There will NOT be a Fiat 500X in my driveway anytime soon

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 04/04/2016 at 11:40 • Filed to: None

2

18

I took my gf to look at the Fiat 500X and Subaru Impreza this weekend. Having already driven them myself, I knew the Impreza was a much better car, but with how much she loved the styling of the 500X (in pictures) I thought !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I shouldn’t have doubted her.

Once she drove the cars back to back, starting with the Fiat, she was all about that Impreza. Better seats, better visibility, better ride and handling, better interior, and at least the feeling of better acceleration. It’s a much better car in pretty much every way, and she likes driving it much more.

Our local Subaru dealer has 2 cars that could work for her, both in pearl white with non-black interiors (she’s sick of the black interior in her Civic and wants something lighter). One is a 2.0i Sport Premium with tan cloth, heated seats & backup cam. The other is a 2.0i Sport Limited with “ivory” leather, sunroof, nav & EyeSight, fully loaded, the only thing she’d like that it doesn’t have is power seats because no Imprezas have power seats.

I was suggesting we get one of these two cars sooner rather than later, but she wanted to get the hell out of that dealership ASAP, because, yeah, she hates car dealerships. But we talked about it when we got home, and she wants to try and go for the fully-loaded one, if we can work out a nice good lease deal on it.

We thought about maybe waiting for the new 2017 Impreza, but there’s no guarantee that Subaru will be doing subsidized leases on those like they’re doing on the 2016, so we figured better to get a good lease deal on the 2016 since she likes the car.

The sales guy is really pushing to buy it rather than lease it, but I know Subaru is running lease programs so it’s just going to be a matter of haggling. But if I can get the numbers right, she’ll be rolling around in her brand new fully loaded Impreza by the end of the week, just in time to drive to her sister’s birthday party where she can show it off to her whole family. Priorities!

HammerheadFistpunch > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 11:47

0

Seems like an XV would be a more apt competitor to the 500X, but either way I think you made the right choice.

Textured Soy Protein > HammerheadFistpunch 04/04/2016 at 11:52

0

Sure, but we’re not really looking for something with any SUV pretenses. It’s not that we were trying to find the most SUV-wannabe Subaru, more like the assorted awd mini crossovers are close enough to regular cars that they became options. She prefers the lower ride height of the Impreza and dislikes the look of the extra cladding on the Crosstrek.

Jarrett - [BRZ Boi] > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 11:53

1

For Sweden > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 11:56

0

The best thing to do with a 500X is trade it in for a Jeep Renegade

Textured Soy Protein > For Sweden 04/04/2016 at 11:59

0

She didn’t like the looks of the Renegade when I showed it to her on the Jeep website. Also she really hated the rough idle of the 500X which I’m sure is a trait the Renegade shares.

Svend > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 12:00

0

I’m not a fan of the 500X but it’s far better looking than the Fiat 500L.

A youngsters care home moved in across the road (troubled teenagers, wow, that was fun, not) while their flooded out property was being repaired and the staff all drove Fiat 500L. Three of the ruddy things all parked up (along with other cars) on a crowded street.

For Sweden > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 12:01

0

Time to find a new Girlfriend

Textured Soy Protein > For Sweden 04/04/2016 at 12:18

0

But she has so many redeeming qualities!

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 12:22

1

Get the Limited. The tan cloth stains just looking at it. We do probably 3-4 Imprezas and Outbacks per month - with 3-4k miles on them - with stained seats. Or get the Sport Premium with cloth and have leather put in it.

Textured Soy Protein > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/04/2016 at 12:26

0

Good to know! The one with leather is our first choice but it comes down to how low I can get the lease payments on it. Subaru is running a $169/month deal on the base model, and they’ll give you the same money factor on a loaded one. So I’m pretty sure that I can get the payment where it should be, but my sales guy isn’t being super helpful with trying to give detailed numbers until I’m sitting there in front of him with her Civic for them to appraise.

gawdzillla > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 12:49

0

just get some seat covers for the base model

Textured Soy Protein > gawdzillla 04/04/2016 at 12:55

0

The Limited is also appealing for the nav, sunroof and EyeSight (adaptive cruise control, pre-collision braking, etc). I personally prefer to use Google Maps on my phone with a dash mount but she’s excited about having a built-in navigation. I hate most built-in navigation that doesn’t use Android Auto. The 2017 has Android Auto but lease rates will probably take a while to come down on it.

gawdzillla > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 13:05

0

i hate all those technology crap

but its a girl’s car so whatever

C62030 > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 13:39

0

No Imprezas have power seats? Weird. My 26-year-old Grand Prix has them. Although two of the three switches only seem to do the exact same thing at very slightly different speeds.

Textured Soy Protein > C62030 04/04/2016 at 14:08

0

I know power seats aren’t exactly an exotic portion, but Subaru chose not to equip the Impreza with them.

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 15:04

0

2014 XV owner here - so pretty much the same car. We have a limited with the ivory leather. Beware, it hangs on to blue coloring from jeans like crazy. Wife wanted black interior, I really wanted a light color - i love how it looks, but we need to clean and condition the drivers seat once a month or so. Not a bad thing to do anyway, but I’ve never seen a car seat collect so much coloring from clothes before.

Also - the stock stereos on Subarus are horrible. If the one you’re looking at is a 2015/16 it has the newer dash layout, and it seems a bit better - but the units before that were just trash. We didn’t have navigation and the unit with the backup camera was just really painful to deal with and had way too many nannies that wouldn’t let you do anything unless you were in park. We threw it out and installed a Pioneer unit with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto - best decision ever. Getting the backup camera to work with it was a pain, but apart from that it was super easy. If you’re leasing you probably won’t be doing any equipment swaps, but just something to play around with and make sure you can live with it before signing.

Textured Soy Protein > ZHP Sparky, the 5th 04/04/2016 at 15:35

1

Hmm, someone else said the tan cloth stains really easily. Have to think about which form of light interior maintenance is less annoying sounding.

I’ve seen the older style touchscreen head unit and the new one seems like it is an improvement. I personally would much rather have Android Auto, which the new 2017 is getting. I may have to encourage her to mess with the head unit more before we sign on the dotted line. I know that in theory she was excited about having in-dash nav but personally unless a car has Android Auto I’ve often found myself using a dash and my phone anyway.

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Textured Soy Protein 04/04/2016 at 16:11

0

I’d say go for the leather and just make a point of cleaning it every now and then. It just takes a few minutes - personally as much as I like the concept of cloth seats most times the material feels really cheap and weird.

Agreed on Android Auto - I guess since you’re planning on leasing you have fewer options as to how you could make that happen. As long as the in-built nav is good enough and the interface isn’t too restrictive it should give you most of the functionality you’d want while driving though.