2024 Subaru Forester Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The 2024 Subaru Forester upholds the model's reputation as a functional, family-friendly compact crossover with plenty of safety tech and standard AWD.

The 2024 Subaru Forester is a fun, functional, family-friendly compact crossover that competes against vehicles like the Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV4.

What’s New for the 2024 Subaru Forester

Following some minor tech and safety updates for 2023, the 2024 Subaru Forester carries over unchanged. It’s part of a generation that was last redesigned in 2019 and last refreshed in 2022. The Forester is spacious and comfortable, with seating for five passengers and plenty of cargo space. With plenty of standard safety equipment and standard all-wheel drive (AWD), it’s a practical choice and a good value.

Design

The Subaru Forester has a boxy, upright design with tons of glass. That enables good outward visibility and a bright, airy cabin. Styling is on the busy side, with tons of plastic cladding, and the Forester Wilderness takes it up a notch with even more body protection as well as orange accents throughout. It’s not the most attractive compact crossover on the market, but it’s functional, and that on its own gives it plenty of appeal.

Powertrain

The 2024 Forester comes with just one powertrain across the entire lineup, a 2.5-liter flat-four engine rated for 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque. This comes with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and Subaru’s fantastic AWD system. All but the base model get Subaru’s X-Mode off-road traction management and hill-descent control, and upper-level trims offer a variety of settings, including normal, snow, dirt, deep snow, and mud. The Forester Wilderness model, with an adjusted ride height and some underbody protection, is a genuinely capable off-roader, and it can tow up to 3,000 pounds, twice the rating of other Forester models.

Interior

The Subaru Forester seats five passengers across its two rows, and it boasts some of the best cargo capacity among compact SUVs. There’s 28.9 cubic feet of space in the cargo hold, with a standard manual liftgate and an optional power liftgate. The rear seats fold down to open up a maximum of 74.2 cubic feet. The cabin comes decked out with a variety of upholstery options, up to the elegant Saddle Brown leather in the Touring model. The Forester Wilderness gets easy-cleaning synthetic leather with contrast stitching. Options include heated front seats, heated outboard rear seats, and a heated steering wheel.

Technology

The base 2024 Forester comes standard with a 6.5-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto. Most trim levels offer, or include, an upgraded system with an 8-inch touchscreen, a Wi-Fi hotspot, navigation, and a Harman Kardon premium stereo. Overall, the Forester is a lot lighter on tech features and options than most other current Subaru models.

Safety

The Forester traditionally fares well in crash testing, though some updated tests have presented more of a challenge. In the most recent evaluations, the Subaru Forester earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Top Safety Pick rating, though in previous testing, it earned the higher Top Safety Pick+ rating. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave the Forester a five-star overall rating. The Forester comes standard with Subaru’s EyeSight package, which now includes advanced adaptive cruise control alongside forward-collision warning, lane-departure warning, and lane-keep assist. Options include blind-spot monitoring, rear automatic braking, automatic emergency steering, and driver-distraction mitigation.

Pricing

As of this writing, Subaru lists pricing for the 2024 Forester starting at a competitive MSRP of $26,895 for the well-equipped base model. From there, Subaru offers the Forester in Premium ($30,095), Sport ($31,665), Wilderness ($34,720), Limited ($33,775), and Touring ($37,195) trims. The 2024 Subaru Forester is on sale now.