Subaru brushes up on Forester

0 Comments | USA TODAY, July, 2005 | by James R. Healey

Subaru's Forester small SUV has so much going for it: excellent all-wheel-drive system, good crash-test scores, a "top pick" rating from influential Consumer Reports magazine because of good road manners, top scores for reliability and owner satisfaction, and slower-than-average depreciation.

But standing still is suicide in the car business, so Subaru made changes for the 2006 model going on sale now: more power, more features, fewer models, cleaner look.

The non-turbocharged models are called 2.5 X, 2.5 X Premium and 2.5 X L.L. Bean. The turbocharged version is called 2.5 XT and comes only as an uplevel Limited model.

The non-turbo engine gets eight more horsepower that kicks in at a lower engine speed, so it's more useful in traffic. The turbo gets a...