[brybass01]

Aloha All,
Hope everyone is having a great week. I have a 2012 crosstrek that has had quite a life. It's got just a tick over 120k miles, which isn't necessarily a lot of miles for this car, but they've been hard earned miles. Cross country trips, trips to Canada and Mexico, and a lot of pulling duty as a "farm" car (lots of animals in there, both alive and not). It's been with me in Hawai'i for the last few years and for obvious reasons has not been accumulating many miles, but things are starting to go as they tend to do with a car at this age. I have kept up with all regular maintenance, kept all records. My question is clearly one of personal opinion, but respect the voices on this board so wanted to get an idea of whether I should start looking for a new vehicle while this one has some value to it, it's in relatively good shape visually with some chips and such on the front/rear fenders, but nothing out of the ordinary... As always, any advice is greatly appreciated.
Mahalo!
Bryan

 

[sas-XV]

Aloha All,
Hope everyone is having a great week. I have a 2012 crosstrek that has had quite a life. It's got just a tick over 120k miles, which isn't necessarily a lot of miles for this car, but they've been hard earned miles. Cross country trips, trips to Canada and Mexico, and a lot of pulling duty as a "farm" car (lots of animals in there, both alive and not). It's been with me in Hawai'i for the last few years and for obvious reasons has not been accumulating many miles, but things are starting to go as they tend to do with a car at this age. I have kept up with all regular maintenance, kept all records. My question is clearly one of personal opinion, but respect the voices on this board so wanted to get an idea of whether I should start looking for a new vehicle while this one has some value to it, it's in relatively good shape visually with some chips and such on the front/rear fenders, but nothing out of the ordinary... As always, any advice is greatly appreciated.
Mahalo!
Bryan

Depends on the price you could get versus the reliability you want.

 

[AstroKats]

Aloha All,
Hope everyone is having a great week. I have a 2012 crosstrek that has had quite a life. It's got just a tick over 120k miles, which isn't necessarily a lot of miles for this car, but they've been hard earned miles. Cross country trips, trips to Canada and Mexico, and a lot of pulling duty as a "farm" car (lots of animals in there, both alive and not). It's been with me in Hawai'i for the last few years and for obvious reasons has not been accumulating many miles, but things are starting to go as they tend to do with a car at this age. I have kept up with all regular maintenance, kept all records. My question is clearly one of personal opinion, but respect the voices on this board so wanted to get an idea of whether I should start looking for a new vehicle while this one has some value to it, it's in relatively good shape visually with some chips and such on the front/rear fenders, but nothing out of the ordinary... As always, any advice is greatly appreciated.
Mahalo!
Bryan

It's very subjective and there are so many factors, such as whether you want to spend money on a new one or maintaining and older one. There's a guy on another forum who drove his Crosstrek over 1m miles (yes, that's a million). IIRC he rebuilt the engine at around 600K.

Corrosion may or may not be an issue for you. They don't salt the roads there but it's humid all of the time.

 

[Raleighmclemore]

What do you need exactly? Reliability (must always be on time? car is used by family members? totally chill if the car has a misstep and you are stuck for a bit) Cost (not really a big deal? new car out of the picture? got a little savings should something serious go wrong?) Utility (does present car do everything you really need or does it limit your possibilities? Planning a lifestyle change? Towing?) Repair (will it be easy to get to a Subaru fixer/parts should your Subaru need fixing? are you pretty handy with mechanical stuff?) Economy (will a new car provide such a significant increase in efficiency to make it worth the other costs?) Lifestyle (sometimes we just get tired of the car, begin to expect the worst and the car becomes a bit of a worry, sometimes we are ready for a new car - 700 HP Demon or Nissan Leaf - whatever)

Seems to me that if everything is cool and the car serves you well then keep it...just expect to have the maintenance hangups as it ages. I consider your 120 K low miles for the car and the fact you have fully maintained it is a real plus but it is still 10 years old and seals, hoses and belts age out as well as wear out.
Buying a new car is pretty expensive and unlikely to make up the costs with efficiency but stands an incredibly better chance of you spending the next few years not worrying about the car.
I would offer some more advice but at 73 years old I think I can speak with confidence that you should not do EXACTLY what I did do as mostly the new car always made me wish for the old one a bit .
May only be a best decision but not a right decision.

 

[JoeKerr]

Aloha Bryan -
As you must know, the Hawaii market is especially crazy for cars. You will not be putting many miles on the car as years go by. On the Big Island, my Crosstrek is logging under 3k miles per year, and would be a lot less were it not 200 miles round trip for the Costco run.

It sounds as if there is nothing pushing you to dispose of this car. If you did get rid of it, what would be the replacement? You might go with the Official Vehicle of Hawaii -- a Toyota Tacoma (I have a 2016 that is great, although a bit larger than I would like). Would you replace with a new Subaru? The way Subaru has given the Hawaii dealers effectively a monopoly makes it impossible under the best of times to get what a mainlander would consider to be a good deal. (Mine came on a barge from Honolulu because the local dealer was especially difficult to deal with.)

I am one who keeps vehicles as long as they continue to serve me well. If I was in your position, the one thing that might prompt me to replace a 2012 is the technology being put into vehicles, some of which enhances performance, some of which tends to make the driver redundant, and some of which is flakey. I might buy a new vehicle now to avoid (or at least postpone) what will certainly be ever greater intrusive and potentially unreliable technology coming in future years.

Your Crosstrek will lose value at a slow rate. I'd say you have plenty of time to make your decision.

 

[MA Subie]

My question is clearly one of personal opinion, but respect the voices on this board so wanted to get an idea of whether I should start looking for a new vehicle while this one has some value to it..................

You won't get much for an 11 year old car with 120K miles even in pristine condition unless it's a rare no longer made classic. I say drive it until something expensive breaks, then trade it. That could be a few more years or it could be tomorrow, who knows? How much is too much to spend in repairs on this car? I would say over $2,500 if it has no rust. If it has rust, I would drop that number.