Subaru Automobiles

/ Subaru Automobiles #1  

MossRoad

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Aug 31, 2001
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66,167
Location
South Bend, Indiana (near)
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Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Got into discussions in the EV thread about Subarus as some EVs and some Subarus (and I'm sure other cars as well) have similar yet different features like lane assist, adaptive cruise control, different methods for controlling traction on and off road, etc.

Didn't want to side track the EV thread any longer, so thought it appropriate to start a new thread.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles
  • Thread Starter
#2  
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.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #3  
Post a picture!
My wife just drove this Forrester Wilderness off the showroom floor.

That was a 1st ever experience. Largest car dealership I’ve ever seen.

What do you think of the CVT transmission?
View attachment 788330
I’m not sure I like auto adjust lights either. They seem too bright for city driving.
We had a forester for 6 years. The best highway snow vehicle I’ve ever had, and the CRV transmission was great. For a gas vehicle, it got great MPGs. Never a mechanical problem in 100k miles.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #4  
I drove my Aunt's Toyota Corolla..or Camry..or something along those lines anyways. That car had that lane assist thing, and while it seemed neat in concept, it seemed as if Florida roads confused the living crap out of the system, and caused it to wander all over the dang road. My '59 International 2 ton with the factory original manual steering box wanders less than that Toyota did.

The adaptive cruise was pretty handy though, especially when I got stuck behind a blue hair that couldn't decide if they wanted to go 25 or 55, lol. Forgetting that I wasn't in my big block Pontiac when I finally got to pass was a whole different issue though :ROFLMAO: It was suprisingly responsive even at freeway speeds, doing 65 then coming up on that sudden wall of parked traffic. I never fully tested it, but it sure felt like I could avoid touching the brake pedal at all until I had to turn off somewhere.

Still though, I'm a pretty old school guy - the less "extras" the better...If it wasn't for having to feed it 91 octane at 8mpg, I'd still be dailying my '73 Pontiac.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #5  
My son had a 98 Forrester for many years. We still have it, but it’s not used anymore. It on its 3rd engine, but mainly because of my son’s poor maintenance and rough driving habits. I hate to get rid of it. It has so many new drivetrain parts. I was considering turning into an ATV style off roader. I was just looking at tow bars when I noticed Moss’s new thread! :D My grandson is going to be here soon for Spring break and I thought it would be a fun opportunity to teach him how to drive a manual transmission. I was thinking since the Wilderness has a 3k towing capacity, I could tow the old one with the new one.
Some of the pre-2013 Subarus had problems with the head gaskets and warped heads. They addressed that with re-design in 2014.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #6  
Yup, that was the culprit both times. Head gaskets. The mechanic said, if you turn it off as soon as it gets hot, you save the engine. If it actually “overheats” it destroys the valve-train followed then by the pistons.
We never had an overheating issue with our 2017. Not even when we drove to Phoenix in the summer at 120 degrees.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #7  
I had one briefly as a rental. The adaptive cruise control is fantastic. The automatic braking I wasn't thrilled about. I was backing onto a gentle curving slope very slow speed nowhere near hitting the bumper and the stupid thing slammed on the brakes
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #8  
Last 15 years+- or so of Subarus have been noticeably better in snow than any of our many previous manually controlled Jeeps. New computerized Jeep's traction is better than new Subaru's traction.

Bruce
 
/ Subaru Automobiles
  • Thread Starter
#9  
Pictures as requested.

F7D82095-54DC-4645-B29E-C8F853D286F1.jpeg 068E58C0-1994-4FF1-B633-6DE2EFD6D8FD.jpeg 0FA55FE7-62AD-4764-8882-5361AEB25B77.jpeg
 
/ Subaru Automobiles
  • Thread Starter
#10  
Post a picture!
My wife just drove this Forrester Wilderness off the showroom floor.

That was a 1st ever experience. Largest car dealership I’ve ever seen.

What do you think of the CVT transmission?
View attachment 788330
I’m not sure I like auto adjust lights either. They seem too bright for city driving.

The Wilderness has a push button for a front camera view under the bumper. So you can see what your driving over. Haven't tried the cruise control yet. Only have 70 miles on it so far.

My dad’s Outback was much better driving through snow than my Ram2500 4x4 with all terrain 35” tall tires.
I remember driving through snow so deep that it plowed up over the hood into the windshield on an unplowed road. I had expected to get stuck anytime and it never happened.
I like the CVT transmission. No shift bumps. I got to drive my kid's Legacy several times over the years, so I was used to it.

Our Outback has the paddle shifters on the steering wheel. I suppose that would be handy in hilly terrain or on the racetrack 😬 . No need for it here in the flat part if Indiana. We're taking it to Oklahoma in April, and there's a few hilly stretches in Missouri where I like to kick the throttle on the Impala and Suburban at the bottom of the hills so it maintains speed up the hill before the cruise control kicks it down. So we'll see then.

Ours does not have the font camera that I know of. We test drove a 2023 that had it. Pretty neat. It also had the turbo engine. Man, it was responsive. But we don't need that.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles
  • Thread Starter
#11  
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.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles
  • Thread Starter
#12  
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. 🤣
 
/ Subaru Automobiles
  • Thread Starter
#13  
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.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #14  
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.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #16  
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.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #17  
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
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #18  
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.
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #19  
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!
 
/ Subaru Automobiles #20  
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?
 

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