Thanks for the information, Andrew. I did not pay attention to the mileage, I just offered another suggestion.
Namibia1999, you can find EPA mileage result at:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/2008findacarf.jsp
Click on a year and find your car. BTW, the Subaru Legacy 4-cyl that uses regular gas gets the same mileage as the Matrix or Vibe with AWD for 2009. The EPA also gives the Impreza wagon (2008), Legacy, Matrix, and Vibe an average mileage of 22 MPG.
Unless you get in the mountains…Denver does NOT get a lot of snow. And any snow they do get melts away very fast. It’s a very very sunny area. It’s very very rare for snow to stay on the ground for more then a couple of weeks. Areas in Upstate NY the ground is covered in November…and you won’t see it again until April.
My answer is any small front wheel drive car will be fine unless you are going someplace ahead of the snowplows. Get a set of Winter tires mounted on a spare set of rims and swap them out in Fall and Spring. Many people seem convinced that AWD or 4WD is needed, but it really isn’t for most people. It’s nice for some situations, but not really needed and it costs more in fuel and maintenance for very little benefit.
I read recently that 2008 Subaru Legacy gets 23MPG in consumer reports mixed testing. It actually bests the new redesigned 2009? Honda Accord by 1MPG with FWD.
I am not convinced anymore of Subaru AWD getting that much less MPG than current vehicles with similar displacement vehicles/power output. I concur on more complexity and slightly more maintenance.