You don’t buy it for consumption
You don’t often see it driving, yet the Subaru Forester is a well-known appearance. After all, it’s hard to ignore its angular, utilitarian looks. Beneath the high, station wagon-like body is Subaru’s symmetrical powertrain with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder boxer engine and permanent four-wheel drive. Not exactly the recipe for low consumption. What do owners use in practice?
Here we look at the model that appeared on the market in 2013 and was replaced in 2019. Of these, we have ten consumption values ​​available, which is not disappointing given the limited number of sales. In all cases, the 2.0-liter four-cylinder boxer engine delivers 150 hp and, with the exception of one copy, all Foresters in this list have a CVT automatic transmission. Dieseling was also an option in these years, with Subaru’s own engine, but this Forester Boxer Diesel does not appear in the AutoWeek Consumption Monitor.
Consumption Forester 2.0i
With ten of them, the Subaru Forester drivers note a consumption of 1 to 11.7 (8.6 l/100 km). The most economical boxer consumes 1 in 13.5 (7.4 l/100 km) over a distance of more than 61,000 kilometers and a time frame of just over three years. Dangling at the bottom of the list, with a consumption of 1 in 10.1 (9.9 l/100 km), this Forester. More than two and a half years and almost 28,000 kilometers after the start of the measurement, the owner still keeps track of the consumption.
Those who are curious about the consumption of the manual variant: this is in the middle of the list with an average of 1 in 12 (8.3 l/100 km).
e-Boxer: let’s compare
Special fact: our list includes one new Subaru Forester from 2019, with a mild hybrid e-Boxer powertrain. That in itself is not surprising, nowadays you can only get it with this powertrain. It is striking that this Forester is the only one that falls through the limit of 1 in 10. Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient data to discover whether the new Forester with e-Boxer is really less economical in practice than its predecessor without hybrid technology.
Although the chance is small that someone will buy a Subaru Forester because of the favorable fuel consumption, we think an average consumption of 1 to 11.7 (8.6 l / 100 km) is not bad. After all, the car is permanently four-wheel drive and has a fairly traditional fuel engine under the hood.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl