Subaru Forester Review & Prices

The Subaru Forester is a large SUV with an unusual ‘Boxer’ engine and full-time four-wheel drive, aimed at people who want something a bit more rugged than your usual family crossover. It’s built to survive a nuclear apocalypse, and is far better off-road than most SUVs, but it’s not much fun to drive on the tarmac thanks to a thirsty and sluggish engine.

The Forester is really popular with people who live rurally, farmers or people who generally want their cars to work as hard as they do. It’s not particularly stylish, and so you won’t see fleets of them arriving at posh private schools or driving around Kensington. If the Land Rover Defender is a pair of Hunter wellies - as much a status symbol as a working item - then the Subaru Forester is a pair of Craghoppers. Deeply unfashionable and totally unInstagrammable, but you’ll get an appreciative nod from people in the know.

SUVs that can do a bit of off-roading are quite a rare breed now, but the Forester will also appeal to people who want a hardworking family car. So think of it as an alternative to the Volkswagen Tiguan, Nissan Qashqai or Hyundai Tucson - all of which are available with four-wheel drive, but aren’t designed for off-roading.

You could also consider a Land Rover Discovery Sport or a Defender 90, or a pickup truck such as a Ford Ranger, but it’s fair to say that no alternative has quite the same combination of traits as the Subaru Forester. No wonder Subaru owners tend to keep their cars longer than any other brand - they’re irreplaceable.

The Forester’s styling is simple and boxy. There’s a low window line and pretty slim pillars, which means loads of glass area for a great view out. Up front you get a big grille flanked by smart headlights, and at the rear a black element links the taillights to each other. Chunky black plastic cladding lines the lower portions of the Forester, shrugging off car park dings or rogue shopping trollies as much as it does stray rocks when off-roading.

Inside, things are a bit more staid. The Forester is one of very few SUVs that don’t come with a digital gauge cluster, for example, and while the central touchscreen is massive at 11.6-inches across it also feels pretty old-school, with lots of long menus to scroll and a mixture of fonts.

Material quality puts the focus on being hard-wearing rather than luxurious. As a result, while you’re not likely to find yourself enjoying your plush surroundings, you should at least take reassurance from the bank-vault build quality that your Forester’s interior will look just as good after a decade as it does when you first buy it.

The seats are extremely comfortable, and there’s ample space in the back for tall adults. The 508-litre boot is a little smaller than its main alternatives, but consider that many of those vehicles lose some of their headline space when specified with four-wheel drive.

Speaking of four-wheel drive, the Forester is seriously good off-road. It doesn’t have the ground clearance or axle articulation of a proper mud-plugger like a Jeep Wrangler, but its four-wheel drive system is capable of keeping it tenaciously going forward over some really mucky terrain.

On the road, the Forester is smooth to drive around town thanks to its automatic gearbox, and superbly comfortable over bumps. But there’s no denying that the hybrid engine is very slow, even compared to entry-level alternatives, and it feels a bit soggy and lifeless on a twisty road. Fuel consumption isn’t great either, even though the Forester uses a hybrid engine - we struggled to get close to 40mpg, about 10mpg less than most alternatives.

But if solidity, reliability and practicality are your desires, then this car is well worth shortlisting. Check out the best Subaru Forester deals right here on Carwow, or find a great Subaru Forester lease deal too. You can browse used Subaru Foresters for sale, or find another used Subaru for sale here. And remember that Carwow can even help you to sell your old car when the time comes.

The Forester range kicks off at just a fiver under £40,000, neatly side-stepping the expensive car supplement on your yearly road tax. For that you get a ‘Limited’ model, with 18-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, fabric upholstery, heated front seats, and the 11.6-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Stepping up by £1,500 nets you Field trim, with privacy glass, a powered tailgate, synthetic leather seats, sat-nav, and a heated steering wheel, while top-of-the-line Touring costs just over £44,000 but does get 19-inch alloys, a sunroof, matte black mirrors and roof rails, and leather-and-suede seats (heated all round).

That makes the Forester a fair bit pricier than basic examples of alternatives such as the VW Tiguan or Hyundai Tucson - but once you’ve added four-wheel drive to those cars, it’s much more comparable, even though the Forester is still vastly superior off-road. Compared with bona-fide mud pluggers such as the Land Rover Defender or Jeep Wrangler, the Forester is a bargain - and even compared with the Land Rover Discovery Sport, you can have a top-spec Forester for less than the leanest Land Rover.

Very comfortable to drive and superb off-road - but the engine is pretty gutless and the gearbox doesn’t like to be hurried

In town

The Forester may have a hybrid engine, but don’t expect it to run on electric power around town as much as a Toyota RAV4 does - you only really get electric power at very, very slow speeds. Most of the time the engine is running, but it’s pretty quiet when it is.

There’s a CVT gearbox, which uses one continuously changing ratio instead of several discrete ones. It works well around town, keeping things really smooth and relaxed, and the engine generally only gets noisy if you put your foot down.

Visibility is great thanks to that low windowline - it actually dips in the middle of the car giving you a fantastic view over your shoulder - and all trim levels get a 360-degree camera to make parking and manoeuvring even easier. The Forester is also fantastically comfortable over bumps. It’s not so soft that it feels wallowy, but it really takes the edge off speed bumps and potholes.

On the motorway

You do notice the Forester’s lack of power when you’re joining the motorway - with just 136hp and quite a large, heavy body you do have to give it quite a bit of beans down a sliproad or when overtaking, which means the gearbox panics and sends the engine revs spiralling. At this point things get quite noisy, though wind and road noise is quite well-contained.

Once you’ve settled down, though, it’s much more relaxed. Again the suspension is perfectly judged - it irons out big bumps without feeling like the wheels are suspended in marshmallow. Subaru’s ‘Eyesight’ system is also worth a mention, as it’s one of the most consistent set of assisted driving features around. Adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping operates very smoothly and predictably, and really takes the sting out of long drives as a result.

On a twisty road

If you’re looking for an SUV to blast down a B-road, you’d be better off with a Cupra Ateca or even a Land Rover Discovery Sport. The Forester has loads of grip, but the steering is too light and uncommunicative and the body moves about too much to make it a pleasure to drive quickly.

Not that you’d even enjoy getting up to speed - the gutless engine and disconnected feel of the CVT gearbox ensure that. You can force the CVT to adopt seven ‘fixed’ ratios, imitating a regular automatic gearbox - but it’s none too convincing. You can also put it into ‘S’ mode for a sportier drive that holds onto lower ratios for longer, but all this does is increase the noise levels with no real increase in pace.

If your idea of a twisty road is a muddy farm track or a green lane, though, the Forester is one of the best SUVs around. The full-time four-wheel drive means it feels unstoppable over slippery or muddy terrain, and though it doesn’t have the rock-crawling credentials of something like a Jeep Wrangler or a Land Rover Defender it’ll show a clean pair of heels (or a mucky pair, come to think of it) to almost any of its family SUV alternatives.

It’s also really easy to drive. There are a few off-road settings, as well as hill-descent control, but no intimidating menus to wade through. For the most part, you can just point, press the accelerator, and be fairly confident that the Forester will make it through with a minimum of drama.

Really roomy for passengers with a reasonable boot, though small item storage could be better up front

The Subaru Forester is quite large compared to most alternatives - it’s about 4cm longer than a Land Rover Discovery Sport, which squeezes in seven seats to the Forester’s five. So it’s not too surprising that it’s pretty roomy inside.

The front seats are fantastic - big and comfortable for drivers of all sizes, with armchair-like bolstering but still plenty of support. They’re the sort of front seats that you don’t notice as being comfortable until you get out of the car after a four-hour drive and realise you’re not aching. There’s also plenty of adjustment in them and the steering wheel.

Storage for small items in the front is where the Forester lacks, if only slightly. There are big cupholders and a wireless phone charging pad, but the glovebox and under-armrest storage are only average, and while the door bins can hold a big bottle they don’t have much room for anything else besides that.

Space in the back seats

There’s plenty of room in the rear of the Forester for six-foot adults, and it’s even wide enough to have people sit three abreast. Despite the four-wheel drive system, there’s only a small hump in the floor, so there’s even room for everybody’s feet.

The low windowline means everyone gets a brilliant view out, and on top-spec Touring models the outer rear seats are heated. They also recline, slightly. There are small door bins, but they’re big enough for a small bottle, plus dual-level seatback pockets and charging ports in the centre.

There are also ISOFIX points in both outer rear seats, and the space on offer plus the big rear doors means fitting a bulky child seat is easy.

Boot space

With 508 litres of boot space, the Forester won’t trouble the likes of the Volkswagen Tiguan or Hyundai Tucson - both of which have more than 600 litres on offer. That’s mainly because the hybrid battery lives under the floor, which also means you don’t get a spare tyre or room to store one - not ideal considering the Forester’s outward-bound nature.

There is, however, a small underfloor storage area for essentials you want to keep out of the way, and you get a powered tailgate from the mid-spec Field trim.

Unconventionally conventional - old-fashioned in places, but built to last

The Forester’s interior is so ordinary in places that it seems strange. For a start, you get conventional analogue dials with no option for a fully digital display - the only SUV on sale (and in fact one of very few cars overall) that still offers this. There’s loads of physical switchgear, a round steering wheel - no flat bottoms or squared-off edges here - and a minimum of chintz.

Subaru can’t escape the present-day totally, though, so there’s a nod to modernity in the form of an 11.6-inch touchscreen infotainment system in the centre. This is portrait-oriented and fully set into the dash, rather than sitting proud of it as in many alternatives with their tablet-like displays.

It’s flanked by a few physical buttons for climate controls, but the lower portion of the screen is permanently given over to these as well. The upper section is permanent too, holding a few unconventional readouts like your pitch angle.

In the centre is where Apple CarPlay or Android Auto - wirelessly connected - will display, and you interact with the main menus here too. It’s not the most intuitive, and turning off some of the driver assist functions requires a lot of scrolling through long menus. The interface isn’t particularly attractive either - there are a few different fonts and it all looks a bit old-fashioned, even though the screen itself is reasonably bright and responsive.

The Forester’s interior doesn’t major on style or luxury - most of the materials are durable rather than luxurious - but the build quality is marvellous. You won’t find a creak or rattle no matter how hard you poke around, and there are thoughtful touches like a padded area on the centre console so you don’t bang your knee during hard cornering. The whole thing feels as if it will last a decade and still look exactly as good then as it does now - not something you can say about the Alcantara-swaddled dashboards of some alternatives.

The Forester’s sole engine choice is a 2.0-litre self-charging hybrid with a mere 136hp. That’s less than even the least powerful VW Tiguan or Hyundai Tucson, and considering the Forester is quite a big car with full-time four-wheel drive it’s a little bit underpowered.

That means you do have to work it quite hard, which spoils fuel economy. If you’re doing a lot of work around town, the hybrid system won’t help you and you’ll see between 30-35mpg. On a very long, gentle run, we managed to eke that figure up to 40mpg, but only just.

High CO2 emissions of 182g/km mean it’s definitely not the best company car either, putting it into a high bracket for Benefit-in-Kind payments. It also costs a lot in first-year road tax. The entry-level model, which still comes well equipped, does neatly dodge the expensive car supplement on years two through six of ownership, though. And in keeping with Subaru’s country living image, you even get a £1,000 discount if you’re a member of the National Farmer’s Union.

The Forester scored five stars in Euro NCAP crash testing, with good results in every category. Every Subaru since 2009 has come away with Euro NCAP’s top rating, so it’s perhaps not surprising.

Safety is baked-in throughout. Not only does the full-time four-wheel drive improve grip, reducing the chances of you losing control and having a crash, but all of the active safety features work really well too, and very consistently.

Subaru is legendarily reliable, and Subaru owners tend to keep their cars longer than any other brand. It’s no wonder that Subaru was voted the best brand to own in the 2024 Driver Power survey - and that’s not the first time it’s been at the top, either.

So it’s a little sad that the Forester only comes with a three-year, 60,000 mile warranty, while the Hyundai Tucson gets five years of coverage and the Toyota RAV4 up to ten. Still, service the Forester in line with recommendations and it’s one of very few cars you can properly count on to keep working long past the end of its warranty.