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Message: [QUOTE="Paesano, post: 2696431, member: 5631"] Wise advice. Honestly, swapping good all-season tires with Blizzaks in the winter buys you more than AWD in most situations. One notable exception would be if you live on a steep hill or have a steep driveway made of gravel. Personally, I only buy AWD cars and I still swap in Blizzaks in the winter but I live in upstate NY. We were strictly Subaru for a while but the headgasket issues soured me. Yes, they eventually went with copper based gaskets and, supposedly, the new engines have a separate coolant feed but, still. Also, there have been engine problems due to shortened piston skirts to try and improve gas mileage. Toyota and Honda quality has slipped too but that is where we turned after Subaru as they are still better. Last year I bought a 2005 Acura RL in great condition with the timing belt and water pump already done on it. The year before that I bought a 2009 Toyota Venza with stupid low mileage in it. Both cars were owned by old guys. Both cars have been great. Both have plusses and minuses. Right now, I would give the nod to Toyota. The only major quality issue they had, to my knowledge, was sludge build up on the first generation of direct injection engines. But that is better than the slush box issues Honda had in the early and mid 2000s. [/QUOTE]