Subaru Automobiles

[MossRoad]

Some of the pre-2013 Subarus had problems with the head gaskets and warped heads. They addressed that with re-design in 2014.

Yes, I've been concerned about that for a decade. I test drove several over the years. We have a local used car dealer that does a lot of foreign cars. His kids went to school with our kids, so I almost trust him. He said any of those that he takes in on trade he just automatically changed the head gaskets and timing belt, marked up his costs, and put it on the lot. He didn't want the reputation for selling cars and having the engines fry after they drove it off the lot. He was pretty honest about it, with me at least.

 

[MossRoad]

Does yours have the auto engine shut off like a golf cart does? I dislike that idea very much. We need to push a button “A” in order to disable the feature every time we start the car. Seems to me like way too much unnecessary wear and tear on the starter.
It also creates lag from the start of an intersection. Reminds me a little bit of driving my 6.0 PSD. Terrible lag until the turbo starts.

Yes. It has it. My wife and I were trying to figure out why sometimes it stops the engine, and sometimes it does not. Stop signs, stoplights. No rhyme or reason. So we googled it up, and found that there's a whole list of criteria that it looks at before deciding to shut the engine down. It displays a little information each time it does it to show you how much gas it saves. You can reset the meter if you want to.

And yes, we have the little "A" button, and yes, it has to be disabled every time you start the car if you want to disable it. I don't mind it too much. They have supposedly designed the starter to be able to take it. The delay just annoys me. I'd guess the delay isn't half of one second, but my cat-like reflexes get thrown off when waiting that long for something to happen.

 

[MossRoad]

I was playing around with the car top carrier. I guess I didn't realize the cross-bars stowed on each side when not in use. Neat.

 

[NoTrespassing]

I test drove an Impreza before I bought my current Mazda 3. The deal breaker was the rubber band transmission with fake shift points that can't be removed.

 

[MossRoad]

 

[reb]

I have a hearty dislike for the adaptive cruise control. I figure a good driver doesn't need that crutch. I do not like the extra wear on the brakes.

Another feature I dislike on the Subaru is the AWD. Subaru requires all tires to be within a certain tolerance in diameter. That means that if you ruin one tire, all have to be replaced (or the new one has to be trimmed). Not so with Toyota.

 

[dougtrr2]

We have two Foresters, a 2017 and a 2021. Both have lane assist, but I don't use it on the 2021. It seems like the newer Forester has a much tighter criteria for lane assist. So if you aren't exactly in the middle it is correcting. As a result I feel like I am fighting it all the time. Other than that I am pretty happy with both.

We have had 4 Subarus, all with essentially the same boxer engine. Some have 4.5 quart capacity, some have 5 quart capacity. The drain plug orientation changes. I cannot see any valid reason to change those two details. I did like it when they finally moved the oil filter up top.

Doug in SW IA

 

[turbo36]

I have a new Ford F150, it has the latest driving assist features, like lane keeping, etc. etc. I really enjoy it on long drives. Driving across Iowa at 80 miles an hour it will hold lanes very well, you just have to have your hands lightly on the wheel. What's interesting to me is when I'm using lane keeping I don't seem to get as sleepy as when I'm manually holding the lane. I think it's because it gives you a few seconds to look around before it starts telling you to look ahead or take control of the vehicle so I am more attentive to everything around me. Like many people I will "target fixate" on some thing on the car in front of me and before I know it I'm right up on the back of someone that's going very slow. This F150 will slow down and match speeds with whatever is in front of you so you do have to pay attention and move over to pass well in advance of a vehicle in front of you or the next thing you know you've been driving along behind some slow poke for a long time. It also has a "traffic jam" feature, the vehicle will slow down and stop behind the vehicle in front of it and when the vehicle takes it will takeoff and follow it also. It was a little spooky trusting it at first, but it does seem to work well.

It has cameras in the vehicle to monitor the drivers eyes, if the driver were to fall asleep, or take his attention away from the road for a long period of time it will give a couple of warnings, the vehicle will slow down and pull over to the shoulder and stop.

 

[jmc]

Wife got a 2020 Outback Limited. I'm liking it.

Has lane assist that nudges you back towards center if you get what it thinks is too close to the left or right side of your lane. It's not hands free by any means. If someone was following you and you were letting the car do the work, they'd see you wandering back and forth between the lines like a boat and probably assume you were drunk.

I find it will be useful if I ever got distracted and it would remind me to pay attention. By no means would I ever take my hands off the wheel or yes off the road purposefully, but once in a great while, you pay attention to something on one side or anther and your car drifts. It nudges the wheel you feel it.

You have to fight it to change lanes without signaling. Activating the turn signal and it doesn't fight you.

Has adaptive cruise control. You can set several distances where it activates. I also like this feature. As I mentioned in the other thread, I got on a highway with 2 lanes in each direction, sped up to about 75, and set the cruise control. When I came up on slower traffic in my lane, the car automatically slowed down to match its speed. I purposely tried to change lanes without signaling and the lane assist fought me. I signaled like a proper driver, and it allowed me to change lanes with no fight. Then it accelerated back up to 75.

I then came upon a slower car in the passing lane and was again automatically slowed to match its speed. When it finally pulled into the driving lane, the Subaru again accelerated back to 75. Worked great.

A lot better than using my foot to control speed, and no need to try and adjust the cruise control. It did what I wanted to do, but smoother.

Automatic braking. I was following a car on a county road and it was slowing to turn right. I purposely did not brake to see what it would do. It beeped and braked on its own. I had my foot over the brake just in case. As the car in front of me slowed to almost a complete stop before turning, the Subaru came to almost a complete stop as well. It even disconnected the cruise control when we got down to around 10mph. Once the car in front of us finally turned off, I had to use the gas to get up into the teens and just hit resume on the cruise and off we went back up to the last set speed. I was impressed.

It's nice to know that if I'd get horribly distracted, something happened in front of me while I was glancing in the mirror, or worse, incapacitated, the car would slow to a very slow speed on its own once something got in front of it.

Auto headlights. Still on the fence about this setting. I assumed it would switch between low beams and high beams, but it doesn't. It makes a blend-like transition somewhere between the two settings. When it's activated, you can't turn the high beams on. You can flash them, but not turn them on or off. It just determines the light it thinks you need and constantly, almost imperceptibly, changes not only between high and low, but off to the sides as well. While the lighting is always about perfect to me, it's obvious that it's too bright to oncoming drivers, as I had a few flash their lights at me. I know how annoying that is when I see it coming towards me, so I turned it off and then I could manually select either high or low beams. No one flashed me when the low beams were on.

Verdict is still out on that setting.

Rear camera. I like it. It works well in light or darkness. Enough said about that.

Rear crossing alarm. I like that, too. I put the car in reverse and immediately heard an alarm. I looked at the screen and saw nothing, but about 2 seconds later, a car came behind us from our right side. So it looked pretty far to the side and detected movement coming towards us. Nice!

Apple car play. First car I've had with that. Plug a cable between the phone and the USB port and my maps, music, contact, phone, etc. are all available in the large touch screen on the dash. All my voice activated phone stuff works through the car. Very nice.

Phone charging pad. First time I've used this technology, although I've seen it for a few years. Just lay your phone on the pad and it charges with no cable. Works through induction. Wife really likes that. My phone, however, is in an industrial protective case and won't easily slid into the pad slot. It will fit with a nudge. Her case is thinner and it slides right in.

Rear tailgate. I can open it with the button over the license plate, the button on the remote, or the button on the dash. Very nice.

It has a setting that you can set a limit how high the tailgate will open in case you have a low garage roof, etc. That's nice.

Rear seat flipper levers. If you open the tailgate and need to slide something long into the car, you can flip a lever on either side right inside the tailgate and the corresponding rear seat will automatically flip forward. You don't have to go to the front of the seat and release a latch. That's very handy and we used it the first day we had the car.

The rear seats fold fairly flat, too. However, our 2013 Impala folds completely flat. A surprisingly nice feature of the Impala.

The rear trunks space AND the back of the rear seats all have a rubber mat on them. That's nice to keep the backs clean.

Killer stereo! Wow! Just wow! Great sound. Very happy.

That's all I've got for now. Will post more as we learn more features.

You left out the best part: It was made in Indiana! (I bought a 2013 Outback instead of an Audi for that reason)

Your description of all those safety features reminded me of a State Trooper's comment. He mostly drove a regular cruiser and other drivers usually yield or get out of his way. But when he drove an unmarked car, he had more close calls because he forgot that he looked like just another car. Hope you don't get dependent on those new features and forget when you hop in your truck!

 

[Oaktree]

Another feature I dislike on the Subaru is the AWD. Subaru requires all tires to be within a certain tolerance in diameter. That means that if you ruin one tire, all have to be replaced (or the new one has to be trimmed). Not so with Toyota.

That's pretty much the case with all AWD vehicles. The computer monitors speed of all 4 wheels, and if it detects one or more turning at a different speed than the others will adjust accordingly. An odd-sized tire is going to wreak havoc with that. I really, really doubt toyota has a different way, they probably just don't bother to mention that you need to be aware of this.

We have had 4 Subarus, all with essentially the same boxer engine. Some have 4.5 quart capacity, some have 5 quart capacity. The drain plug orientation changes. I cannot see any valid reason to change those two details.

My first wife had a mid-90s vintage one, can't remember the model. The oil filter was really hard to get at on that, IIRC is was somewhat recessed so it was hard to get a filter wrench on it (wasn't aware of cap-style ones at the time). And who ever had put the first one on that I tried to change (factory?) had a gorilla do it so it was nice and tight.

One other odd feature that car had was that the emergency brake worked on the front wheels, not the rear. Learned that the hard way while doing a brake job on it.

But when he drove an unmarked car, he had more close calls because he forgot that he looked like just another car. Hope you don't get dependent on those new features and forget when you hop in your truck!

That's a big concern, especially with younger drivers who may not have experience with vehicles that don't have this stuff. Seems to me it's likely to cause more distracted driving.

Curiously Moss, can you turn the lane keeping feature off?