My parents need a new vehicle. They live out in the middle of nowhere on a low-maintence road in Iowa and my dad works at the Post Office 20miles away. The Subbies were the first thing that came to mind, they can't buy new and want to spend between 10-15k.

AWD is something I think they are really going to need as my dad goes to work way before any of the plow trucks will get out there way.

Does anyone here have some first-hand experience with these 2 models? What problems do they need to look out for on model years 98-02? Or would you recommend something else? No trucks or big SUV's, dad has a bad back and they need something that gets pretty good MPG....thanks.

P.S- Any good Subaru forums out there to look over??

Seem to be pretty good cars. I wouldn't rule out any of the cute utes either like CRV's, RAV4's, etc. They'd probably suit him well too.

I have an older outback as my work vehicle. It's very solid, very tough. I've had it stuck a couple of times (in some pretty bad situations), but that's because the tires suck.

It handles very well on the road. I'd highly recommend an outback. In fact, I wish there was some way I could talk the company into replacing mine with one of the newer models. They really are tough cars. This one has been through two other employees who are well known for destroying their vehicles. Neither one of them was able to destroy the Subaru.