- Legacy ES Estate - Entry level at about £21k
Sound marketing or panic model as 2.5 ltrs too expensive?
What do you think?
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I've seen the recent advertising campaign. Absolutley useless.
A doomed marque and the looks are ghastly...
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I agree, no real future. A real shame, as it remains one of the best engineered cars out there. I'd be willing to run one, were it not for the fact that I intend to run my current landcruiser for years to come.
Last edited by: Tigger on Sat 5 Feb 11 at 06:53
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2.5 is not likely to cost much more to make than a 2.0 as they are both flat fours.
I think the 2.5 only comes with an autobox, however.
Strong Yen making Subarus unattractively priced compared to previous years.
Agree on styling - the Legacy and Avensis have both been hit by the ugly stick with new front-end designs to suit crash regs.
Subaru have been shooting themselves in the foot for years by ignoring CO2 emissions - If Audi can have their 200+hp AWD cars under 200g/km, Subaru can surely manage this (yes I know manufacturers need to cheat, but I bet is also helped kill S2000 sales for its last few years with 229g/km emissions).
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>> Subaru have been shooting themselves in the foot for years by ignoring CO2 emissions -
>> If Audi can have their 200+hp AWD cars under 200g/km, Subaru can surely manage this
>> (yes I know manufacturers need to cheat, but I bet is also helped kill S2000
>> sales for its last few years with 229g/km emissions).
I agree. It seems to be a pig headed ignorance to stick to their engineering principles at the expense of improving efficiency and hence appeal to more of the public. I like them, but like most people, couldn't really justify running one as they are at the moment, not with the continually spiralling cost of fuel.
The Avensis, despite it being ugly (to some people), is much better in terms of running costs, hence why there are so many around, although abandoning the large hatchback style is a shame, something that many manufacturers have been doing.
Last edited by: corax on Sat 5 Feb 11 at 11:23
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Well my octogenarian father-in-law says he's going to buy one! It will be his umpteenth Subaru in a row (all Foresters to date).
But I agree with the others on this thread. I wouldn't be surprised to see them go the way of Daihatsu. Does anyone know how their sales have fared?
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Common theme: Diahatsu and Subaru both being part of the Toyota group
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Don't think Toyota sales have ever been harmed by Subaru.
Subaru were the 'alternative' car for thinking classes. Don't have a Golf or A6, have a Forester or Legacy/Outback instead. My family can testify to the longevity and 'rightness' of those cars, but that seems to have faded as the engines have failed to match the efficiency of European rivals and launching the Outback with a either a 2.0l diesel or 3.6l petrol engine was ludicrous. They should have gone down the flat 6 2.5l turbo route.
Last edited by: Espada III on Sat 5 Feb 11 at 19:19
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>> Common theme: Diahatsu and Subaru both being part of the Toyota group
Subaru is not part of Toyota, it's the car manufacturing division of another Japanese industrial monolith, Fuji Heavy Industries. There is some (minimal by Japanese standards) joint share ownership, sharing of a manufacturing plant in the US and some joint development projects between Toyota and Subaru but that is basically it. Subaru have also tried their luck getting into bed with General Motors without much success. There was a US market only version of the Impreza badged as a Saab a while back.
I liked their products a few years ago and seriously considered buying a Legacy 3.0 but they've been left behind and the current model range is just no longer competitive.
Maybe they blew the entire new product budget developing the horrible Tribeca and there just wasn't enough left in the kitty to successfully update the Impreza and Legacy so they just made them uglier instead.
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>> ..... although abandoning the large hatchback style
>> is a shame, something that many manufacturers have been doing.
>>
I agree 100%. It annoys me that manufacturers have been dropping the hatchback variant.
They want all of us who can't live with saloons to pay the inflated extra premium to buy the ugly estate versions.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 13 Feb 11 at 03:05
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In the US Subaru are apparently going from strength to strength.
I think with the artificial restrictions imposed over here with CO2 emissions, and various manufacturers finding ways to 'max out' on the tests with little real improvement in the real world (read: stop-start technology) are what has left Subaru scrabbling here.
My old Forester 2.5 Turbo had an amazingly low 5th gear of 23mph/1000rpm - this beastie would easily have pulled 30+mph/1000rpm in top which would have likely hugely reduced the fuel consumption.
In a more streamlined car such as the Legacy, tuned for cruising, it would have been an absolute weapon with sub 225g/km CO2 and perfomrance likely to have been better than the 3.0 6cyl spec B.
My instinct is (like the first X-type Jags) that the head office looked at the 325/330 and decided on N/A 6-cyl rather than going with the better overall package.
The current Tribeca is (in my opinion) a hugely better looking car (more Santa Fe than Kyron/Rodius cross-breed), and despite having a bigger engine is also significantly more economical.
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The Legacy/outback is the 4th best selling 4wd in Sweden (2800 in november), beaten only by XC60 & 70 and Qashqai. The Forrester is 12th with 941.
In other words they sold at least twice times as Legacy/outback as:- RAV4 & Kuga, and over ten times the number of X3's (231), and over twenty times X-trails (just 74 sold).
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>> In the US Subaru are apparently going from strength to strength.
Market share in the US is down from 2.3% to 2.2%.
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Subaru is to radically alter its brand values to try and improve its position in the UK.
The company plans to lessen the focus on performance cars and concentrate on creating more comfortable, spacious and refined cars instead.
Paul Tunnicliffe, Managing Director of IM Group Ltd, Subaru’s official UK importer, explained that Subaru “is not disregarding its rally heritage, but in the long term we need to broaden our target audience.”
Tunnicliffe maintains that the strategy was not created as a response to Subaru’s decision to withdraw from the 2009 World Rally Championship.
“The market for high power, low cost turbocharged cars wasn’t working long term" he said. "Our all-wheel drive philosophy is still a big part of the product’s appeal, and we will continue to produce cars that are rewarding to drive, but we can’t only rely on that to sell cars any more.”
The company’s new tagline is ‘uncommon sense’, with the intention being to sell cars on the back of the niche appeal and rarity factor of the marque, as well as the newfound levels of passenger comfort that the company is showcasing in its latest model, the 2010 Legacy.
Kenyon Neads, marketing director of Subaru UK, described the shift as a “move away from STi and WRX and more towards utilitarian cars, which is also why we won’t have a Legacy Spec B, nor a Legacy saloon for the foreseeable future.”
Neads admits that the brand was “not absolutely robust, and in many ways was polarised, but the new strategy should make it more cohesive and introduce new buyers.”
Subaru has struggled with a poor exchange rate and low sales throughout 2009, selling only 1882 cars in the UK since the beginning of 2009, giving it a market share of just 0.16 per cent
www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/243716/
October 2009.
Market share 2009 sales 3730, 2019 3897
www.am-online.com/NewCarSalesFigures/index.asp
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>> The company plans to lessen the focus on performance cars and concentrate on creating more
>> comfortable, spacious and refined cars instead.
>>
Sounds like they're trying to move away from the one market they're good at, to try and compete with BMW et al. That'll take some doing.
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I don't think Subaru have sold one Tribeca to a real paying customer other than a demonstrator. They do not have the interior room of the competitors (Volvo XC90) and do not have a decent diesel engine. I almost bought one to replace the Outback, but other than a set of tiny rear seats it offered no advantage in interior space and far worse fuel consumption.
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>> In the US Subaru are apparently going from strength to strength.
And fuel is cheap compared to here.
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Subaru USA Sales - October 2010
Subaru of America sold 22,720 vehicles in October 2010, up 25% from October of 2009. This happens to be the best ever October for Subaru in America. Subaru sold 216,652 vehicles in all of 2009 and almost surpassed that total through the first ten months 2010. Subaru has sold 216,334 in the United States through Hallowe'en 2010.
Year-to-date volume is up 23% for Subaru in the United States. Its two most recently redeveloped models, the 2010 Subaru Outback and 2010 Subaru Legacy, are now switching over to the 2011 model year with apparent success. The unloved Tribeca is embarrasingly unpopular compared with other midsize SUVs and other Subaru models. For every Tribeca sold, Subaru sold almost 50 Outbacks in October 2010.
Subaru of America's October 2010 sales are broken down model-by-model below.
Subaru Outback: 8694
Year-over-year volume change: +35%
Last month: 8154
Year-to-date: 75,078
Subaru Forester: 6631
Year-over-year volume change: +28%
Last month: 6449
Year-to-date: 70,752
Subaru Impreza: 3676
Year-over-year volume change: +21%
Last month: 3678
Year-to-date: 36,731
Subaru Legacy: 3543
Year-over-year volume change: +9%
Last month: 2999
Year-to-date: 31,708
Subaru Tribeca: 176
Year-over-year volume change: -28%
Last month: 152
Year-to-date: 2065
Related From GoodCarBadCar.net
www.goodcarbadcar.net/2010/11/subaru-usa-sales-october-2010.html
UK is a sideshow...
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This would confirm the impression I got while holidaying in New England last summer. Foresters seemed to outnumber any other small SUV and Outbacks seemed the most popular medium estate. It does show that the UK market is unimportant to Subaru and one wonders how long they will remain. Incidentally we were in Israel in 2009 and Legacy saloons were very popular around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; certainly saw far more there than in the UK.
I think their loss would be a great pity as my FIL is very fond of his Forester but has definitely postponed replacing it to see if Subaru become more committed to the UK or abandon us. He certainly doesn't want to buy a new car with suddenly no support.
vitesse
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Consider that most American buyers would consider most Subarus to be a 'downsize', so the increasing cost of fuel there works in Subaru's favour, just as it works against it here Interesting that even so, even the Americans can't love the Tribeca.
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I remember seeing a TV programme about some backwoods Americans, many of whom had battered old Subarus, or Roos, as I think they called their cars.
The impression given was the Subaru was much more reliable and would take much more abuse than an American car.
Last edited by: Iffy on Mon 7 Feb 11 at 16:00
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>> I think with the artificial restrictions imposed over here with CO2 emissions>>
I would say it is the US that is out of step with its unreal lack of restrictions on CO2 emissions. All European countries have penalties for high C02 emissions, whether by vehicle tax or fuel price mechanisms.
But as WdeB says, we view Subarus as relatively thirsty cars, whilst the Americans view them as almost economy cars.
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Subaru Legacy - New 2 ltr coming soon £21K - madf
