Best alternatives to Subarus?

If I wanted a car like a 96-99 Outback as far as cargo space, off road capability, not too much worse fuel mileage (~22-26 mpg), decent reliability and simple repairs, but that will accelerate and stop faster, not spray oil onto the catalytic converter, and have a larger fuel tank (ideally enough fuel to go 400 miles at the "city" mpg rating), does anything like that exist?  I'd imagine there is some kind of CUV that would do ok but most seem to have much less ground clearance and AWD systems that are more for snow than any off road use.  I did look at Volvo XC-70s a few years ago but they were all very rough and I couldn't even find many turbo ones for sale, and those don't seem to get very good mileage.

Basically any generation of Honda CR-V or Toyota Rav 4 will have more ground clearance, very similar cargo capacity, and will meet your fuel efficiency targets. The Toyota Highlander does too, and at least the early ones had AWD that was 50:50 torque split.

Jeep Cherokee or Grand Cherokee? 

Gas mileage will be worse but off road prowess will be better...real offroad.

Repairs will be needed but they will be common and well supported.

Get an older V6 RAV4.  Those little things will scoot.  

If you're willing to go outside the box, a Japanese import, something like a Mitsu Pajero?  Land Cruiser Prado?  As long as there's some commonality with US models parts shouldn't be a big problem if/when repairs/maintenance are required.

A 401 CJ said:

Get an older V6 RAV4.  Those little things will scoot.  

The Rav4 V6, the fastest Toyota of it's time:

I don't know much about them, but minivans with 4wd could be an option. 

VW Touareg TDI. Reliability hasn't been the best but it hasn't been terrible and it hasn't left me on the side of the road. Fairly capable off-road. There is a lift available if you want more ground clearance. I'm averaging 21-23 mpg around town and 28+ on the hwy with the diesel, I think the gas version is slightly worse. 500-600 miles per tank is normal. 300+hp and 490 lb-ft of torque make maneuvering through traffic a breeze.

As a plus, you get 7700 pounds of towing capacity. 

It got 14.5 mpg towing this. 

I bought a RAV4 when I went shopping for not-a-Subaru.

The V6 Rav4 checks a lot of the boxes (I love ours - we ordered it new in 2006 and  it just rolled 225k this weekend). The only miss I see is the mileage on a tank. I typically see about 230-240 miles per tank before the light comes on. All-highway, I can get over 300 miles on a tank.

Mazda CX-5. The awd system is supposed to be quite good 

Interesting to see that you can get a lift kit for the newer AWD Toyota van, I saw a stock one get much farther on a pretty bad road that I would have imagined.  Those other vans are awesome but far out of my budget though.  The CX-5 is an interesting one, I will have to look more at those too.  Montero, Touareg (or Cayenne), Grand Cherokee (especially the diesel one), and RAV4 and CRV are all on my list to check out. 

It sounds like I would have to carry extra fuel for some of the stuff I would want to do if I got a RAV4 though, because I have to stay within ~110 miles of a gas station with the Subaru if I don't want to carry fuel and that has meant having to turn around earlier than I otherwise would have a few times.

BMW has a diesel X5, but that's almost guaranteed to fail your "decent reliability and simple repairs" requirement, same for an Audi TDI.  Jeep Liberty had a diesel, maybe with manual trans too?

Suzuki SX4?

I thought anything was a better alternative to Subaru.

21mpg combined
400 mile range
Regular fuel
Enough room for 2 people and our crap to move across the country
Real 4wd

Actually, just buy an AWD Sienna

SX4 is a good one, a little smaller than ideal but it looks like you can lift them and it would probably handle ok.  Diesel German SUV would be fun when it worked but probably not be wise for how I would want to use it. 

It's strange that there are really not many vehicles available in the USA that are as usable as a Subaru for both mild off road and also being a normal car, but Subarus have some really annoying things about them.  I thought an XC70 would be the answer but after looking at them more it wouldn't really improve things, it seems like there are some others that might though.

I do have a 4x4 diesel Ford that I can use for stuff that requires a real 4x4 if I can ever figure out how to get it running, but that may be a while and I'm thinking about getting something I can use instead of the Subaru for other stuff that doesn't need a 3/4 ton truck.  The truck should get 15-18 mpg and holds a lot of fuel so that's partly why I would want an additional vehicle to do better than that.  

I know, it's kinda weird how hard it is to get something with good off-road/all weather chops that's not an SUV.
 

The CRVs don't have good enough AWD for me. I saw one stuck in almost no snow and it just couldn't get out no matter how hard we tried. Had to be towed.  
 

The RAV4 V6 my family has been good enough in the snow with snow tires, though I'm not convinced it has the best AWD either. One slide off the road incident scared my dad, but it was icy as hell. I think the Cx-5 is probably better. Mazda uses some smart tech to make its front biased system work better than some.
 

Is the AWD Sienna using the same system as the RAV?
 

I'd be looking at SX4s if you can deal with the small space. It's FWD biased but has a lock mode that forces 30-50% of power to the rear. (Edit: Although watching a video with the car on rollers except one rear tire, it doesn't have enough to get off the rollers). If you need more, I think a CX-5 might be the best of the CUVs.
 

Or what about an Infiniti EX35? Did those come with AWD? Okay think so but not sure how good it is. 
 

Edit: the EX35 has full time AWD! Same size as a Outback (though less interior space) and powerful V6. That's your ticket if you can live with Nissan quality. I'd be learning more about those now that I learned this. Although MPGs are not great.

Edit again: Sounds like the Highlander has a lock mode for 50:50 torque split up to 25mph.

That's interesting, I will have to check out the Infinity, I hadn't even thought about those.  Highlander seems decent too.  I'm basically looking for something I can drive through a washed out section of a dirt road without getting stuck or 6 inches of water, small amount of mud, etc, and has room to sleep in the back, but also will keep up with traffic and handle well enough/have a low enough CG to be more likely to slide than barrel roll if I ever had to avoid something at speed on the freeway.  There are a few options that are ok, but it seems like we didn't get many of that type of car/SUV in the USA.

here's a better choice than the subaru i owned:

In reply to CyberEric :

While some AWD systems can be pretty janky, they are only as good as the tires connecting them to the ground.  I've had two recent experiences with poor all season tires that have made me super cautious about them in snow/ice.  My GFs Legacy looks like a perfectly reasonable car and the tires have excellent tread depth, not particularly old, etc.  It drives fine in the dry and perfectly well in the wet and was all but undrivable in a recent winter storm.  So if a car slides off the road, I blame the tires.  

I'm in agreement. In fact, I'd rather have 2WD and good snow tires than AWD and all seasons. I do have a hard time getting over how little power some of these on-demand AWD systems send to the rear. Watching this CR-V was painful. It probably was on E36 M3ty tires, I don't remember, but it had one side off the road and we couldn't get it unstuck with two grown men pushing from behind.

I love my 2004 highlander. V6 awd and we just finished a 5000 mile road trip over the summer and it didn't miss a beat even at 170k miles. We did some mild dirt trails in Moab and Colorado on Open Country IIIs without any issue. I run Viking Contact7s  in the winter and it's very confidence inspiring.