Getting the Most Out of a 2004 Forester XT
The 2004 Subaru Forester XT is a weird little car. It has a turbocharged 2.5-liter flat-four that makes 210 horsepower, all-wheel drive that actually works, and a reputation for being basically indestructible if you treat it right. I picked one up with 94,000 miles on it three years ago and have put another 40,000 on it since. This isn't going to be a glowing enthusiast piece. It's going to be honest. When I first read through Unleashing The Beast The 2004 Subaru Forester Xt Review type articles online, they always focused on the fun factor. The boost. The quick acceleration. The rally-bred heritage. What they don't tell you is that the car is loud. Really loud. The turbo wastegate hits at 13-14 psi and it sounds like someone hitting a recycling bin with a wrench every time you lift off the throttle. Your passengers will notice. You will notice. It's part of the package.
Unleashing The Beast The 2004 Subaru Forester Xt Review
Here's what people miss about this engine. The EJ255 in the XT uses a smaller turbo than the WRX STI version, which means it spools faster but tops out harder. Stock, it makes about 210 hp at the crank, which translates to roughly 175-185 at the wheels depending on how much drag your drivetrain has. That's plenty quick for a 3,300-pound box on wheels, but the CVT transmission that came with it absolutely murders any sense of urgency. The linearshift mode helps, but it's still a rubber-band feeling that makes you want to punch the dash. I swapped to a manual five-speed early on. Not because the CVT was broken, but because it felt like wearing boots two sizes too big every time I drove. The manual swap isn't cheap. A rebuilt TR6060 five-speed from a 2004-2005 Baja or XT manual costs around $3,500-$4,500 from a parts extractor, and you'll need the bellhousing, clutch, flywheel, shifter assembly, and possibly some pedal modifications. Factor in a weekend of your time or $800-1,200 at a shop and you're looking at roughly $5,000-6,000 total. Worth it. The car transforms. Now let me talk about the thing that actually breaks these cars. Head gaskets. Everyone knows this about Subarus. But here's the nuance most guides skip: the 2004 model year is on the tail end of the problematic EJ25 short block. The earlier head bolt pattern and thinner stock gaskets are prone to failure, but the real killer is overheating. Not just once, catastrophically. Repeated mild overheating events where the thermostat sticks closed for a few minutes in heavy traffic or while towing something you shouldn't be towing. Each event degrades the gasket slightly. By 80-100k miles, you're often dealing with coolant intrusion into cylinder one or two.
I had this happen at 112,000 miles. No steam. No overheating warning. Just a rough idle and a cooling system that was losing half a quart per thousand miles. The classic Subaru "silent" head gasket failure. I went with ARP head studs and Multi-layer steel gaskets from Carpenter or Fel-Pro. The fix itself took me about six hours with basic tools, but the heads need to go to a machine shop for resurfacing. That's another $200-300. Total cost for the fix was around $700 in parts and machine shop work. Do not cheap out on the gaskets. The OEM paper-style ones will fail again within 20,000 miles. MLS is non-negotiable. Another thing nobody warns you about: the intercooler piping on these things is plastic. Not metal. Plastic. And it sits right under the intake charge, hot and pressurized. At around 90-110k miles, you'll develop a crack in the lower intercooler pipe and lose boost. The symptom is lazy acceleration above 3,000 RPM and a noticeable lack of power that makes you think the turbo is shot. It isn't. It's just venting to atmosphere. I found the crack by listening for a whistle under boost and tracing it back with some soapy water. Replacement pipes from Subaru run about $120. Aftermarket aluminum options exist but the OEM reroute kit with silicone couplers is the reliable choice. The suspension is competent but dated. The struts are MacPherson up front and a double wishbone setup in the rear, which is actually quite good for a crossover of this era. It handles like a wagony Impreza, which is to say it leans but doesn't feel insecure. The ride is firm, especially with the 17-inch wheels. If you've got bad roads where you live, expect to replace front strut mounts every 60-70k miles. The bearing surfaces wear out and you get clunking over bumps. ($120 for a pair of Monroes or KYBs, $80 in shop labor if you can't do it yourself.)
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Fuel economy with the manual is about 20 city / 26 highway. The CVT trades off a couple miles per gallon for convenience. The all-wheel drive system is a permanent torque-split setup with a viscous coupling center differential. It's not the active SYSD system found in some later models, which means it's simpler and less prone to electronic gremlins, but it also doesn't do much active torque vectoring. It just sends power wherever traction is available, and that works fine for everything except deep mud or ice where all four wheels can dig in equally. I should mention the rust issue. Not structural rust on these, but the rear subframe mounting points and the control arm bushing towers can develop surface corrosion if you live in a salt-belt state. It's cosmetic until it isn't. I inspect mine every oil change and touch up any bare metal with high-build primer and spray-on bed coating. Takes ten minutes and prevents a $2,000 problem down the line. Brakes are adequate but not great. The stock rotors are 11.8 inches in the front and they fade if you're towing or driving aggressively in the mountains. I upgraded to 12.4-inch rotors and EBC Greenstuff pads. Stopping distance improved by roughly 15 feet at 60 mph. Not a game-changer, but noticeable. The rear brakes are tiny by comparison and tend to seize caliper slides if you don't clean and lubricate them every 15,000 miles. Do it. It takes 20 minutes with a brake wire brush and silicone grease and prevents the kind of rotor warping that makes people think they need a full brake job.
The interior is hard plastic and it shows every scratch. The seats are supportive but the driver's bolster tears around 80-100k miles if you're heavier set. I bought a replacement cover on eBay for $45 and swapped it myself in about 45 minutes. The electronics are straightforward. No complex infotainment to fail. The climate controls are physical knobs. The gauge cluster is simple. This is a 2004 car and it shows, but also this is why it still works after two decades. There's very little that can electronically go wrong. Parts availability is excellent. Subaru still makes most of the critical components, and the aftermarket community is huge because these cars were popular in rally and drift scenes. You'll find everything from budget STada replacements to performance upgrades at every price point. The engine itself is robust enough to handle 300+ horsepower on stock internals with a proper build, though that's probably overkill for a Forester XT unless you're building a dedicated weekend toy. Bottom line: the 2004 Forester XT is a solid daily driver if you accept its flaws. It needs proactive maintenance on the cooling system, the intercooler piping will eventually crack, and the CVT is a disappointment. Fix those things and you've got a car that will easily reach 200,000 miles with regular oil changes and sensible driving. Skip the maintenance and you'll be spending more on repairs than the car is worth by 120,000 miles. Buy it with a pre-purchase inspection from someone who actually knows Subarus, not a generic mechanic. The difference in what they'll catch versus what they'll miss is the difference between a good purchase and a money pit.
