Honestly it was on my short list if anything drastic would have happened to my Fit before the HRV came out. He got it in 2013 right after they came out. Waited for the dealer to do a trade for a manual (that's why I haven't test drove his, I can sorta drive a manual if it was an emergency and that was the only car). He really likes it, granted his previous car was a 1993 Accord. He doesn't find the Subie sluggish at all, but that really depends on what you're coming from because so many reviews declare it sluggish. We've hauled lots of bikes and skis, gone on a 5 hour road trip to Eastern Washington, several 3 hour trips to Portland, and plenty of snowy trips for skiing and it's been a champ in all those situations and quite comfortable. The back seat has a lot less leg room than the HRV, I'm 5'5" and did ok behind the drivers seat when his brother joined one of the trips. But anyone much taller might not be as comfortable on a longer trip. I like the cargo space in the HRV better, it's deeper instead of being flush with the hatch opening on the bottom, the trade off is less ground clearance for me but I've been happy to not bottom out in bad driveway/sidewalk connections and steep parking garages. He laughed at me cringing expecting a driveway that scraped my Fit to nail the new car and it didn't! Subaru's AWD is of course going to be stronger if that is a critical feature for your needs but sacrifices some MPGs. He's got the middle tier trim and it's a few years old so I don't know if they've improved it but the infotainment system is clunky at best and only really does ok with an iPod classic plugged in via USB. He doesn't like using BT for music from his Android phone since it doesn't read the folders or song info properly, incoming calls are fine, but for outgoing voice activated calls you have to build a separate phone book on the car's system, it doesn't pull contact info from your phone. The HRV is much simpler to use in that respect, both iPod via USB and iPhone music and calls via BT with the option to use Siri. They're both pretty similar so it will really come down to personal feel. I doubt a married couple would need both of these cars since they duplicate so much, if that were the case I'd probably go for another Fit or something hybrid or electric for city driving to compliment the rugged car unless both people had critical jobs that don't stop for inclement weather.
