time range used a timing belt and had a tendency to blow head gaskets. Most people do like the dealership he bought his from and change the head gaskets when the timing belt is changed to the improved head gaskets that seem to last. The factory ones back then tended to blow after 100,000-120,000 miles. Also these motors tend to use a little more oil since they do not have the improved oil rings in the newer motors.

Current production motors after 2014, at least the 4 cylinders, have the improved oil rings, head gaskets, and are now running a timing chain.

y2k-fxst wrote:I have a 2015 Outback, have nothing to say but good stuff about it. Only thing is it seems as though Subaru thinks everyone needs a moon roof. Most of the fancier items are only available in the levels where they become standard. Only the base models are available without. I'm 6'7" and have plenty of head room in the Forester without a moon roof but, start hitting my head as soon as you add a moon roof!

My youngest some has a 2006 Outback Sport he bought used. Only issues he has had is due to vacuum leaks after the head gasket was replace by the independent dealership he bought it from prior to his purchase. One's in his time range used a timing belt and had a tendency to blow head gaskets. Most people do like the dealership he bought his from and change the head gaskets when the timing belt is changed to the improved head gaskets that seem to last. The factory ones back then tended to blow after 100,000-120,000 miles. Also these motors tend to use a little more oil since they do not have the improved oil rings in the newer motors.

Current production motors after 2014, at least the 4 cylinders, have the improved oil rings, head gaskets, and are now running a timing chain.

Thanks. I'll be getting the 3.6R. Any problems with it?

Im kinda late here as Ive been on a hunting trip for 5 days. But Ive owned two Outbacks and one Forester turbo. They were great cars and I wouldnt hesitate to buy another one tomorrow. Al

Sir Henry wrote: Thanks. I'll be getting the 3.6R. Any problems with it?

I have no experience with the 3.6, all I've owned were the 4 cylinders. Just letting you know that for the most part I've not seen any real problems. Just a few of the small issues that have been known to creep up.

Thanks all for the replies. I'll be buying one on Monday. I've already ordered the Raindrop trailer.

Sir Henry, we just bought a new vehicle and drove several models of the 2018 Subaru Outback and the one we really liked the best was the 3.6 Outback Touring. The power was great the seats were very nice and the satin roof rails were sooo much nicer than the plastic contraception they call a roof rack on the other models. You live in Washington State and Torklift makes and installs a nice hitch for them. You will here some people saying that the flat engine uses oil by nature but a company called Crawford Performance makes a device that prevents this. Look them up on the internet. Go get tha Outback Touring and enjoy your travels.

GeoBoy wrote:Sir Henry, we just bought a new vehicle and drove several models of the 2018 Subaru Outback and the one we really liked the best was the 3.6 Outback Touring. The power was great the seats were very nice and the satin roof rails were sooo much nicer than the plastic contraception they call a roof rack on the other models. You live in Washington State and Torklift makes and installs a nice hitch for them. You will here some people saying that the flat engine uses oil by nature but a company called Crawford Performance makes a device that prevents this. Look them up on the internet. Go get tha Outback Touring and enjoy your travels.

It is sitting in the garage now. I bought the 2017 Outback 3.6R Touring just like yours. One of the reasons was the roof rack was one of the reasons I chose it over the Limited. The roof rack compliments the Raindrop trailer I will be pulling.

I'll check into Torklift.

My last two cars were Subies. My first was an Impressa, had a lot of electrical problems at first but Subaru was diligent and found the problem after about 5 months. Put 65k on it before trading for a 2014 Forester because of traveling needs. Close to 80k on it( mostly highway). No major problems. Plan to drive the doors off of it.