2007 Subaru Liberty 2.5i wagon: owner review

After only owning multiple turbo Subarus, I was slightly concerned coming to my first NA example. I paid $5000 plus stamps for my 2007 Subaru Liberty wagon, which is not a bad price in today's age.

Will it be fun? Will I be able to beat other drivers at traffic lights that have no care for racing? Will I have to check my oil weekly to keep my car alive?

After an hour of driving my new Liberty, I forgot about all that and was reminded what made them such great cars to drive: the symmetrical AWD and the handling of the vehicles.

Before I delve into the many great things about this car, I must inform you about the negatives that come with a 15-year-old Subaru, at least from my perspective.

Firstly, the audio system sounds like you have turned up your parents' speakers too loud once and blown something. They still work fine at low volume, but dial it up any higher and it will sound like a beehive the size of your car is trying to escape your speakers.

If you have a weight on the passenger seat heavier than a bottle of water, the car freaks out and thinks someone doesn’t have those seatbelts on and gives out a loud warning beep.

In addition to this, there is no auxiliary input standard. I’ve heard this was a premium option but cannot confirm, so in order for you to listen to your own music, you have to resort to an aftermarket head unit. Or if you’re a bit more budget-friendly, ie cheap like me, you will have to suffer with a Bluetooth radio FM transmitter.

My final major downside is the dash and steering wheel in my particular car are cracking horribly and peeling all around. This may be due to the car's life in the hot Queensland sun, so this issue may be non-existent to our friends down south.

The performance of the car is just fine for a mid-large wagon. Having owned a turbo Liberty wagon of the same generation, I know how much fun it is to have the power on tap that a turbo offers, but having driven the NA for a few months now, the power is adequate enough for just about everything you ask of the car.

Sure, you won’t be beating any P-plater in a straight race, but if you need to overtake a truck on the highway, you will have no troubles. The gears are getting a little loose in the car's old age, but 270,000km on the car still selects gears great and delivers power exactly as it should when you put the foot down.

I’m a personal sucker for the overall looks of the Gen-4 Libertys. A sleek design and great headlights, I think they are a bit of a timeless model and still hold up with the look of modern cars. The wagon shape is practical and will fit plenty of camping gear, surfboards or flat-pack furniture. The rear seats are fine, only having sat in them properly once, and once you put the second row flat you have an enormous boot space.

The handling of the car is great. No, it won’t go like it’s on rails like a WRX. But you can have confidence in your driving, and especially in the wet you will notice the difference. Being able to go up to the mountain pass for a drive is still enjoyable in the NA, but mainly when travelling downhill.

The ride is soft enough for long commutes and standard potholes. The wagon tends to have a bit more body roll due to the weight, but due to the low centre of gravity with the vehicle and the boxer engine, it’s still going to hug the road relatively well.

The reliability of older Subarus comes down to two things in my opinion: constant servicing and previous owners. Due to the nature of the engine, and especially after 15 years of P-plater thrashing with lacklustre servicing, the engines tend to fail at higher kilometres. The great thing about the Libertys, and even more so the NA variants, is that they didn’t attract as much of the P-plate abuse that their turbo variants suffered.

I managed to get a pretty well-kept example, with perfect service history and minor cosmetic damage. The 'glass' five-speed in the car is starting to show its age, with some noises going from fifth to fourth, but does everything else that it’s asked to do. The clutch doesn’t slip and is still quite tight.

The car does exactly what I ask of it. It’s a reliable, fun and practical car, with plenty of storage, adequate performance and decent fuel economy.

Owner: Alec

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