Buying a 2004 Forester XT,Q about acceleration

[cougar]

A customer of mine is selling his 2004 Forester XT so I went to test
drive it today and was very disappointed in the power.It felt like the
regular Forester I drove at the dealer. Going up a hill at about 25 in
Drive I punched it and it slowly sped up to 35.No excitement AT ALL
and I was expecting neck snapping performance. The reviews said 0-60
in 5.3 seconds.Does this sound normal? Does this suggest to any of you a problem
that could be easily fixed or should I just pass on the car? He is a
great guy and has taken very good care of it and kept all records.
Much thanks.-Brian

 

[cougar]

A customer of mine is selling his 2004 Forester XT so I went to test
drive it today and was very disappointed in the power.It felt like the
regular Forester I drove at the dealer. Going up a hill at about 25 in
Drive I punched it and it slowly sped up to 35.No excitement AT ALL
and I was expecting neck snapping performance. The reviews said 0-60
in 5.3 seconds.>>So I took it up another longer hill and tried it again.After about a 2-3 second lag some power did come on but still nothing great.I announced my dissatisfaction and he said he downshifts to 3d when he needs real acceleration so I tried that and after a long time,maybe 4-5 seconds,I finally started feeling some real power,but by then it was time to shut down.

Does this sound normal? Does this suggest to any of you a problem
that could be easily fixed or should I just pass on the car? He is a
great guy and has taken very good care of it and kept all records.
Much thanks.-Brian

Forgot to mention it's an auto trans. thx.

 

[QX]

A customer of mine is selling his 2004 Forester XT so I went to test
drive it today and was very disappointed in the power.It felt like the
regular Forester I drove at the dealer. Going up a hill at about 25 in
Drive I punched it and it slowly sped up to 35.No excitement AT ALL
and I was expecting neck snapping performance. The reviews said 0-60
in 5.3 seconds.
Does this sound normal? Does this suggest to any of you a problem
that could be easily fixed or should I just pass on the car? He is a
great guy and has taken very good care of it and kept all records.
Much thanks.-Brian

Definitely sounds like something is wrong. Just yesterday morning, I
was driving (2005 Forester XT) up to a hiking trailhead and needed to
pass 2 cars, one of which had just barely passed the other. We were
at 50 mph. Long straight stretch of road.
I passed them both in one move and when I looked down at the
speedometer, I was doing 85. Took my foot off the pedal to slow down
to the legal speed. No hesitiation, or knocking, just pure
accelleration. BTW, this was uphill at about 7000 ft elevation level.
The trailhead was at about 8300ft.

 

[brian]

Definitely sounds like something is wrong. Just yesterday morning, I
was driving (2005 Forester XT) up to a hiking trailhead and needed to
pass 2 cars, one of which had just barely passed the other. We were
at 50 mph. Long straight stretch of road.
I passed them both in one move and when I looked down at the
speedometer, I was doing 85. Took my foot off the pedal to slow down
to the legal speed. No hesitiation, or knocking, just pure
accelleration. BTW, this was uphill at about 7000 ft elevation level.
The trailhead was at about 8300ft.

Thanks QX. Those are the kind of stories that had me very eager to
buy his car. There was nothing like that here though,and we are near
sea level at about 75 degrees F.One funny thing was this: After the
miserable first attempt at acceleration he said " That's all you need
to know", as though he considered that adequate!

 

[y_p_w]

Forgot to mention it's an auto trans. thx.

That would do it. A turbo also doesn't help much unless you're either
at full throttle or at a high rev range. With a 4-sp auto, I don't
expect this is going to be likely unless you're at freeway speeds or
in 2nd gear at city speed.

However - I'd note that I've heard of one review that got an
incredible 5.3 sec 0-60 time, although most reviews seem to have it
more at 6+ sec.

 

[strchild]

Maybe your punch, or step-down as my Subaru manuals call it, wasn't quite
what the car was expecting? I've let my nephew who is learning toward his
license drive my Impreza and he usually ends up with the pedal on the floor
to no noticeable effect. It's got a 4-speed auto, no turbo, nothing wrong
with the motor, but depending on how hard and how fast you put down your
foot, that determines whether the car drops one gear or more, and what power
band the motor tries to reach before shifting again. If I don't express to
the car that I wish to accelerate all that fast, even if I floor it myself,
I can come back with the sort of acceleration you're talking about. If you
could test drive and compare a similar car, that would be more telling than
any description I could give you.

~Brian

 

[brian]

Maybe your punch, or step-down as my Subaru manuals call it, wasn't quite
what the car was expecting? I've let my nephew who is learning toward his
license drive my Impreza and he usually ends up with the pedal on the floor
to no noticeable effect. It's got a 4-speed auto, no turbo, nothing wrong
with the motor, but depending on how hard and how fast you put down your
foot, that determines whether the car drops one gear or more, and what power
band the motor tries to reach before shifting again. If I don't express to
the car that I wish to accelerate all that fast, even if I floor it myself,
I can come back with the sort of acceleration you're talking about. If you
could test drive and compare a similar car, that would be more telling than
any description I could give you.

~Brian







- Show quoted text -

I think you may be onto something here.It did (now that I think
about it) seem to be at an unsatisfactory RPM,as though it didn't kick
down.It wasn't until the third test that it actually started hitting
even medium RPMs,and then I really DID feel good power beginning to
show up.

 

[strchild]

You're welcome, the other Brian. (-; Even if you step-down half-way, or
even three-quarters, not to the floor, you should be able to drop a gear or
two.

~Brian