My Subaru Turned One

It has been a year since I got my new Subaru Forester. And it passed 18,000 miles on its birthday. For comparison, I averaged about 12,000 miles per year in my Nissan pickup, and about 8,000 miles per year in my previous pickup. I guess I like driving the Subaru. My passengers say it is comfortable, even in the back seat. It has been washed a few times, and it has a few dings in it. Several door dings, some deep. It has a peculiar L-shaped scratch on the hood. I dropped an ax on it and scratched the soft front bumper. And a scout scraped the soft rear bumper with his backpack. I have changed the oil four times. I have put 654 gallons of gasoline into it, and spewed 6.4 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. I paid $2,337 for the gasoline, but I figure that I saved $1,000 on gasoline compared to the old Nissan pickup driving the same miles. I averaged 26 miles per gallon for the first ten fillups, over 28 mpg for the last ten fillups, and the annual average was 27.1 mpg. The EPA numbers for it are 20-26 mpg, but my data indicate that I get 21 mpg in city traffic and 35 mpg on the open road on cruise control at 60 mph.