We've got two rav4's in the family. A 2001 and a 2004 that my dad bought because we had good luck with our 2001.
They seem rather tall for the 'station wagon' qualifier!
The good:
Great gas mileage...25-30 depending on whether its mixed or all highway. Good visibility. With the rear seats out its an excellent hauler of stuff and dogs. Decent ride and handling. Maintenance is pretty easy on ours...you sit in front of the car and reach under and the oil filter and drain plug are right there up front on the bottom just behind the bumper. No reliability issues.
The bad:
Interiors a bit noisy, lots of hard plastic without a lot of muffling, but you're getting a lot of car for the money so some corners needed to be cut. In what seems to be standard in many japanese cars, the 'auto up/down' drivers window can be a pain in the butt to get to open just an inch or two...it wants to go all the way up or down so you have to flick the switch sometimes 4-5 times before you can make it move just a little. Do not, I repeat, do not get the sunroof. It vibrates, rattles, and if you open only the back windows when you go over 40mph it starts violently popping up and down. Whoever engineered that sucker needs to be shot, its obviously a poorly done el cheapo item added in after the model was designed. Oddly, the rear tailgate simply opens in the wrong direction, from the left. If you're parallel parked and want to load some stuff from the curb, you have to put your stuff in the street, open the door, put your stuff in the car, close the door, go back to the curb and get more stuff. Its perfect for people in japan, england and other places where they drive and park on the wrong side of the road. The seats in ours are great but dont fold the back ones down and then put any sort of weight on them...theres some cheap thin plastic backing that just crushes...bad planning IMO.
In this category I'd look at the honda CRV and the Scion xB. At the time I bought our rav the honda was due for a makeover and the rav had just gotten one. I think the newer CRV was better than the rav, but now the rav's had another makeover.
Without even seeing the car, I can say for sure that adding a little length to it and a 3rd seat cant be good. I cant imagine anybody other than preemies being put in that 3rd seat, and they'd have to tuck in their feet.
Cant compare much with the subaru. I've only driven one forrester and one outback and hated both of them. If you're short you might like them more than I did. I found the seats and driving position very awkward and uncomfortable. It was a few years back, but they also liked to do enough oddball things a la Saab to make getting in the car and driving it the first time a little more complicated...IIRC they have the key between the seats and the heating controls were unusually labeled and laid out.
