The Test Drive Experience: A Closer Look at the Subaru Crosstrek

As I sat behind the wheel of this Subaru Crosstrek, I was eager to put its capabilities to the test. With its 2.5-liter cylinder paired with a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT), I was curious to see how it would handle on the road.

The throttle pedal, while punchy at first, seemed to settle into a more linear pattern as I continued driving. It was a bit of an adjustment to get used to, but once I had warmed up to it, I found that it added to the overall driving experience. The brake pedal, however, felt very good under my foot. With a generous distance of travel and a progressive rate of resistance, it provided a reassuring sense of security as I pressed down on it.

One of the standout features of this vehicle is its responsiveness in the steering department. While not dramatic by any means, it was smooth and straightforward, making it easy to adjust to its handling characteristics. This was particularly notable when paired with the CVT transmission, which provided a seamless connection between gears that made driving feel effortless.

However, one area where this car fell short was in terms of power. With only 2.5 liters under the hood, there wasn't much to get excited about when it came to acceleration. It wasn't woefully inadequate by any means, but if you're looking for a bit more oomph, you might want to consider an alternative.

That being said, the CVT transmission proved to be a silver bullet in terms of fuel efficiency. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this vehicle achieved 34.8 miles per gallon on my test course, which was nearly identical to its EPA ratings. It's a testament to Subaru's engineering prowess that they were able to create an efficient system despite the addition of all-wheel drive.

One feature that did set this vehicle apart from others in its class was its spacious interior and ample cargo area. With five adults comfortably seated inside, it was clear that this car had plenty of room to spare. The largest cargo compartment in the business, according to Subaru's specifications, would allow for an impressive amount of gear storage – perfect for outdoor enthusiasts who need to haul all their gear on adventures.

Another notable feature of this vehicle is its ground clearance and approach/departure angles. With nearly nine inches of clearance under the vehicle, it was clear that Subaru had designed this car with the Pacific Northwest in mind – or at least any region with rough terrain. The generous angle of 20 degrees (approach) and 24 degrees (departure) would allow even the most adventurous souls to navigate rough roads with ease.

As I continued driving, I couldn't help but notice the comfort level of this vehicle. With its soft suspension and body roll characteristics, it felt like a cloud on the road – a true haven for those who value a smooth ride. Of course, there was a trade-off: some drivers might find that the nose-dive effect during hard braking could be a bit disconcerting.

But overall, I found this Subaru Crosstrek to be an excellent choice for anyone looking for a practical vehicle with good fuel economy and plenty of room for passengers and gear. Whether it's backpacking enthusiasts or families on a road trip, there's little doubt that this car would provide years of reliable service – making it well worth considering for your next vehicle purchase.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be checking out the 2015 subaru outback this is a four-door midsize crossover with seating for five and this particular trim is the 2.5 eye limited steering responsive fog lights up front and eyesight driver assist with adaptive cruise control it also has an active grill shutter up front to decrease fuel consumption as tested msrp of 34135. to open the trunk you can use a button on the key fob very large cargo area over 35 cubic feet now with the rear seats folded down over 70 cubic feet of cargo space so even enough room for me to lay down here so underneath the floor cover you've got your jack and some tools and then underneath this you have your spare tire so let's have a look under the hood gas shocks for support so checking out the engine bay we don't have a tacky plastic engine cover so that's nice to see everything here is pretty much functional uh plenty of room around the engine that of course to allow for fitting the 3.6 liter option now checking for serviceability things are actually looking pretty good the air filter over here you've got quick tabs for release you've got your engine oil dipstick your engine oil filter right up on top very convenient engine oil fill coolant fill and radiator cap you've got your battery up front and on the driver's side but easily accessible windshield washer fluid and your brake fluid reservoir and then here you have a fuse box also easy to access just two simple tabs to open that up this is a 2.5 liter port injected boxer four cylinder aluminum block and heads dual overhead cams with four valves per cylinder and variable valve timing on the intake valves it has a compression ratio of 10.3 to one has 175 horsepower at 5800 rpm and 174 pound-feet of torque at 4000 rpm following the path of the intake air it feeds in up front passes through the air filter here on the left then it's all the way back into the electronically controlled throttle body and then it is split in the intake manifold between the four cylinders where it then exits through the exhaust a single exhaust pipe travels all the way to the rear where it then exits through a single muffler power is sent through a cvt transmission to all four wheels and it can vary the torque split with active torque vectoring 225 over 60 r18 bridgestone tires all around up front 12.4 inch ventilated disc brakes matched with a mcpherson strut style suspension here you can see the steering linkage lower control arm and the anti-roll bar which does seem a bit small compared to some of the vehicles i've seen of this size checking out the other side you can see the cv joint coming in with the drive axle and everything is pretty much painted to prevent rust 11.8 inch ventilated disc brakes in the rear matched with a double wishbone style suspension coil spring over the shock absorber so here you have your upper control arm toe adjustment down here and then your lower control arm so here you can see the drive axle coming in the anti-roll bar right here and your lower control arm down there on the bottom you also do have an electronically controlled parking brake so let's check out the interior keyless entry and unlocking it is as simple as grabbing the handle leather seats power adjustable and two memory settings so checking out the interior very similar to the subaru legacy i reviewed as this is in many ways just a legacy wagon so pretty much the same interior you've got a leather wrapped steering wheel pretty simple with lots of controls on it which i do like adaptive cruise control fantastic system subaru calls this eyesight in their vehicles and it's great i would highly recommend testing a vehicle out with adaptive cruise control it's a wonderful system and i explain it a lot more in detail on my legacy review now here you've got your audio controls and then down here you can scroll through several settings on your display so your instantaneous fuel economy your trip how fast you're going some directional information and other fuel economy info the seats very comfortable plenty of cushion and very wide seats it is very spacious vehicle your legs plenty of leg room i'm not contacting anything with them especially you know once i've got my leg down on the accelerator pedal or the brake pedal you do have soft touch to your left and you also have automatic front windows for the left and right and then you also have electronic control for the mirrors out there driver memory settings down here you've got a little instrument panel of different things that you can choose so you've got your power lift gate which you can open from here your steering responsive fog lights memory settings for the power lift gate your traction instability control systems blind spot monitoring lane departure and your collision detection system so you can turn any of these systems off this one for example so if it does see that you're about to come into a collision it will break for you to try and minimize that so the infotainment system actually a really good touch screen and one of the cool things about is you can actually swipe on it and it's actually a pretty responsive screen for car systems it's not a smartphone by any means but it is pretty good and it is pretty responsive as far as whatever you select now the audio system is very good in this limited edition it's a 576 watt harman kardon system fantastic audio system the navigation like all navigation systems it's much better if you just use your smartphone the ac controls you do have climate control and uh system down here very clean looking uh the only thing you know that might be a concern is when you are selecting through the different modes you have to just select through a little wheel here so you know it could be nice just to have the exact thing that you want to select rather than scrolling through these different options but overall the system works fine and it is a nice clean look to it you do have heated seats for both the front passengers three different settings here you have the electronic parking brake uh and then you have this hill assist mode so it will hold the brakes for you until you type the accelerator pedal if you are on a hill and then x mode so what x mode does is it alters the cvt position typically towards a higher rpm it also increases the active all-wheel drive engagement and it increases the vehicle dynamic control to reduce wheel spin and then if you are descending a hill what it will do is control your speed so you descend that hill at a constant speed now you do have a power moon roof and visibility overall is very good out the front to the sides plenty of visibility checking your blind spot you've got a nice open window there to look through looking behind you nice large rear window and you also do have a high definition rear view camera so that's actually a pretty good display there seven inch screen for the limited and then of course on your mirrors you do have the blind spot detection so visibility in this car very good sitting in the rear i have the front driver seat adjusted to where i will be driving i'm about six one as you can see i still have plenty of leg room in the rear seats as someone who is six one the rear seat's actually pretty good experience you've got heated rear seats back here you've got some ac vents power windows you do have this fold down cup holder and arm rest if you do end up sitting in the center you know there actually is a decent amount of legroom the drive shaft hump doesn't come up all that high but you will still be splitting your feet that said you do also have a decent amount of room still above your head another clever thing that subaru has done here with these rear seats is that the seat belt actually doesn't come over the seat itself so when you do fold them down it doesn't interfere with it all right let's take it for a test drive now the throttle pedal on this with the 2.5 cylinder matched with the cvt does seem a bit punchy um so you kind of have this a little initial spike in acceleration and then after that it's much more linear so it does take a little bit of getting used to that uh just kind of the sensitivity of the throttle pedal for that first little bit of travel it just kind of does seem a little touchy the brake pedal feel however very good a good distance of travel and a nice progressive rate of resistance as you press down on it correlating with how hard you're braking so i do really like the brake pedal feel in this the steering seems decently responsive nothing too dramatic about it one way or the other fairly straightforward and simple to adjust to now the 2.5 cylinder really isn't all that powerful so if you do put your foot down you're not going to experience that great of g-forces i mean it's plenty of power if it's just you in the car uh but i imagine if you had the trunk full with a bunch of gear and other people in the car as well you know you may be thinking i wish i had gone for the six cylinder that said the 2.5 seems pretty efficient with the cvt so it is a decent option worth considering just because you can get good fuel economy out of it and it's a very practical car now there is a lot of body roll and this car does have some of the smallest anti-roll bars i've seen of the cars i've reviewed but you know body roll doesn't come purely down to anti-roll bars you can of course adjust the spring rates to compensate for that but it does seem to have a good amount of body roll and overall a very soft suspension and that just yields a very comfortable ride so it's not something i would complain about honestly it is a very comfortable car to drive around you are just going to have a decent amount of body roll and nose dive if you're hard on the brakes now it does come with paddle shifters so you can manually select through different gear ratios and it actually works really well so downshifts are very quick and up shifts are very smooth unlike the legacy which i tested which also had a cvt the up shifts it would kind of have a little bit of a jolt whereas in this one i don't notice it and the downshifts and up shifts are both very quick and very smooth so overall the paddle shifting system i really do like so driving on the highway i've got the cruise control set at 65. it's actually pretty quiet in here about 75 decibels you do hear a little bit of wind and road noise but neither of them too bad overall pretty quiet and also worth mentioning is that using the adaptive cruise control system in this fantastic you can kind of just relax and let the car do the work for you other people ahead of you changing their pace it'll just match a certain distance and you can change what distance you'd like to follow them so great system i'd recommend testing it out as an option for sure so i've completed my fuel economy test course this is about a 53 mile course primarily highway with some city and hills mixed in this car is rated 25 in the city 33 on the highway and as you can see it achieved 34.8 on my test course and this is pretty good considering you know the size of this vehicle its weight and the fact that it's all wheel drive now one of the things that was surprising to me is just how good a fuel economy this got in fact it's even rated epa both city and highway better than the ford escape that i tested even though this car is heavier it has a larger engine and it's all-wheel drive so that's pretty impressive that it's posting that good of fuel economy numbers even though it is all-wheel drive so they've done a good job of creating an efficient system now this is a very practical vehicle you've got a lot of space so you can fit plenty of gear in the trunk you've got all-wheel drive and you've got almost nine inches of ground clearance so you can take this thing pretty much anywhere and you can fit five adults so for the pacific northwest which is where i live you know something like this is actually kind of perfect for the outdoorsman who wants to take it you know on some rough areas and go backpacking or something like that where you can carry plenty of gear in the back and also take some friends with you so it's pretty ideal from that standpoint very practical car that can get pretty good gas mileage so thank you all for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be checking out the 2015 subaru outback this is a four-door midsize crossover with seating for five and this particular trim is the 2.5 eye limited steering responsive fog lights up front and eyesight driver assist with adaptive cruise control it also has an active grill shutter up front to decrease fuel consumption as tested msrp of 34135. to open the trunk you can use a button on the key fob very large cargo area over 35 cubic feet now with the rear seats folded down over 70 cubic feet of cargo space so even enough room for me to lay down here so underneath the floor cover you've got your jack and some tools and then underneath this you have your spare tire so let's have a look under the hood gas shocks for support so checking out the engine bay we don't have a tacky plastic engine cover so that's nice to see everything here is pretty much functional uh plenty of room around the engine that of course to allow for fitting the 3.6 liter option now checking for serviceability things are actually looking pretty good the air filter over here you've got quick tabs for release you've got your engine oil dipstick your engine oil filter right up on top very convenient engine oil fill coolant fill and radiator cap you've got your battery up front and on the driver's side but easily accessible windshield washer fluid and your brake fluid reservoir and then here you have a fuse box also easy to access just two simple tabs to open that up this is a 2.5 liter port injected boxer four cylinder aluminum block and heads dual overhead cams with four valves per cylinder and variable valve timing on the intake valves it has a compression ratio of 10.3 to one has 175 horsepower at 5800 rpm and 174 pound-feet of torque at 4000 rpm following the path of the intake air it feeds in up front passes through the air filter here on the left then it's all the way back into the electronically controlled throttle body and then it is split in the intake manifold between the four cylinders where it then exits through the exhaust a single exhaust pipe travels all the way to the rear where it then exits through a single muffler power is sent through a cvt transmission to all four wheels and it can vary the torque split with active torque vectoring 225 over 60 r18 bridgestone tires all around up front 12.4 inch ventilated disc brakes matched with a mcpherson strut style suspension here you can see the steering linkage lower control arm and the anti-roll bar which does seem a bit small compared to some of the vehicles i've seen of this size checking out the other side you can see the cv joint coming in with the drive axle and everything is pretty much painted to prevent rust 11.8 inch ventilated disc brakes in the rear matched with a double wishbone style suspension coil spring over the shock absorber so here you have your upper control arm toe adjustment down here and then your lower control arm so here you can see the drive axle coming in the anti-roll bar right here and your lower control arm down there on the bottom you also do have an electronically controlled parking brake so let's check out the interior keyless entry and unlocking it is as simple as grabbing the handle leather seats power adjustable and two memory settings so checking out the interior very similar to the subaru legacy i reviewed as this is in many ways just a legacy wagon so pretty much the same interior you've got a leather wrapped steering wheel pretty simple with lots of controls on it which i do like adaptive cruise control fantastic system subaru calls this eyesight in their vehicles and it's great i would highly recommend testing a vehicle out with adaptive cruise control it's a wonderful system and i explain it a lot more in detail on my legacy review now here you've got your audio controls and then down here you can scroll through several settings on your display so your instantaneous fuel economy your trip how fast you're going some directional information and other fuel economy info the seats very comfortable plenty of cushion and very wide seats it is very spacious vehicle your legs plenty of leg room i'm not contacting anything with them especially you know once i've got my leg down on the accelerator pedal or the brake pedal you do have soft touch to your left and you also have automatic front windows for the left and right and then you also have electronic control for the mirrors out there driver memory settings down here you've got a little instrument panel of different things that you can choose so you've got your power lift gate which you can open from here your steering responsive fog lights memory settings for the power lift gate your traction instability control systems blind spot monitoring lane departure and your collision detection system so you can turn any of these systems off this one for example so if it does see that you're about to come into a collision it will break for you to try and minimize that so the infotainment system actually a really good touch screen and one of the cool things about is you can actually swipe on it and it's actually a pretty responsive screen for car systems it's not a smartphone by any means but it is pretty good and it is pretty responsive as far as whatever you select now the audio system is very good in this limited edition it's a 576 watt harman kardon system fantastic audio system the navigation like all navigation systems it's much better if you just use your smartphone the ac controls you do have climate control and uh system down here very clean looking uh the only thing you know that might be a concern is when you are selecting through the different modes you have to just select through a little wheel here so you know it could be nice just to have the exact thing that you want to select rather than scrolling through these different options but overall the system works fine and it is a nice clean look to it you do have heated seats for both the front passengers three different settings here you have the electronic parking brake uh and then you have this hill assist mode so it will hold the brakes for you until you type the accelerator pedal if you are on a hill and then x mode so what x mode does is it alters the cvt position typically towards a higher rpm it also increases the active all-wheel drive engagement and it increases the vehicle dynamic control to reduce wheel spin and then if you are descending a hill what it will do is control your speed so you descend that hill at a constant speed now you do have a power moon roof and visibility overall is very good out the front to the sides plenty of visibility checking your blind spot you've got a nice open window there to look through looking behind you nice large rear window and you also do have a high definition rear view camera so that's actually a pretty good display there seven inch screen for the limited and then of course on your mirrors you do have the blind spot detection so visibility in this car very good sitting in the rear i have the front driver seat adjusted to where i will be driving i'm about six one as you can see i still have plenty of leg room in the rear seats as someone who is six one the rear seat's actually pretty good experience you've got heated rear seats back here you've got some ac vents power windows you do have this fold down cup holder and arm rest if you do end up sitting in the center you know there actually is a decent amount of legroom the drive shaft hump doesn't come up all that high but you will still be splitting your feet that said you do also have a decent amount of room still above your head another clever thing that subaru has done here with these rear seats is that the seat belt actually doesn't come over the seat itself so when you do fold them down it doesn't interfere with it all right let's take it for a test drive now the throttle pedal on this with the 2.5 cylinder matched with the cvt does seem a bit punchy um so you kind of have this a little initial spike in acceleration and then after that it's much more linear so it does take a little bit of getting used to that uh just kind of the sensitivity of the throttle pedal for that first little bit of travel it just kind of does seem a little touchy the brake pedal feel however very good a good distance of travel and a nice progressive rate of resistance as you press down on it correlating with how hard you're braking so i do really like the brake pedal feel in this the steering seems decently responsive nothing too dramatic about it one way or the other fairly straightforward and simple to adjust to now the 2.5 cylinder really isn't all that powerful so if you do put your foot down you're not going to experience that great of g-forces i mean it's plenty of power if it's just you in the car uh but i imagine if you had the trunk full with a bunch of gear and other people in the car as well you know you may be thinking i wish i had gone for the six cylinder that said the 2.5 seems pretty efficient with the cvt so it is a decent option worth considering just because you can get good fuel economy out of it and it's a very practical car now there is a lot of body roll and this car does have some of the smallest anti-roll bars i've seen of the cars i've reviewed but you know body roll doesn't come purely down to anti-roll bars you can of course adjust the spring rates to compensate for that but it does seem to have a good amount of body roll and overall a very soft suspension and that just yields a very comfortable ride so it's not something i would complain about honestly it is a very comfortable car to drive around you are just going to have a decent amount of body roll and nose dive if you're hard on the brakes now it does come with paddle shifters so you can manually select through different gear ratios and it actually works really well so downshifts are very quick and up shifts are very smooth unlike the legacy which i tested which also had a cvt the up shifts it would kind of have a little bit of a jolt whereas in this one i don't notice it and the downshifts and up shifts are both very quick and very smooth so overall the paddle shifting system i really do like so driving on the highway i've got the cruise control set at 65. it's actually pretty quiet in here about 75 decibels you do hear a little bit of wind and road noise but neither of them too bad overall pretty quiet and also worth mentioning is that using the adaptive cruise control system in this fantastic you can kind of just relax and let the car do the work for you other people ahead of you changing their pace it'll just match a certain distance and you can change what distance you'd like to follow them so great system i'd recommend testing it out as an option for sure so i've completed my fuel economy test course this is about a 53 mile course primarily highway with some city and hills mixed in this car is rated 25 in the city 33 on the highway and as you can see it achieved 34.8 on my test course and this is pretty good considering you know the size of this vehicle its weight and the fact that it's all wheel drive now one of the things that was surprising to me is just how good a fuel economy this got in fact it's even rated epa both city and highway better than the ford escape that i tested even though this car is heavier it has a larger engine and it's all-wheel drive so that's pretty impressive that it's posting that good of fuel economy numbers even though it is all-wheel drive so they've done a good job of creating an efficient system now this is a very practical vehicle you've got a lot of space so you can fit plenty of gear in the trunk you've got all-wheel drive and you've got almost nine inches of ground clearance so you can take this thing pretty much anywhere and you can fit five adults so for the pacific northwest which is where i live you know something like this is actually kind of perfect for the outdoorsman who wants to take it you know on some rough areas and go backpacking or something like that where you can carry plenty of gear in the back and also take some friends with you so it's pretty ideal from that standpoint very practical car that can get pretty good gas mileage so thank you all for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below\n"