Of all the vehicles we've talked about, I'd either get a Crosstrek or an Impreza 5-door. My first choice would normally be a Golf Alltrack, but it's one of the no-manual ones. That said, I would only ever buy a new car as a backup for when my interesting car breaks or when I want something comfortable for a long road trip.
Didn't think you could have a manual crosstrek with anything other then base engine. You can have the legacy though
Manual's available on three of the four trim levels (ignoring the EyeSight package), same as the Impreza. The Legacy and Outback actually have fewer manual options here.
I recently got to drive an impreza and its a really good car and i got to think why i dont see them ever
I learned to drive in a 1998 Legacy wagon. Everything had a nice weighty feel to it and the handling was great. Nothing in the interior felt cheap either, despite it being super base model (didn't even have a tach). I would definitely consider getting one if the right one crossed my path.
The only thing i can think of wich isnt good are the materials on the inside but how often do you touch that? And as long as it doesnt fall apart its fine with me
The silver plastic is probably the cheapest feeling material in mine and isn't too bad. The rest is all fine
That's the worst part of mine, the plastic dashboard. It rattles every now and then which can get annoying. The radio also can't be replaced easily, because it's integrated into the dash, which sucks because it doesn't have an aux cord or bluetooth. Otherwise, It's great.
Mine was doing pretty well until we brought it in for the airbag recall. The little pieces of felt my dad put between the edges of the dash and the car to make the rattle go away fell out when they were doing the recall work. It's not bad, but every once in a while it gets noticeable and drives me nuts. My Legacy was built in the US though, so I think that's why your Japanese-built Impreza doesn't have the dash rattle
Thats pretty much always been Honda's thing, cheap plasticy interiors and fittings but really solid engines.
I feels like "rattling" plastic really depend on the brand and the year. The plastics in the Golf feel solid, high quality and are well thought to be dismounted easily without damaging (German engineering for you). The dashboard shake a bit when strating the engine, but tbh the honnest the all car shake because diesel. The most impressing is they haven't faded with time. The interior is still in fairly good condition for it age. Same story with the 106. Whenever I hear somebody say that the Peugeot aren't built well I can't see where they get this idea from. (+ it's 100% rust free)
Configuring a car can be a real pain in the back. I had an unpleasant experience configuring an Audi A5 for my mother (she didn't know how to do that herself). Originally, we wanted a car with grey cloth interior, sports seats (we found normal ones very uncomfortable) and 17" rims (she often drives on unpaved roads, so small wheels with high profile tires are a must have). Audi configurator has a lot of options, but combining them is not always possible. So, what do cloth sports seats have to do with 17" rims? Nothing? Whoever created trims for Audis didn't think so. First, it turned out that sports seats can't be covered with cloth in Basic line. The Sport line alllows it, but it doesn't allow 17" rims. Even then, the interior color can only be black. So, we had to choose: sacrifice grey interior and 17" rims for cloth seats or sacrifice cloth seats for grey interior and suitable rims. We chose the latter and ordered a car in Basic line with grey interior, grey alcantara seats and 17" rims. Whoever designed the configurator options was a big retard. Well, the famous German engineering has pretty degraded. Our 2008 BMW 1st series interior started rattling at 40000 km.
It's all about money. They make you pay for crap you don't need. It's just another way the bean-counters have been slowly killing the auto industry.
