We review the updated 2021 Subaru Crosstrek. Starting around $23,000 it could be on the list of piles to avoid. However, Subaru came through with something old school with a bit of modern flair that does everything buyers expect from their family haulers. Others to consider are Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX5, Ford Escape, and Honda CRV, HRV.
Inside the updated subaru crosstrek now there are four trim levels for this which i’ll cover in the shop some of the details but the price spans out from very affordable to around 23 000 past 30 if you start adding a whole bunch of crazy stuff on but the point is you can find one that matches your budget and you don’t feel like they’re cheaping out everywhere
This is the limited trim this is a press car so they try to show you everything that’s possible with this the interior space is a great mix of modern and past subaru i talk about this a lot keeping things that have always worked which basically you get in here and you know exactly what everything does there’s no guess work you still have physical volume knobs
Tuning knobs your hvac controls are all physical they haven’t gone crazy here and giving you the 50 inch plasma across the dash where you have to touch everything this is a great balance of usability non-intimidation factor and good seating comfort tons of glass in here you can see out this thing and there’s a ton of places to put stuff i carry this huge water
Bottle well it doesn’t really hold a lot of water about water but it it’s a big piece fits in the door fits in the armrest fits everywhere i need it to i can jam a ton of stuff in here it’s something it’s a vehicle for somebody that needs it for utility purposes and that doesn’t mean it’s a u-haul truck in terms of like quality either there are hard plastics
But they don’t look horrific the door card for example a door panel there’s hard plastics where your feet are at so when you kick the door you’re not going to destroy it but there’s soft touch material in the handles the leathers on the door look nice there’s the kind of the faux carbon fiber that blends in with the aesthetic the silver of the car and i think
They did a really good job balancing all of this out now i was out of the i was in the outback onyx trim where they add like green stitching and all of that and just trying to tart it up even more this doesn’t have that but they do have this orange stitching which is great for october and there are some copper accents in the gauge cluster i mean they just
They’ve tried here and i think that’s the main point it doesn’t feel like a bargain basement type vehicle and it is completely usable the hatch space is great there’s a ton of room to put stuff without making this feel like it is a barge it doesn’t feel like a massive car you can still get it around easy and it’s practical that’s the main thing and when you’re
Looking at a price or the price point that this is at you realize this is what most people are going to use and enjoy for the long term but let’s get into the underbody segment i’m going to talk a little bit about what makes this crosstrek unique time to do a quick shop segment on the subaru crosstrek if you’ve watched these videos you’ll know there’s a big
Complaint i have with all these cars is they’re so expensive to the point i don’t know how anybody can afford them anymore and if it’s bad in the united states you know it’s got to be worse around the rest of the globe but this starts around 22 000 for the base and underneath mechanically it’s all very similar now here’s the difference is the lower trim level
The base and the premium get a 2-liter naturally aspirated motor that makes about 155 horsepower you can get a cvt or a 6-speed manual when you go up to the sport and the limited you get a 2.5 liter naturally aspirated motor that makes around 180 horsepower but it’s cvt only underneath and this is where they save a lot of the cost it’s all steel everything
Is steel on this car there’s no weight seaming there’s no compot crazy composites or aluminum panels everywhere strut front and they do compared to subaru in the past they do a good job with covering up as much of the underbody as they can with plastic panels to reduce nvh to keep a lot of the debris off the steel and the metals but let’s take a look at the
Back and i’ll detail the rest the rear half of the crosstrek some carryover stuff here it’s all steel no aluminum at this price point who cares you have double wishbone suspension something that subaru’s used on the rear half of most of their cars and suvs and there is a ton of space to move around here if you ever need to do work easy to get at everything
The other thing that i noticed is just putting this on the lift how much ground clearance this has and although it looks like it has car-like proportions that’s something subaru does great they give you a ton of space to go off-roading and i’ve had some of these products off-road in trails where some smaller suvs had problems and that’s something that these are
Great with namely for the price so let’s talk about some of the all-wheel drive stuff the upper two trim levels the sport and the limited give you the ability to lock do a four wheel drive lock which just means it’s able to send or split the power to the back end of the front simultaneously for short periods of time to get you out of ruts and that’s something
That you don’t get on the two lower trim levels the other thing that it adds is hill descent control again on the other two trim levels so if you’re coming down a huge grade you enable that and the car will break itself as it goes downhill to maintain stability which is nice if you’re in any type of elevation the last thing to talk about is this does have
Torque vectoring by brake all trim levels get that so it helps it helps the the vehicle to turn in a little bit better if you’re cornering and again it’s all electronic tricks that most manufacturers are implementing but the big thing the symmetrical all-wheel drive that’s what they market it as what that means is all the half shafts your axles here are all
Equal length front and rear and what it gives you is a more balanced handling characteristic and also when you’re applying power and turning you don’t get torques to your like some of the front-wheel drive cars that try to retrofit all-wheel drive like the crvs like the new mazda products have some of that with their turbos so this feels more natural to drive
And it was designed from the start to be all-wheel drive not front-wheel drive first so that’s why so many people like it and it is a very tried-and-true system i say that about every subaru if there’s one thing you never hear problems with with subaru’s is their all-wheel drive setup but anyway let’s get this out on the road and see how it drives setting
Off in the subaru crosstrek let’s see how this gets off the line so the cvt and the naturally aspirated 2.5 liter is basically adequate it’s a little sluggish to get off the line and this is typical with cvts this is not one of the reasons why you’re gonna be excited to buy the crosstrek it definitely has a more sedate acceleration pattern and most people
That don’t get in and out of hundreds of cars like we do anymore they’re probably not even going to notice the fact that it’s a cvt it does have fake shifts and we’ll leave it at that the engine is a little bit rattly but it’s not it’s exactly what you expect from a four-cylinder engine it is not the most refined thing but where this makes up for some of that
Is ride quality is superb this is a very well controlled and dampened car or damped car the suspension has plenty of wheel travel so if i just happen to fall asleep and just go onto the shoulder you basically don’t even notice it the isolation that it does in terms of body control and damping you can hit something over there and you don’t feel it transmit
You don’t feel the vibration transmit all the way through the seat in your driver’s side so it does well over potholes it does well over bad pavement and you can take this on trails on anything like it’s nothing and the fact that it has a legitimate ride height and tons of road clearance for something like this is just icing on the cake so it’s definitely
On the softer side this is a more hey let’s be calm and get to where we need to go from point a to point b in terms of steering feel and isolation and all that stuff it doesn’t transmit a ton through the steering wheel which you don’t want in a car like this the steering is pretty quick it’s not that’s one area that’s not super slowed down it still gives you
Good reactivity even though you have the extra ride height it doesn’t feel like a total boat it doesn’t feel like you’re going to roll over and some of this is thanks to double wishbone in the rear it maintains a good balance so what’s left well fuel economy is average i mean i’m not getting better than around 26 27 miles per gallon and for a four-cylinder
You expect a little bit more but you make up for that with the all-wheel drive system feels very neutral so when you’re on a day-to-day grind like right now i’m just gonna be a dick it has that little safe understeer to it so the front end washes out but it’s controlled when it sends the power to the back and it still makes this pretty enjoyable to drive it
Always maintains this safeness which i really like in a price point like this you can still drive a little bit it’s not totally dead and it doesn’t bore you it just doesn’t bore you to death driving and i think that’s what i’m trying to get across visibility is great i talked about that on the interior space there’s plenty of glass i don’t constantly have to
Double check out my shoulder to make sure that somebody’s not there you see it and the combination of that and the the eyesight system which is subaru’s safety suite it works really well in here it does cool tricks like if there’s a car in front of you at a stoplight and you’re on your phone or doing things you’re not supposed to it will beep and let you know
The car moved in front of you the blind spot monitoring works well all the little things that it needs to do on a basic level are very functional and it adds value to having a car like this that is extremely affordable that you’re going to use every day and i think you know it’s not perfect you know it doesn’t feel overly refined it’s not a refined driving car
But it balances the the practicality and usability the ride quality is its best suit and usability in terms of suspension travel the ability to take it in bad climates snow ruts some off-road that’s why you buy this along with the fact that you can stuff a ton of in here and i think now is a good time to get into the final thoughts and talk about the pros
And the cons final thoughts on the subaru crosstrek it’s not a big surprise here there’s a lot to like there’s a lot to like because your average joe blow can go and afford this you can use it year round in pretty much every climate snow salt hail storms fire and brimstone this thing should do what you need it to do without any fanfare most of the technology
Is average but it’s functional it’s not that distracting and it does aid in helping you pay more attention or not pay attention in some cases so i think there’s a couple takeaways the negatives for me are definitely drivetrain the 2-liter is weak the 2.5 liter isn’t much better and the cvt definitely dumbs down the entire experience it is however shocking to
Me that they offer a manual transmission granted it’s only on the first lower two trim levels but at least that’s there that would make this more engaging if you’re somebody that enjoys driving now other than that i mean subaru is subaru you either love these things or you don’t but i think they find a great balance between the budget the budget end without
Feeling like a total turd and then they can tart it up just a little bit so you feel like there’s good creature comforts it just feels well built for a subaru thanks for watching i’ll see you next time you
Transcribed from video
Subaru Crosstrek | Not a Pile for Most Lifestyles By savagegeese