These Are The Subaru Tribeca's Dying Days

Try to conjure up in your memory the Subaru B9 Tribeca’s early days. No, we’re not talking about those TTAC-oriented Tribeca memories – I’m far too new at TTAC to delve into the site’s ancient history. No, think back to when the biggest Subaru crossover was downright common.

Yes, “common” might be a bit of a stretch. But Subaru sold more than 18,000 of these beasts in 2006, the Tribeca’s first full year on the market. (Subaru sold nearly 15,000 Tribecas in the final eight months of 2005, an even healthier sales rate. So yes, the decline began early on.) The B9 Tribeca was America’s 167th-best-selling vehicle in 2006, which doesn’t sound very high, but isn’t very low, either. 134 different nameplates generated fewer sales.

Imagine if in 2014 Subaru was capable of selling the Tribeca at the same rate as some of the crossover’s 2006 cohorts. The Tribeca ranked right alongside the Land Rover Range Rover Sport eight years ago. Had they stayed together, Subaru would be selling 17,000 Tribecas in America in 2014.

Instead, only 723 Tribecas left Subaru dealers between January and November of this year. Cars.com shows only four currently remaining in dealer inventory. Subaru says 30 were sold in November, which represented a massive uptick from the nine sold in October but a 72% decline from November 2013, a 99% drop from the 2129 sold in November 2005.

2129. In November 2005, the Tribeca outsold the whole Jaguar brand, the Suzuki Grand Vitara, the Lexus RX hybrid, the Scion xA, the Pontiac Torrent, the Kia Amanti, the Mazda Tribute, the Mitsubishi Endeavor, the Infiniti FX, the Mercury Mountaineer, and the Range Rover Sport.

Heady times, indeed.

But one year later, Tribeca sales plunged 44%. The decline of the Tribeca has almost always been in effect. Subaru didn’t sell as many in the final eight months of 2006 as they did in the same period of 2005. 2007 sales slid 10%. Tribeca volume then fell 35% in 2008, 46% in 2009, and 58% in 2010. As the market improved 10% in 2011, Tribeca volume improved 13%, but then in 2012 the Tribeca dropped 26% to new lows. Last year, Tribeca sales slid 23%.

Through the first eleven months of 2014, as the defunct Tribeca was cleared out, sales were cut in half. To add insult to injury, and perhaps because of embarrassment, Subaru is no longer including the Tribeca in its monthly sales charts, displaying it instead as a footnote below the vital info. In Subaru’s November results, for example, when the headline read, “Subaru Of America, Inc. Enjoys Best November Ever, Confirms All-Time Sales Record,” the release’s total included a conspicuous asterisk: “Includes 30 Tribeca sales for the month and 723 YTD.”

A decade after B9 Tribeca sales began, the Subaru brand now impresses us with its significant growth month after month after month. As a small automaker with a relatively small product lineup, their ability to sell 43% more autos than VW USA has garnered positive attention. That they’ve produced such growth without any meaningful three-row crossover is especially noteworthy. And it causes one to wonder what they might achieve – what they might already have achieved – with a true Toyota Highlander twin.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.