Assistance with purchase of a Liberty

[chrissara]

Hello all and thank you for allowing a unknown to become a member of the forum.

Recently my wife was involved in a minor prang (she ran into a small keep left sign) which brought to my attention the issue of car safety.

Whilst I recognise that a car is only as safe as the driver behind it, this does not account for other drivers on the road.

Last year I purchased for myself a Honda Civic Sport - a safe car insofar as its specifications are concerned - front, side and rear airbags, and at the time of my purchase the safety (and fuel economy) factors were my prime buying factors.

My wife has a Mazda 2 - nice, reliable car, but small and not what I would consider a car to have a 60kph crash in. This is particularly so given we have 3 year old and 7 year old child. As such I wish to purchase her a late model vehicle with excellent safety factors, but within a mid price range bracket (read under $30K).

After doing some background research, I have decided to purchase a Subaru Liberty. Narrowing down further I intend to get the 2.5L type, as we occassionally drive to Brisbane on holidays (a round trip of 2000klm). The models appear to be 2002 onwards

The next question is safety features - all models have the drivers and passenger airbag (and side airbag too I believe). However it only appears the safety pack or premium pack offer curtain airbags for the rear passengers. Further, the premium pack seems to offer ESP (ironically the safety pack does not)

Where I am leading is here - where do safety features tend to become less important in a vehicle purchase (I never thought I would ask this question)?
(a) curtain airbahs are important for the side impact on the vehilce;
(b) Subaru I am imformed have excellent pillar strength in their vehilces, moreso the Liberty, where again I am informed, it is almost imossible to cut the B-Pillars wit the "jaws of life"
(c) Given that the Liberty is an AWD vehicle, why is there the need for ESP or Stability Control?
(d) Was there any reason ESP was left out of the Safety Pack - on that point I see the 2005 models did not seem to have ESP in their Premium pack? This could be bad research of my part.
(e) Is an Outback or Forester any better as a safe family car?

I thnak you for reading through a fairly long post, but would be greatful for any feedback.

[Hodgey]

Firstly, welcome to the club mate.

There have been many safety reviews conducted with the Liberty as the subject. I myself just recently spoke to one of my mates in at MUARC (Monash University Accident Research Centre) and was amazed to hear some of the results they were getting!

In the informaiton he showed me, the old, as in 1992-93, Liberty GX and RS are still today some of the safest cars around, even though they don't have airbags. This stunned me, as before this I always thought that surely airbags would increase the safety of a car. My friend tells me that Subaru's are engineered so strongly that the chassis and structual points on the car will never actually break, they will warp! This strong chassis, coupled with AWD and ABS in most late RS's, makes the car even today a reasonably safe car.

If you ask Dave (Sheppo on the Forums), he's got a few piuctures of how much damage there was to his car when he was T-boned from about 60kmh. He most definately lived to tell the tail, and the car was deemed an economic write off but by no means a mechanical write off.

As far as the other questions go, I'm not to confident in answering those, so I'll leave that to someone with more knowledge. Hope this little snippet helps.

CHeers

[chrissara]

Thank you for that - much appreciated.

I guess it is the maketing aspect - I looked at the site www.howsafeismycar.com.au
and they talk about ESP and curtain airbags.

Hence my question about ESP when Subaru's have AWD.

[RSTurbo]

Hi Chrissara. Welcome to the club.

As good as it is to see a member signing up asking about the liberty, I think you might be in the wrong place unfortunately. This forum/club, deals predominantly with the early model Liberty - as in early 90's model. There really isnt much here about the later model Liberty which I think is what you are referring to.

There is another club/forum, at www.ozliberty.com which focuses on later models, so you may have more luck there.

However, in the last couple of months my parents have been looking to buy a new medium-size vehicle with a bit of luxury, so I have been looking into the features and specs of the later model Liberty's, and comparing them with other makes/models in their class such as the Nissan Maxima, Mazda 6 and Honda Accord. On the road the liberty competes exceptionally well. And as far as safety goes, it would have to be the safest of them all - considering the inbuilt safety features + all wheel drive (as well as its ANCAP rating).
If safety is a big concern for you, keep using www.howsafeisyourcar.com.au ...its a good resource to use before buying a car.

hope this helps you.

ps. if you buy the Lib, make sure you get the 2.5i premium pack, as you get all the bells and whistles, and its the best value for money model.

[SHEPPO3930]

yes the gen 1's are built strong!

50-60km/h into the side of me and this is what happened:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/SHEPPO3930/110-1064_IMG.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/SHEPPO3930/110-1062_IMG.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/SHEPPO3930/110-1061_IMG.jpg

note i was also doing 60-70km/h when he hit me and thus was spun around into oncoming traffic then back into my lane, the car did not feel like it would roll at all, it simply spun around.

up colse the damage was pretty substantial, the floor, B pillar and roof were all remodeled nicely, but the condition of the other car that hit me was alot worse, everything from the front wheels foward was gone! fords arent built that tuff.

one thing i might add here is according to a few people in the know, if i had a passenger they would have sustained pretty serious, if not fatal head injuries from the B pillar. this is why curtain airbags in all the new cars is a must. it's all well and good for the B pillar to take the force of the impact and transfer it thru into the surrounding areas of the car's structure, but the people inside are still vunerable to injury thus airbags are needed..

my opinion, a new liberty with its subaru build strength/quality coupled with all the safety features would be a pretty safe combination that i would feel comfortable taking my family in.

hope that helps

[cruisEH]

Hi Chrissara.

having just bought one, i never thought id say this, but, if you can possibly afford it, trade in and buy new, we got 8.3 % from mazda for a mazda 3 SP23 with lux pack, and i have to say, its a better car than the subaru. it may not be as fast, but has handling to keep any RS honest straight from the factory. the MPS i hear is in another league and alot faster point to point than a WRX. the 3 has 6 airbags, stability control, traction control, ABS, and best of all, a brilliant chassis and is very competent to start with, i imagine youd have to be really FUBAR to have it actually engage its stability control..

if a subaru is your aim though, a gen 4 2004 lib is a good start..

my next car will definately be a mazda 6 MPS

just my 2c worth for what its worth..

[Bazza]

Hi Chrissara.

having just bought one, i never thought id say this, but, if you can possibly afford it, trade in and buy new, we got 8.3 % from mazda for a mazda 3 SP23 with lux pack, and i have to say, its a better car than the subaru. it may not be as fast, but has handling to keep any RS honest straight from the factory. the MPS i hear is in another league and alot faster point to point than a WRX. the 3 has 6 airbags, stability control, traction control, ABS, and best of all, a brilliant chassis and is very competent to start with, i imagine youd have to be really FUBAR to have it actually engage its stability control..

if a subaru is your aim though, a gen 4 2004 lib is a good start..

my next car will definately be a mazda 6 MPS

just my 2c worth for what its worth..

My mate has one of those MPS's. He has done several youtube runs and the dash lights up like a Christmas tree with all the stability controls and traction controls trying to control it.... but you get that with 200 kw FWD though but its nowhere near as quick as a mildly modded WRX going straight or around corners (mainly because it can't turn!). Still a nice car though - very sleeper style.

Interesting how safe the early Liberty's are.

[Sketchey]

My mate has one of those MPS's. He has done several youtube runs and the dash lights up like a Christmas tree with all the stability controls and traction controls trying to control it.... but you get that with 200 kw FWD though but its nowhere near as quick as a mildly modded WRX going straight or around corners (mainly because it can't turn!). Still a nice car though - very sleeper style.

Interesting how safe the early Liberty's are.

AFAIK MPS6 was AWD...

[cruisEH]

i reckon if your mate cant get it to turn, hes driving it wrong, they are a powerful FWD so understeer is to be expected, but dead std, i know a guy who did the driver training that was offered with the 3 MPS and he was pulling 190 k/hr down the straight at eastern creek, and could have donbe more if his testiculat fortitude was higher, and he was lapping faster than a mildly modified wrx... (exhaust, boost, lowered etc).. if you havent driven one, you really dont know how well a FWD chassis can handle.. go and test drive one.. ;)

[yods]

mazda 6 mps = awd
mazda 3 mps = fwd, and far more potent

[Marv]

mazda 3 mps = fwd, far more potent, but nowhere near as good to drive as a MkV Golf GTi

Fixed. :D

[xeon]

cruisEH, http://www.ozmazda.com/board/ - go join your fellow Mazda lovers and keep that crap off here! hahaha just kidding mate :P

I took a Mazda 3 MPS for a decent test drive when they first came out last year and thought it was a really nice car but I definately wouldn't take one over a brand new turbo Subaru. Fair enough the handling and chassis are miles ahead of an old "stock" Liberty RS but push the thing to the limit and it was using all the electronic gizmos it could to try and keep you going in the right direction. It didn't handle any better than a WRX in general driving and it was no way near as nice on the limit either.

Anyway, despite what you say about the Mazda 3's safety, the Subaru Liberty has a higher ANCAP rating :D

[dtrally]

I reckon safety should be considered in two stages.
1/ the ability to avoid an accident
2/ the survivability of an accident.
The ANCAP rating only considers the survivability as far as I'm aware, so any car that turns into a bouncy castle full of airbags will outscore a good handling, well balanced, predictable chassis with fewer bags, correct?
All wheel drive does nothing for crash test figures, but it's an undisputable fact that it's safer than RWD or FWD in every way.