Honestly, her car will probably be a Subaru for this reason. Thinking a Forester since they are a bit larger and she needs the space for kids/horse tack/dogs/etc.

I highly value the ability to fix my own problems if I want to. Same reason I prioritize FOSS. I can fix issues myself.

Eventually I will probably be forced to move on, but my cars downfall will be rust and I estimate it has another decade at least before that happens.

Side note: my brother and I were raised in compact sedans. I don’t recall any issues. I get that with more kids, a third row would have been important, but the crossovers most people are buying (including the Forester) don’t have that. Can someone explain this “need space for kids” thing?

For us its width. My Legacy isn't wide enough for three car seats. A Forester is. A third row would be amazing, but Subaru doesn't make such a vehicle and Subaru is basically a requirement for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Ascent is being built and has 3 rows of seats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Tribeca was the previous version, which they stopped selling in 2014 because of poor sales. I've seen them on the street and they were not attractive.

Yeah, the Tribeca did not look nice at all. Wasn't aware it was a 3 row though.

This new one looks pretty nice, and it confirms what I thought I had heard on the radio the other day about a 3 row Subie. See what the wife thinks...

"Subarus have a reputation for being easy to repair"

Replacing a single headlight bulb in recent Subarus is an hour long job. You get to remove the wheel and wheel well cover. Nice $250 job to replace both at the dealer. Daytime running lights that burn out extra quick just adds to this insanity.

How often do you have to replace headlight bulbs? And if it only takes an hour, why on earth would you spend $250 at the dealer to do it? I don't know about you, but I certainly don't get paid $250/hour at my day job (don't forget that car dealer mechanics don't work at your home or workplace, you have to bring the car to them and sit there while they do the job).

DRLs don't burn out quickly if you don't cheap out on them. Get the car model that has LED DRLs and you won't have this problem. Only crappy models with halogen bulbs still do this. If you're driving a car with halogen bulbs, you're driving an unsafe car according to the IIHS, which won't award a good safety rating to any such vehicle: only cars with HID or LED lighting qualify. Night visibility with halogen is atrocious.

Because the damn lights keep breaking every year and are not user serviceable unless you happen to have access to a garage and know how to remove the bumper to access the headlights and swap them.

I can just bring my car to the dealer and avoid dealing with all of this crap.

What kind of crappy car do you have that requires removing the bumper?

Mine isn't the easiest in the world to change bulbs on, but it's not that hard, as you just have to pull out the fender liners a little to get to the bulbs. But with HIDs, I've never needed to do that, and likely won't for years to come. I guess paying extra for HIDs ends up paying for itself...

Replace both at the dealer. So $100/hr labor for each and $50 for parts and tax. In the Bay Area the labor cost for every skilled/semi-skilled job costs at least $100/hr. Plumber, electrician, tree trimming, etc.

The original comment probably should've included "older". In general most older cars are easier to repair. Just replaced my headlights a couple days ago in 01 forester. Took about 3 minutes. Changing a fog light in my 11' 328i is insane. Had to take off the wheel and go in from the wheel well instead of just having screws on the front. Seems intentional sometimes.

I would assume its newer? My headlights are cake to replace. But my Subaru is from nearly two decades ago.