Outback impressions
 

As you may recall, we bought a 2013 Subaru Outback 2.5i CVT for my wife just over a month ago to replace her Honda Odyssey. About a week later, we drove it to Florida for 4 nights at the beach and 6 nights at Disney World. When I say "we drove," what I really mean is that I drove it.First car I've driven with a CVT that works the way it's suppoed to work. And it's fucking weird, but once you get used to it you wonder why it hasn't always been like this. And then you wonder why the fuck it comes with shifter paddles.

The CVTness highlights the 2.5 liter boxer 4's agricultural tones, unfortunately, and the lack of power means you're at the hight of those agricultural tones for longer periods of time than you might prefer. That said, the car is not dangerously underpowered (it's got quite an agressive tip in, FWIW), but more would be nice...and it's available if you want to pay for it. On the way down to FL, the low oil light came on for a little while. Checked the oil at the next stop and it was fine. Light hasn't been on since.

It rides well. Poised and very comfortable for long family road trips. Nothing fantastic, but nothing objectionable other than the steering seemed to get a little wandery above 60mph. It just felt like I had to make more mini corrections than in most cars. Taking hands off the wheel for a stretch and the car would track straight or with the road's crown, depending, but with hands on...it was just not quite right. Earlier years of this gen Outback had some more significant steering issues and they've made changes, but...dunno. :dunno:

For a stripper model, the stereo seems pretty nice. Comprehensive, yet simple, steering wheel controls. It has bluetooth, a USB port and aux audio input. I bought a new 128GB USB drive to put all our music on to plug into the USB port and when it didn't work right, I learned that it has all kinds of limits and configuration requirements that make it all but impossible to work with large libraries. As a backup, I restored my old 32GB iPhone 4 to new and loaded it with as much music as would fit. Using an iPod/iPhone lets you control it with the device or through the head unit, which is nice. While we were in Florida, we left the iPhone in the console box the entire time and never had any heat related issues, which was not my expectation. The car also has 3 regular power ports, 1 at the bottom of the center stack, one in the console armrest and one in the way back near the liftgate.

Ergonomics are all pretty good. Seats are comfy and supportive. Back seat has plenty of room to keep enough space between two tweenage girls for 1,000 miles at a time. Cargo space and the cubby spaces below the floor are large enough that we could pack for the trip and keep everything beneath the cargo shade (although the girls had quit a bit of shit with them in the back seat).

We got about 26 MPG over the trip, cruising near 80 most of the way. I was hoping for a little better (~28), but oh well.

While my wife didn't do any of the driving on the trip, she's put about 1,000 miles on it now herself and she seems to be liking it quite a bit. I'm pretty happy with our choice.

For some reason I thought you got a Forester.

There is absolutely no way I could fit everything my wife would pack for a trip that long in such a "small" space.

She drove a '14 Forester and didn't care for it very much. The big gripe was the texture of the cloth seats (mildly abrasive) and how the shape of hte bolstering was such that it would have continously scratched her right elbow. Really small detail, really big effect.

Not having any strollers makes a difference. We still have a 16 cu ft Yakima box and were going to use it if we needed more room, which reminds me of a point that may be worth mentioning. The Outback has crossbars that hideaway into the rails when you don't need to use them...which is kind of cool.

Sounds something like our experience when test driving the (older) Cayenne. The seat bolster shape was a deal breaker before even leaving the lot.

Now that I think about it, that's a good point. The roof box basically only had beach related items (chairs and toys) and the stroller.

This reminds me of a flaw with the x3 in that there are very specific measurements for where BMW wants you to place the crossbars, but they don't put any kind of detent or marking on the rails - which would be much easier than making me get out a tape measure to mount the things.

I bought the new Accord sedan with the CVT this past January. Thanks to an issue with my left hip area, it's first time in a long while that my daily driver doesn't have 3 pedals. My impressions of this transmission seems to mirror yours on the Outback. Weird at first, but once you get used to it, you understand why the carmakers are embracing it. The thing is always in the perfect "gear", and reacting to your right foot is every bit as immediate as any geared transmission I've driven. Between the new 4 cylinder and the CVT, I'm getting ridiculously good mileage for this size car, too.

I have the shift paddles too, and it does seem out of place. Though I do use them pretty regularly to "downshift" in passing-type situations because it seems to react in a less rubber-bandy manner than simply mashing your right foot down.

Cool review, Clyde.

Not sure why but I've been interested in the Subies lately. As a project car I'd like to get something manual, AWD, and with some ok punch to it, maybe an Imprezza WRX type thing. Lift it maybe 1" or so (for better suspension travel) and put some BFT AT's on there and go bombing around the forest service roads around here. It could be a fun camping / exploration car and there are thousands and thousand of remote, lightly travel gravel forest roads around here.

It's not going to happen . . . but it's been on my mind. :eeps:



Could you put an inconspicuous dob of paint on the rails somewhere to mark the locations? In the track or on the inside of the rail? Use a dark gray paint if the rails are black.

I'd do that just for ease of use.

I offroaded my WRX a bit when I had it. Only major issue with it was it massive front overhang, easy to clip the front end on bumps and steep stuff. Stock WRX suspension was decent for offroading, especially service type roads.

I didn't know you bought an Accord sedan.

We are so friggen close to pulling the trigger on a 2013 Accord Sport. The Summer Clearance Sales are in full swing, but we'd like to hold off until sometime between Christmas and New Year's when we'd probably get a better deal.

I can't remember, but did you do a write up on your Honda ??

Oh BTW, congrats on your Subie.

We actually thought about that car, but my g/f wants the highest mileage a mid-size car can achieve.

So far, we've narrowed it down to the Accord and Altima.

It's a close race. :eeps:

I didn't. I've been struggling with finding the motivation to post anything longer than a sentence or two lately, so I just haven't done it. Maybe I'll put something together this weekend.