#SubaruForester

The United States doesn't have a monopoly on shady car dealerships.

Subaru is adding a 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder to the Forester. Great news if you were verklempt over the discontinuation of the 250-horsepower turbo-four after 2019.

And if you live in Japan.

Subaru has a dual reputation. Car people know it as the company that gives us WRX and STi (and a good chunk of the BRZ/Toyota FT 86 partnership), while the rest of the world thinks of the brand as one that puts out a lot of wagon-esque crossovers that appeal to granola types, academics, and families that prioritize safety but aren’t in a Volvo tax bracket.

The Forester Touring definitely fits in to that latter stereotype. And that’s not a pejorative – it’s okay to embrace what one does best.

For the Forester, that means serving as a solid if not spectacular commuting wagon that’s road-trip ready.

Late Friday, just before news of a resurrected Hummer broke, we regaled you with the story of the Subaru Forester Ultimate Customized Kit Special edition— a flashy Forester with no backstory that appeared at the brand’s Singapore Motor Show booth.

A Subaru bearing a expletive acronym was bound to make waves, and those ripples apparently reached the offices of Subaru of America. Company execs of the wholesome, family-friendly automaker were not amused.

“Famous flicks, Mr. Connery,” the fake Alex Trebek once said to the fake Scottish actor on SNL. The unspoken word in that long-ago sketch isn’t something you’d encourage your young kids to say, but it did help the career of many beloved stand-up comics.

Which brings us, oddly, to Subaru. The (predominantly) all-wheel-drive brand has crafted a very wholesome image of itself over the years, delighting children and seniors alike with its heavy use of canine actors in its ads. But there’s nothing wholesome about a vehicle that appeared this week at the Singapore Motor Show: the Forester Ultimate Customized Kit Special edition.

FUCKS, for short.

Expanding by leaps and bounds in the new millennium, Subaru effectively quadrupled its share of the U.S. market in the process. However, most of its production growth occurred in the last decade — leading to quality control problems unbefitting for a company that prides itself in sharing the same love as its customers.

Recalls are to be expected. No automaker can escape faulty components forever. But the frequency and scope of Subaru’s recalls (and scandals) over the past few years are especially bothersome, as they hint at an inability to catch mistakes, or perhaps a willingness to cut corners, as the company’s production volume targets the stratosphere. A new recall looming on the horizon will probably be the company’s largest to date.

Subaru reported an operating loss in its most recent fiscal quarter, with recalls and regulatory scandals in its home market dragging the company into the red. The company said it lost $22 million in the quarter ending September 30th, a departure from last year’s $816.3 million operating profit. Meanwhile, global volume fell 6 percent.

In the company’s largest market — the United States — it was an entirely different scenario, with American buyers conspiring to give the brand its 83rd consecutive year-over-year sales increase. A record for October, too, but that’s sort of a given. Very nice of those buyers, but the credit really belongs to the Ascent crossover.

The next-generation 2019 Subaru Forester, which debuted Wednesday at the New York International Auto Show, looks mighty familiar. That’s because, despite the updated lines, the compact crossover retains the blocky, tall-greenhouse shape of its predecessors.

Subaru flirts with conformity, but never fully succumbs.

Now riding atop the Subaru Global Platform (shares with the Impreza and Crosstrek), the 2019 Forester offers a new trim level, a power boost for the stalwart 2.5-liter flat-four, and greater standard content — especially when it comes to driver assist technology. Unfortunately for brand purists, these standard driver’s aids have eliminated the manual transmission from the Forester lineup.

If there’s a great way to piss off Subaru buyers, the quirky Japanese brand hasn’t thought of it yet. Few automakers can boast of Subaru-like annual sales increases, and even fewer can say their customers are more likely to stick with the brand at trade-in time. Actually, only one brand can say that.

Subaru holds the distinction of actually seeing its U.S. sales rise during the recession, and from 2008 to 2017, volume rose by more than 245 percent. One of the models contributing to its success is the unassuming but remarkably capable Forester — a boxy, upright compact crossover with a tall greenhouse and an interior larger than its outside appearance would suggest.

Screwing up the next-generation Forester, which debuts later this month as a 2019 model, could hurt Subaru badly. No surprise, it looks like the automaker is choosing to play it safe.

In September 2017, Subaru reported the company’s 70th consecutive year-over-year U.S. sales increase. That’s nearly six complete years of steadily improving U.S. sales volume.

Think of it this way: 2013 was a huge year for Subaru of America as sales had risen 59 percent over the span of just two years. But in 2013, Subaru sold 424,683 over the course of the entire calendar year. In 2017, that’s a total Subaru blasted past in the first week of September.

But have you ever stopped to notice that Subaru is accomplishing much of its success with three remarkably similar variations of the same theme? Crosstrek, Forester, Outback. A bit of extra length there, a touch of extra height here, a smidgen of savings there, a dose of extra equipment here. This is hardly the historically obvious 3 Series to 5 Series to 7 Series lineup. The Crosstrek, Forester, and Outback are conceptually similar vehicles with overlapping price spectrums. And recently, with a huge leap in Crosstrek popularity, they’re all similarly popular, too.

You almost get the sense Subaru could squeeze an Outback “four-door coupe” in there and sell 12,000 of those each month, too.

Sales of new vehicles declined by nearly 4 percent in the United States in August 2016, a year-over-year drop which followed flatlining sales over the previous three months. Bucking the trend to no small degree in August was capacity-constrained Subaru, which earned 4 percent of the market by selling more than 60,000 new vehicles for the first time in the company’s history.

Making Subaru’s achievements even more impressive: according to TrueCar, discounts in Subaru showrooms in August were 78-percent below the industry average.

Subaru and Lexus brands topped Kelley Blue Book’s annual resale list for the second year in a row, the auto industry group announced Tuesday.

Subaru claimed four model winners for 2016 and Lexus nabbed six honors in the annual survey that measures projected retained value for five years of ownership. Toyota and General Motors each earned five segment winners this year and Tesla earned its first award for its Model S.

According to KBB, the top 10 cars with the best resale value were: Chevrolet Camaro and Colorado; GMC Canyon and Sierra; Jeep Wrangler; Subaru Forester and WRX; Toyota 4Runner, Tacoma and Tundra.

Subaru reported the brand’s 41st consecutive month of year-over-year U.S. sales improvement last month and in so doing produced the brand’s highest-volume April in the history of Subaru of America.

47,241 Subarus were sold in the United States last month, an 18% increase compared with April 2014. The 7,158-unit increase was powered by gains from the Forester, Outback, Legacy, XV Crosstrek, and the WRX/STi.

High-riders – the Forester, Outback, and XV – accounted for 71% of Subaru’s volume last month.

The amount of time it takes to sell a new vehicle is usually a good indicator of demand for that model and gives a slightly different perspective from the more traditional number of days supply statistic. The average time that new cars and light trucks spent on U.S. dealer lots last month, 56 days, was up slightly from March’s 51 days, which was the same average selling time in April of 2013. Cars.com’s Kicking Tires blog has compiled lists of both the fastest selling vehicles in April as well as the cars that have lingered on the lots perhaps a bit past their shelf date. The ten fastest selling cars averaged just under 11 days from the time they rolled off their transporters until they were driven home by happy customers. The ten slowest selling cars took an average of 5 months to sell. The slowest selling car in America in April was the 2014 BMW 640i xDrive coupe, which sat on Dealer lots an average of 205 days. The two quickest selling cars were Subarus, the 2015 Forester and 2015 WRX, which both took an average of just 7 days to sell.

Complete lists after the break.

The Forester stands alone in evading Subaru’s more questionable styling choices, but it hasn’t ever looked particularly enticing either. The 2014 model, with its new Impreza-esque front and rear treatments, continues that tradition. Under the hood, things are more promising.