Depends on the vehicle. There are some truck based vehicles with AWD that handle extreme situations decently then there are AWD vehicles like minivans and subaru's that have better wet road handling than a non AWD minivan or car but are still car based and fail when you get into an extreme situation. Then there are situations where you get 36" of snow overnight and your better off staying home.

Toyota's cost more to buy and operate in the US than other brands. They load them down with luxury equipment to drive up profit and cost and the maintenance and parts are more $ driving up the overall cost.

I cannot say ENOUGH good about Subarus. We have owned 11 or so over the years. Started with an 81' 4x4 wagon, and the last one was an 03' Forester. Simply THE best winter/slippery raod vehical out there, sans a true 4x4 Audi Quattro with air assist locking diff's front/rear. They will out perform ANY SUV, and 4x4 truck out there for winter road profomance. As stated only thing that will cook you is DEEEP DEEP snow. We currently are Subie"less" as our third child in a car seat simultaneously and it just wouldnt work in a Subie. I have NEVER heard of ANY engine problem??? the only issue on older ones was "Y" pipes rotted out. The Legecy model was a bit of an odd one, made in US and not up to Subie standards.


Ironwood

Yup,great cars in snow and here is the head gasket problem list
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Certain 1999 through 2002 2.5L equipped vehicles may experience an external coolant leak at the head gaskets. As a precautionary measure, SOA is adding a special conditioner to the engine cooling system. This conditioner prevents leaks from occurring and corrects existing leaks.
Only early Phase II 2.5 liter engines are affected. Phase I 2.5 liter engines (some 1999 model year and prior years) are not affected. Countermeasures applied to the manufacturing process for those 2002 and later VINS not affected by this campaign have eliminated the need for this campaign to be performed on those vehicles.
In the future, it will be necessary to add Genuine Subaru Cooling System Conditioner to the SUBARU vehicle cooling system whenever the engine coolant is replaced.
If the vehicle owner has this repair performed promptly, Subaru will extend warranty coverage on cylinder head gasket external coolant leaks to a period of 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever occurs first.

sounds like K&W Block Sealer... used it in all the race car motors... especially if we cc'd the heads and had them cut..

I used to work for a guy that modified Subarus. We would get unmodified cars in all the time for head gasket/cooling leaks, specifically the 2.5L. A couple times it was bad enough to hydro-lock the block, requiring a completely new short block. Not a cheap repair, if I remember correctly it started around $1300 and could go way up from there if you needed a new short block (and that was us, I don't know what a dealer would charge).

Once that was fixed though, they were great engines. We had a couple WRX's that we replaced the block with aftermarket one, then we would add a larger turbo (with controller and injectors), turbo-back exhaust, front mount inter cooler, a stronger clutch disk, and tune them on the dyno. The cars would run 400+hp no problem as daily drivers.

They were stupid fast from a dig, a lot of fun to play with.

Bit OT but people have used Subarus sealer for cracked blocks in other vehicles with success,its supposed to be good stuff and the real deal.

I've pulled enough out of 6" of snow with my stock 4x4 truck to know they are not all that great. People in the hills of WV trade in their trucks for them and find out they don't do any better, use the same amount of gas going up the hills and take more maintenance then trade them in for another truck after a few years.

You are right,they lack clearance and power of a truck,but on ice/ snow they ARE awesome vehicles,they are The standard for 4x4 cars here,the largest market for them in the USA is right on this mtn,awesome machines.

Kept out of deep snow you wont see one on side of road here.And they will claw up ice chutes (roads here) with right tires thats unbelievable.

Subarus are also extremely popular in Alaska. More times than I can remember I've gone out to a parking lot and started to unlock the wrong car before I realized it wasnt mine, because there were so many in the lot than looked just like mine.

My personal experience has been that Subarus are very reliable. I have owned several over the years and have not had many significant mechanical problems. Clearance is an issue, but aside from that they are great cars.