The Crosstrek is a confident subcompact crossover with an easygoing personality. Compared to the new Honda HR-V, Toyota Corolla Cross, and Mazda CX-30, it has carved out its own unique strong suits. Today, I’ll explain what they are!
The subaru crosstrek is a lifted all-wheel drive hatchback with a lot going for it despite being among the older offerings in the class so today i’m going to explain my stance on the crosstrek through giving you the highs the lows and exactly what’s new for 2023 if you’d like a full review i’ve already made one on the 2021 crosstrek and i’ll link that below we should
Be approaching a complete redesign here in the next year or two so for 2023 subaru didn’t do a whole lot they just added the availability of a special edition package for the premium trim that’s going to come with an exclusive desert khaki color the sport wheels a red and black treatment done to the interior and the 8 inch touchscreen from the limited trim and for
Just 600 more it seems like kind of a steal before i get into the meat of this video if you enjoy fun detailed car content without fluff consider subscribing and hitting the bell for notifications while these aren’t in any particular order one of the biggest draws to the crosstrek for me is its simplicity whether we look at it mechanically you only have naturally
Aspirated engines available you can access most points of the engine pretty easily hold for the spark plugs and the straightforward nature continues on the inside you have physical controls for just about everything which we’re starting to see it go away in the subaru lineup while the infotainment system is not too snappy and could use a better resolution it’s
Still fairly easy to use as is pretty much everything with the crosstrek there are also competitors like the mazda cx-30 and honda hrv that take this similar analog approach but do it in a more premium manner except i think this still has a kind of an old-school charm to it maybe it’s because of the lower windows it has pretty good visibility it just feels very
Easy going and also the materials used how everything fits together gives an impression of durability and overall this does have a rugged personality for class and that’s the next pro i want to talk about with the crosstrek it’s go anywhere attitude paired with full-time all-wheel drive while i wouldn’t advise putting yourself into any sort of predicament with a
Subcompact crossover the crosstrek should handle it better than most with 8.7 inches of ground clearance and an all-wheel drive system that can actually divert more than 50 percent of the torque to the rear wheels and it has an off-road mode that’s actually somewhat capable at sending power side to side through its x-mode system and it’s the only car in the class
To use a longitudinally mounted engine and it was strategically designed to have equal length drive shafts help better with torque steering balance and you really do feel that on the road and that’s the next reason for the subaru crosstrek really a big proponent to it is the handling it’s a very confident vehicle for this kind of footprint and there are various
Reasons for this the low center of gravity from the boxer engine along with the rigid platform allow it to keep body roll in check without necessitating a firm ride the fully independent suspension also helps this to remain composed under cornering on all sorts of roads and since the all-wheel drive is full time you can mash the throttle at any point in any sort of
Weather without the remote fear of ending up in a local ditch and the steering too while numb has got a quick ratio so it feels like it can change direction kind of rapidly normally it’s not really all that fun to drive but if you can find one with the six-speed manual transmission which i was debating making that its own sole reason to buy this thing because it’s
One of the only suvs in the us to offer all-wheel drive with a manual transmission and that transmission does make it actually a kind of fun vehicle to drive around town or back roads the only problem is that that’s only paired to the 2-liter engine the 2.5 liter adds 30 horsepower over the 2-liter engine the latter of which comes with the base and premium while
You get the extra displacement with the sport unlimited and if you live towards the east or west coast of the united states you can get an efficient plug-in hybrid that has just 17 miles of ev only range and less power than either of the non-hybrids the next reason that i would pick a crosstrek over another vehicle in the class is because of the comfort again it
Isn’t sprung stiff yet feels under control through streets that scare children it’s the most forgiving in the class although i have yet to whip a hyundai kona or kia celtos and it makes it one of the best vehicles to own and especially in like the rust belt and places that get a ton of snow because often the roads are also terrible so not only do you have a great
All-wheel drive system you have something that can really take a beating and the seats are also soft but i do want to note you can’t get lumbar adjustment on these things and this isn’t alone in the segment for not offering that but it really seems like the only thing holding this back from being a really comfortable highway cruiser because it also cruises at
Relatively low rpms and road noise is also kept under control my last reason to pick up the crosstrek is a little bit more controversial because that’s running costs when we consider reliability but also gas mileage and resale so this thing is rated at 29 miles to the gallon combined by the epa my parents actually have a crosstrek and it easily beats that rating
Plus you have resale that even before the pandemic was stellar it honestly made for a moral dilemma when i used to sell new subarus and we’d have a used one come in because they were basically the same price before prices got absurd and this generation the crosstrek released for the 2018 model year has been pretty reliable for the most part in the past yes subarus
Have suffered from head gasket issues but that was alleviated through the use of a semi-closed deck and a difference in gasket material still from all the research that i’ve done the design itself is just going to be more susceptible to that kind of failure but that’s usually something you’d expect at a really high mileage if you look at customer reported failures
Most of those dropped off steeply around 2009-2010 i sound like a broken record now but oil consumption was derived from the oil ring failure there on the piston rings and that should also be alleviated we’ll find out if that was permanently fixed here in a few years when this gen debuted there were many complaints with buggy software and some people reported engine
Stalling problems and jerkiness too some other miscellaneous issues like easily cracked windshields and dying batteries were reported as well just in far fewer numbers than the outback satisfaction rates seem high based on cars.com reviews even for the first model year so it seems that most have had a trouble-free experience when it comes to complaints with the
Crosstrek a few things stand out in my head one i wish that the 2.5 liter engine was standard and not something that just came with the sport and limited trim mainly because it gets about the same gas mileage but offers a substantial boost of power that makes the crosstrek a lot more relaxed driving i think for a lot of people buying a car in this segment though
The two leader is fine that’s what’s in this car it just struggles a bit when you’re loaded up or at a higher elevation my next knock is cvt refinement while this transmission and most other cvts offer a smooth response at higher speeds at low speeds this one tends to lurch and exaggerate its power under light throttle the cvt in the new honda hrv and the cvt with
The physical first gear and the corolla cross feel more linear down low want to avoid the auto my next complaint is how difficult it is to find a manual crosstrek in the states the subi also tends to feel cheap compared to many others in the class but i can accept this because it feels expensive on bad roads and my other complaints i’ve already briefly mentioned
Like the lack of lumbar adjustment the infotainment system just kind of fallen behind from the rest of the class and if i’m really going to nitpick for the length of this thing i wish the cargo area was a little bit more spacious however passenger space is still quite good i’m six foot three and i can fit behind myself in the back seat without any problems overall
The crosstrek is a very agreeable substantial feeling subcompact suv there’s more premium options in the class there’s more fun options in the class but i think the crosstrek stands out for its confidence both on-road and off-road and the personality that sueb’s given the thing overall despite it being due for a redesign i think it’s still more than competitive
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Transcribed from video
5 Reasons to Buy a 2023 Subaru Crosstrek (What's New?) By Realistick