Subaru Outback Lineartronic: The thinking person’s 4x4 Everyone I know who needs a full-sized, five-door road car that can also drive across fen, bog and hillside owns a Subaru. Not a Range Rover or Land Rover, as they're too expensive. Not a Land Cruiser, as they are too big. Not a suburban SUV, as they are designed for slippery supermarket car parks. Not a Mitsubishi L200, as it …
An Audi 4wd A6 - very nice if rather more expensive. I know of a lot of people who need " a full-sized, five-door road car that can also drive across fen, bog and hillside" - it's just where I live. Only one of them has a Subaru. How's that for anecdotal refutation of anecdote.....
> Out of the way everyone. Audi driver coming through.
One (other) thing that I do not miss at all about the UK is the rampant jealousy and disdain for anyone who's actually done better than you, regardless of how much harder they worked for it.
Funny thing is how many people like you I've seen that, when they finally got the opportunity, first thing they did was go out and buy a Bavarian car.
"One (other) thing that I do not miss at all about the UK is the rampant jealousy and disdain for anyone who's actually done better than you, regardless of how much harder they worked for it."
Oh AC, What makes you think my current model of automotive transport would make me covet someone's VAG?
Surely Audi drivers must know the stick they are opening themselves up to by buying into the Vorsprung durch Technik...?
"One (other) thing that I do not miss at all about the UK is the rampant jealousy and disdain for anyone who's actually done better than you, regardless of how much harder they worked for it."
Yeah, but I'd miss the sense of humour if I moved. Obviously that's less of an issue for some people.
"Nope, simply go there before you in more comfort..."
...by sitting my Audi 6 inches off the bumper of every car that appears in front of me until they pulled over to let my clearly superior self and car pass them.
Audi drivers, the first to tell you which car they drive even though no one is asking and no one is really that impressed.
I have an a6 Quattro and a forester, out of the 2, the a6 feels better built, but the 4 wheel drive, traction control, torque, etc on the forester is better. I live in the north of Norway, in the country side, need to go over mountains with snow, the forester handles it far better, its a slightly higher ride, so helps, but if the outback is similar in performance that would be better.
Anonymous as I have an audi:)
We drove a 64 reg XV and a 64 reg Forester and bought the Forester. The XV back seat I kept hitting my head on the roof and it felt cheap & plastic. The Forester felt solid and we negotiated a good deal with a dealer in the countryside that helped immensely
All-terrain, I assume, doesn't include mounting a kerb.
I think it's because people assumed that OP didn't grasp the concept of approach/departure angles.
My Giulietta doesn't have a 25 degree approach/departure angle but it can just about mount a kerb. It can also do a comprehensive job of attempting to file down the rough edges of the kerb with the wheels when the missus is driving :(
> Down votes? Euclid would not be amused.
Not my downvotes, but I did not understand your comment about the kerb. Pretty much any normal car can mount and descend kerbs, assuming that you do it one wheel at a time, which is how you're supposed to. In a lot of Europe, normal street parking involves having the car partially or fully on the pavement.
Had one of these as a Rental in the USA a few months ago. The 2.5L Petrol was great to drive but the it sucked fuel rather than sipping it. 30mpg (US Gals) on the Interstate at 65mph or thereabouts.
It easily beats the Chrysler Equinox and the other GM tank that I drove last month.
What is the ground clearance?
Can it drive through 30cm deep mud?
What is it like negotiating dirt road washouts?
How well protected is the rear carrying space, can you throw a couple of rolls of fencing in there with the posts and not have problems?
In fact all this review says is that this is a car for city slickers that have a second home in the country and not an actual working 4x4.
Can it drive through 30cm deep mud?
At that point you are hitting Range~ and Landrover areas of expertise - with standard size rims you don't have the clearance, and you'd need so much torque to plough through it that low gearing would be essential (unless you are prepared to damage mechanical bits).
Silly Brits,
You can go for a Jeep if you want something that does well off road and doesn't spend more time in the repair shop than your garage.
When we had to go off road, the Jeep, along with the addition of the off road package worked well in the fields and we did haul calfs and dogs in the back. Heck we had to flea bomb the car more times than I could remember in one year.
Bottom line. Get a real 4x4 if you need to go off road, or you drive like my wife who routinely hops curbs when she's rounding a corner.
MJI,
that's nice for you.
Ooi what do you consider a 'proper off roader' to be?
Yes I lurve Defenders too, but (re my previous posts), didn't get one for us because it does not meet our requrements, and Defenders are great until they start to rust...
Ymmv.
Cheers,
jay
> You can go for a Jeep
You mean the real, WWII era GPs? Or the modern "Jeep" brand?
The former used to do a fine job as I recall, though I haven't driven one in decades but, having fairly extensive off-road driving experience (~250,000 km) in remote/dodgy areas, there are 3.5 things you can drive there: a Land Cruiser (there is a reason every Bedouin the the world drives one), a Unimog, a Defender, or if you can ignore the stupidity of having an automatic transmission, a HUMVEE (massive clearance and wheel base, and reasonably straightforward field repairs, though not as good as a Land Cruiser and you better be strong if you're one up and need to change a tyre. Do note that I'm talking about the original military-issue vehicle, not the rebranded macho-man Ford Explorer).
"Can it drive through 30cm deep mud?"
This is the thing about 4WD normal cars with normal ride height. I had one, and it was a Volvo Estate 4WD and I presumed it would be OK for travelling to my daughter's equine activities, crossing wet fields etc. But no, not a bit of it. Those damn horseboxes churn up the tracks in and out and leaves ruts deeper than the axle height of the car. Therefore you need masses of driving skill to try to ride on top of the rut peaks, but eventually you find the situation where no amount of talent will keep you from graunching your valance, underside, sills, all sorts of important car bits.
So, you could have adjustable ride height on your car (air suspension), but this is expensive and even more expensive if it goes wrong, and these cars are meant to be tough. So, my solution was to buy a Mk2 Land Rover Discovery diesel for £1500. It gets over the ruts OK, but STILL bottoms out and drags its diff through the mud, but I have a diff protector on it and it solves the problem just fine for less than the price of an air suspension option. So if you really are a thinking person, and are thinking about a 4x4, then think a bit more about where you will be driving it.
What is the ground clearance?
200mm. That's in the review.
Can it drive through 30cm deep mud?
Wading depth is 500mm (also in review) so 300mm of mud shouldn't be an issue.
What is it like negotiating dirt road washouts?
Assuming you have the right tyres it should manage what I take to mean a rough and muddy unmetalled lane.
The point of these Subarus is for driving on crap surfaces with a road oriented car.
They are good at what they are, they are not proper offroaders, but much better cars than the softroaders.
If you are driving on tracks and loose surfaces but not tackling deep mud they are ideal.
This is a car for country vets.
And people do not think you are a cock.
Oh and where is the WRX version?
Absolutely. I bought mine for the higher ride height (to deal with flooded bits of roads) and the ability to negotiate farm tracks and a bit of crossing fields. In fact, as we then proceded to have large dumps of snow just after I bought it, I can verify that it handles snow in the Yorkshire Dales far better than many "4x4s". There is a reason why they have a strong following amongst farmers...
Currently on 160k miles on an 09 plate, and it has been very reliable. I'm beginning to have to swap out wheel bearings, but I think that is acceptable on this sort of mileage. Economy on the diesel is good (in 2009 it was class leading) running at 45.9mpg (measured) over the 160k miles, and stretching to 48 or so on a long run. And it looks like a standard estate, rather than an SUV, and behaves well on the road.
Mind you, the price has increased 50% or so since I got mine, when it was c.20k rather than c.30k now. But you don't get hosed on "options" - the price of the trim levels pretty much includes everything. Might well look at another when this one retires, but that's probably in another 100k miles or so. Probably the favourite car I've had so far.
Nice opening rant, wrong conclusion.
It used to be the right one - in the days of the great Forester of old before Toyota made something fit for a supermaket parking out of it. Definitely not Outback though - it cannot get to my summer house (which is a mere dirt track, not even proper offroading) without scraping.
Today the conclusion is actually Isuzu Denver. Starting with the older model 2007 "mid-life" uplift revision and till now (current model) it is the right conclusion of that rant. It drives at 90mph on the autobahn with no fuss. The suspension is on par with a luxury sedan (and much better than the Outback) and it goes anywhere. Including through walls if you ask it.
I test drove the entire Subaru stock from the Toyota acquisition boundary, an L200, a Nissan ballroom truck and an Isuzu when I switched cars last time. Only the Isuzu passed both the offroad test and the suspension quality test. It was entertaining when the car salesman understood that I am not joking when I was pointing at the 3 year old daughter and said "If she likes it". He thought I was joking. That thought lasted until I started lining half of the rear seat area with plastic for the road test. Then he got the message - that I will be using a "live" suspension quality indicator. You should have seen his face at that point :)
Not for off-roading, but just for getting to work over roads that have a foot of fresh snow covering several inches of gloss ice, on hills. Mercedes 4Matic combined with Nokian studded tires works for me.
Subarus are quite nice, especially considering they're now part of the 'transportation white goods' conglomerate. They're to be congratulated for maintaining an element of 'interestingness', and knowing how to install an exhaust system without it dangling below the chassis as is the rule with their parent.
I'm curious about the claims made by Subaru about how good the stereo cameras are
"The benefit of using large stereo cameras is apparently how far ahead the system can detect approaching calamity: 110 metres in reasonable visibility. And then there is the added ability to detect the brake lights of cars ahead earlier than comparable radar or camera and radar-based systems."
To my simple mind using computer vision to judge distance by processing a image from twin digital cameras can't be any faster or more accurate than using a radar. A radar also doesn't rely on 'good visibility' a radar can see through fog that a camera can't.
The majority of nose-to-tail-to-nose-to-tail crashes I've seen were caused by poor visibility.
Although it's nice the system can detect a cars brake lights up ahead all that really says is somebody is applying a break and doesn't tell you anything else like how hard they're doing it. You'd need to work that out from the way the distance between your car and the car in front changes over time. Something your car needs to do constantly anyway.
Anyway, my point being, I doubt the answer is 'optical only' or 'radar only' but the typical computer vision answer of 'the more different types on sensors the better'
What do others think?
I wondered whether the system with optical only. I have a radar+camera combination and it works massively well, but I haven't used any other system so I can't compare. I think my radar goes out to 200 m or maybe more, but I would need to get the manual out to check--it definitely does the job in poor visibility.
On the other hand, a radar does not work well against some surface types (though personally, I've never had a problem yet).
I reckon dual radar + stereo vision system would be more reliable, but also more expensive.
Being a Subaru the engines are boxers. Not better or worse, but different
Subaru's current 3.6L "EZ" flat-6 can boast the same power output and fuel consumption as the competition's 3.5L DOHC V6 engines from ten years ago!
I hear the "FA" engine in the BRZ/86 is a huge improvement over the old "EJ" family though.
Towing capacity for the 2.0 diesel is 1.8t, and for the 2.5 petrol is 2.0t.
That's not enough for a horse box, no where near enough for a cattle float and less than most of the other vehicles in its class. Not by much mind, a Volvo XC70 is only 2.1t which seems about typical for the slightly 4wd market.
Tyres getting dangerously close to too thin too at 60% profile. I wouldn't buy any less.
28.5" (calculated) on the lower specs, 28.6" on the higher. I wonder if you can actually get decent tyres in the sizes they specify, Cooper don't list any of their 4x4 tyres in the correct sizes (though some pretty close which I guess would do).
Here speaketh a Defender driver, the best 4 x 4 x Far on lovely skinny 100% profile tyres.
We are on our 2nd Subaru now, with the 1st being a 2010 WRX which was awesome, but sucked petrol like a prostitute in Amsterdam when the ships come in....
Now driving a '64 reg Forester diesel manual - and thus is important!
Sister in law had a '62 registered Outback, automatic transmission packed it in and a £5,500 bill for a new one. Turns out like Volvo and Audi & others, the multi-clutch automatic transmission is a FRU- in fail midrange, not fixable, replace true whole bloody thing. We had that happen on a '58 reg Volvo V50 and TADTS, £5,500 please!
Moral: regardless of model, get a manual! Btw, we get almost 48+ mpg on the motorway at 80+ :)
You're lucky to get 100% - most standard manufacturer supplied profile nowadays are tubeless 85% as they're more concerned about "look and feel" than actually supplying tools to get the job done.
The earlier comment about '200mm ground clearance ... so 300mm of mud should be no problem" obviously comes from someone who has never driven a vehicle in deep mud, let alone one on stupidly wide, low profile, road biased tyres ...
Having owned 7 different Subarus, I agree that they are superb cars, particularly the Legacy/Outback.
Until you've had one, you don't understand just how much of a benefit the 4wd system is when the roads are wet and greasy. I'd never go back to a 2WD car. Of course, you pay for that at the fuel station, Subaru's are very thirsty compared to other cars. I've never averaged more than 28mpg on any of them. My current Legacy averages 20mpg.
They are also not as reliable as their reputation suggests. While you don't get all the regular little niggly problems that other cars give you, every few years you get a massive catastrophic failure of the engine or transmission that costs an absolute fortune to fix.
"..Having owned 7 different Subarus, I agree that they are superb cars, particularly the Legacy/Outback."
"..every few years you get a massive catastrophic failure of the engine or transmission that costs an absolute fortune to fix."
Sorry but we have different definitions of superb...something that has a catastrophic, potentially multi-thousands to repair, failure every few years? If nothing else, I want the new vehicle I've bought to be reliable enough that it won't cost me thousands.
I have an L200 specifically to hold all my diving kit and to be able to haul it all cross country when we're cave diving. It has a [mostly] traditional selectable 2wd/2wd/low ratio/locking diffs selector.
Mitsubishi replaced the first one I'd bought because it was so unreliable but the replacement is much better so far.
One of the many reasons I chose it - it has a 5 year, 100,000 mile warranty.
I'll tell you in a few years how reliable this one's been :)
It's a pity they've dropped the 3.0 flat-6 petrol engine from the newer versions. My 2004 Outback 3.0Rn is absolutely superb, and I've had it dragging half a tonne of wood around a muddy field (literally dragging, no trailer!) with no issues. It's tackled some very rough tracks that I thought I'd need my proper 4x4 for (1991 Mitsubishi Pajero), slower than I'd do in the Pajero but it managed fine without any drama.
Remember that the Legacy/Outback started off as a farm vehicle and it's only recently started to become a comfortable semi-luxury road oriented car. It's not 4WD has been bolted onto an existing model, the 4WD system and boxer engine came first, then the body evolved around it.
Ordered mine in US in May, 2014. Was one of the first off the line in August, delivered 8/31 (Birthday present). LOVE THIS CAR! Leather, Eyesight, H6 engine. Lots of room, got it "fully loaded" with trailer hitch. Smooth ride, I get 30 mpg highway. Handles Pittsburgh PA snows no problem. The X-Mode is WOW! LOVE THIS CAR! ! !
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