It's fast, turns on a dime, and has been very reliable. I am at 50K miles, and have had no problems at all. I love driving this car, and the Sherman Oaks dealer has a few new GT's with Navi, Harmon Kardon sound system, and power moonroof for 32 and 33K respectively. As far as the comments in regards to refinement. Name another car with AWD, speed, and handling this good for that price and than compare it to a TSX and G25.
Remember this Motortrend; the TSX and G25 are intro luxary cars that yield to a different market, and the Legacy GT is the fun to drive alternate to a Camry or Accord.
We all learn at an early age you get what you pay for. That knockoff action figure at the dollar store just doesn't pack the same karate-chop action as the one on the TV commercials. And it's tough keeping up with friends on your $100 Toys "R" Us mountain bike when it weighs as much as your Labrador retriever and the wheels won't stay round. A few samples from our Kizashi's logbook: "Feel like a premium piece. Has the high-value/fun-to-drive bones that made the Civic famous." "Impressive for its price." "It's hard to believe this car only costs $24,000." Yes, our Kizashi tester wowed us with its value. For an as-tested price of $23,484, we got a spacious midsize sedan equipped with dual-zone climate control; a 10-way power driver's seat with memory settings; a tilting/telescoping leather-wrapped, button-laden, multifunction steering wheel; a 425-watt, 10-speaker audio system; Bluetooth connectivity; foglamps; eight airbags; and 18-inch wheels. Not bad."What really sells it for me and my heavy foot is that one can drive the Kizashi at full throttle all the time without doing super-illegal speeds," Vance scribbled. "The engine has just enough power to wind out on every hole shot, freeway ramp, or lane merge, and yet, doing so rarely puts you above the posted speed limit. Lots of fun."That fun character, combined with practicality (the Kizashi averaged 24.8 mpg during its stay), earned strong praise from executive editor Ed Loh. "For scooting around town and riding commuter traffic, the Kizashi is perfect," Loh noted. "The manual gearbox is good (not great), but sporty enough to encourage heel-toe shifting and other shenanigans. I enjoy wringing out the four-banger, and it makes me even happier to see mpg in the mid-to-high 20s when doing so."For as much as we loved driving the Kizashi, there was still room for some improvement. A blown fuse at 15,000 miles rendered the stereo and power mirrors completely non-operable, but the fuse was replaced at no cost under warranty. Service costs for our year and nearly 20,000 miles rang in at a total of $128.69 for two oil changes, tire rotations, and general inspections. Two no-cost recall services were also performed -- one to replace a dashboard compartment hinge, and the other to replace a defective drive belt pulley tensioner.All said, we were sad to see our Kizashi go after its yearlong tenure in the fleet. It might be easy to replace it with a more expensive vehicle, but it won't be as easy to find one with more charm. Associate online editor Nate Martinez summed up our final impressions. "Suzuki should be proud. The Kizashi is roomy and modern inside, has a handsome exterior, rides smooth, grips decently well, and returns respectable fuel economy. It's a shame Suzuki isn't selling more of these.""The more I drive the Kizashi, the more I like it. Especially when you consider that our well-appointed tester stickers for under $23,000, about what you'd spend for a similar Jetta. Of course, the Jetta now has a torsion-beam rear end -- fine for most, but the Kizashi is the better handler." 
With most cars that come into our fleet, several features receive attention. With others, one particular element becomes the focus of just about everyone on staff. The Mitsubishi Outlander GT falls firmly into the latter category, with most of our year's worth of notes on the crossover focused on the shortcomings of the Rockford Fosgate-sourced infotainment system. A sampling: "The Outlander's iPod integration leaves much to be desired.""iPod integration is shameful. USB connection is erratic and unreliable.""No rotary knobs at all. Does Mitsu really expect the user to push the Up/Down toggle, oh, 147 times to browse sat-radio channels?"
"The dial works, everyone knows it, and because you can grip it makes it easier to deal with while driving (oh, yeah, driving...oops). Ditch the buttons." "The touchscreen nav/audio interface needs to be purged and junked."It's been a long time since the interface of a long-termer's infotainment system drew so much ire from our merry band of drivers.Sure, the lack of a knob is annoying, but there were some positives about the system. First, it allows you to enter a destination with the car in motion. Second, I liked the way it showed traffic, using large color arrows in addition to the usual color-coded lines, though photography editor Julia LaPalme felt it was a visual mess.
Once they got past these shortcomings, most staffers had a positively uneventful experience with the aggressively styled seven-seat crossover, though it's not certain if the third-row seats and their shin-crushing 27.7 inches of legroom were ever used. Multiple props went to its tailgate: "I love its split-folding tailgate, a la the Land Rover LR4. Not only does it make loading big objects a breeze, it also doubles as a baby-changing table," commented editor-at-large Ron Kiino. Praise was also directed at the shifter paddles, with senior editor Jonny Lieberman the most vocal. "Best paddle shifters this side of Maserati," wrote the Loverman. "Big, crafted from magnesium, and mounted to the column; there are a whole lot of carmakers that could learn a thing (or three) from Mitsubishi about proper paddle shifters."Motor Trend Rating: 
Buick must have been tired of watching Lexus build its reputation on cars that dominate the comfortable luxury sedan segment the American brand once ruled. The ES sedan was Lexus' top-selling vehicle for seven of the first 10 years the brand existed. After more than 20,000 miles with a 2010 LaCrosse, it's clear to us that Buick has crafted a car capable of challenging the popular ES 350. As a bonus, the LaCrosse looks damn good-and not just for a Buick."Stop the presses!" said senior editor Jonny Lieberman. "We parked [the LaCrosse] at a lot on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, catty-corner from the Capital Records building. As I handed the car over to the valet-a guy who, night after night, week after week, parks Benzes and Porsches and Astons and Italian cars-said to me, 'Nice car.' And he meant it. This guy thought the Buick LaCrosse is a car worth mentioning. Then, after we left the club, the valet pulled the LaCrosse up and a very smartly dressed woman saw the car and said, 'Whoa-beautiful.' Again, a Buick."
The LaCrosse wasn't without its share of issues, but for the most part, the car supported its curbside appeal with decent driving dynamics. Our Buick was a loaded model powered by the 3.6-liter V-6 engine that, in various forms, also serves duty under the hood of the Cadillac CTS and Chevrolet Camaro. In our Buick, it produced 280 horsepower and 259 pound-feet of torque, mated to a six-speed automatic transmission. Overall fuel economy was 19.9 mpg, not too far below the front-drive LaCrosse's official 21-mpg combined rating. Like any good Lexus competitor, the LaCrosse excelled in high-traffic conditions. "The ride is quiet and comfortable, and the LaCrosse is far less prone to diving forward and leaning back than the Lexus ES I drove last year," logged online production manager Kirill Ougarov. An acoustic glass windshield and extra thick windows provide the isolation any good luxury highway cruiser should have.Motor Trend Rating: 
Your opinion of the Mazdaspeed3 depends on the cars you coveted in high school. Were they the European thoroughbreds, the ones with equal amounts of heritage and performance? Were they Detroit's finest, with rear tires as wide as their torque plateau? Or were they economy cars, the ones with 15-inch wheels shod in R-compound rubber for weekend autocross duties, the ones that constantly needed a bit of fiddling with a laptop plugged into an OBD-II port, the ones that had a stack of Sport Compact Car issues integrated as a load-bearing part of their frame? As it became most apparent during the 21,293 miles we logged on our Celestial Blue Mica example over the past 12 months -- a large number of which were spent with the front tires pulling slightly to the right -- the Mazdaspeed3 is unabashedly for fans of the last. Along with the torque steer, a topic discussed ad nauseam in these pages, staffers of various childhood car-tinkering backgrounds debated the merits of the shifter's balkiness, the clutch's on-off personality, the exhaust drone, and the onset of turbo boost that felt like being rear-ended by an out-of-control school bus.
To the grown-up tuners, these character traits evoked memories of the glory of high school, minus the essentially nonexistent reliability. That brace-for-launch acceleration followed by comical torque steer? It's like your buddy's second turbo project car -- you know, the one following the project you're not supposed to talk about anymore. The shifter and stiff clutch? Like your first custom short shifter and Stage 3 racing clutch. The exhaust drone? Inspired by every modified car, ever. It's like the good times, when all your car's various settings were dialed in perfectly and, for those brief 5 minutes, your car worked. You won your class at the weekend autocross. You finished a session of hot laps during the local track day without overheating. The 'speed3 gets nostalgia right. It reminds you only of these enjoyable memories, like when your favorite back road was deserted, and, while bombing down it, your car didn't explode into fiery bits like your buddy's first project. Oops, forgot we weren't talking about that.