Faults:

Squeaking noises from the interior trim of the car.

Corrosion spots on the paint caused by metallic paint.

Hard shift from first gear to second gear if the car is not warmed up properly.

General Comments:

Full time all wheel drive handles really well in rain and snow.

Great on gas for a 2.5L engine with all wheel drive.

Handles very well, except the suspension is a bit soft, but great for the comfort of the family.

Faults:

Nothing so far thankfully.

General Comments:

This car is great when it comes to comfort and handling, but acceleration and top speed, that's when it all goes wrong.

All that Subaru did was sell itself short by making such an engine 1.5L on a four wheel drive without any kind of boost. That's not good at all. Acceleration goes out the window, and you can't expect straight line speed, being an AWD.

Its handles like a dream, but that's just not enough; you can't just make a car that can corner, then on the straights it needs, well a coffee, so it realizes that you actually welded your foot to the floor, then it would start to accelerate gently till it reaches 4.5 thousand so, where it would accelerate like a normal car, and that's just till probably 6 thousand; over that it's just torque.

I would seriously consider trading in my car if it had some kind of boost, turbo, whatever it needs just respond like a proper well made car from Subaru. I really think they went all out to make a economic car regarding fuel consumption, quiet, comfortable, and four wheel drive, and then totally blew all of that with that engine. I mean, come on, clearly it's missing something, a huge something when it comes to acceleration.

Anywhere else, it's fine, a proper car.

I had a BMW E36 1.6, year 1992; tried both on a test drive, needless to say the end of that story...

Faults:

- The suspension is very soft compared to the 07 & 05 Impreza. This makes the car more comfortable, but the driver feels a bit of under steer at speeds over 140 km/h on hard corners.

- The hand brake position will annoy you for some time, then you will adapt its strange position near the driver's leg.

- It's not (eye-catching car) like the previous Impreza models (2005-2007).

- Subaru needs to give more attention to the Impreza's keys (really, the 2009 key looks cheap and a shame compared to Chinese cars and other European cars like the Focus).

- The 1.5 models are not available with sunroof models, and there's only one color trim for the interior.

- The new technology (AVCS automatic valve control system) reduces the fuel consumption on city roads, but it makes the car acceleration not good (I have the manual transmission gear box).

--- For me, no other issues till now.

General Comments:

- Subaru really made this car more comfortable than previous Impreza models.

- The 1.5R engine is very quiet under 3000 k RPM, and very aggressive over 4000 k RPM, with a really strong unique Boxer sound.

- The stock CD-MP3 player really cool and strong regarding the 4 stock speakers.

- The sedan looks more luxurious, and the hatch looks more sportive and stylish.

- The AWD gives the car more stability and pretty handling compared to other Japanese cars in the market e.g. Civic, Lancer, Corolla and Mazda3.

- The interior looks cool and uses good materials of plastic (not a cheap ones)

- The only car in this price category with AWD boxer engine.

Faults:

Nothing has gone wrong as such, the only problem is a design fault with the hatch. If it is raining or the car has gotten wet, when you open the hatch about 0.5L of water pours straight into the boot area. Very annoying, made more so by the dealer we bought it off being extremely rude, and telling us: "it's a design fault, no point crying to me". He then had the gall to ask for a 10 when we did our new car survey on customer service.

General Comments:

Very good car, better on fuel than I expected, very zippy once the engine is over 3000, awesome boxer sound.