jsutter,
LOL you just don’t understand what I had to do. Don’t judge your fellow driver until you’ve had to drive a few miles in his seat…
I was not mentally hung up on an Outback. Rather I had to select 1 model to focus on - to learn it well to know what to look for and confine my search to make my search quick and efficient (though I looked within a several hundred mile radius - a very good value is worth a few hours driving). I’m moving a company I founded out West and relocating with my wife, yet might have to return to the E Coast because of an illness in the family. I needed a car that I could use for some very light moving of computer equipment and light office furniture when needed, day to day travel during week, and a short road trip every few weeks of 2-3 hours. I needed that car to be a car that holds its value well so I could sell it without a big penalty if I needed to in the fall. Guess what? My highly targeted method worked. In 10 days efficient steady effort, including research, search, inspection and buying, I got a great deal on an Outback VDC edition that checked out in thorough inspection in excellent mechanical and cosmetic shape, was well maintained and came with a bunch of valuable extras. I inspected only 3 cars at fairly minimal cost to get there.
I asked about the other cars because in the future, if we get a second car, or if we need a bigger car, I was curious to learn about crossovers and compact-mid SUVs that were highly fuel efficient yet offered more internal volume and seating space. I have not followed cars for years, living in a major city with 3 car rental places in several blocks walking distance.
BTW, I don’t think the Outback is not the be-all-end-all of cars. No car is. It depends on your use. But the AWD Subaru Outbacks with VDC (anti-slip) handle many road and weather conditions very safely, the car makes a great car for driving into the mountains for skiing (you often see them passing SUVs on mountain roads in winter), the car has among the best crash tests, Subaru has just overtaken Toyoto for reliability and I could go on. It’s a good gar, there are other many other good cars out there, but I just had to pick 1 car that would work for us to make my search quick and efficient.