A full review of the fifth generation Subaru Legacy, a popular car worldwide, but often overlooked in the UK. Difficult to place in the market, is the Legacy both a quality and luxury car?
Welcome to the fifth generation subaru legacy – forgetting these things existed, now they’re quite popular around the world, especially in the us and in australia, but in the uk they never really sold too many of them – especially this generation. they actually only sold us the tourer – or estate car – which is what this model is. when
I got offered the chance to drive one, i jumped at the chance because it’s a properly cool-looking car actually, i knew it would have the standard subaru all-wheel drive system, and i knew that it would have some sort of quirky engine, boxer flat-4 engine. this is a 2011, they came out in 2009, the fifth
Generation and sold it ’till 2013. they’re quite difficult to place on the market and where they were aimed at because at the same time as being quite a luxurious and well-appointed car with all this leather and technology and it’s also quite agricultural in its underpinnings. very stiff clutch and manual gearbox that
Feel bit more serious, and then this great big essentially the intake for the intercooler on by the name you might imagine it has sat nav, it also has leather seats, a reversing camera, xenon headlights and keyless entry and go – quite a high tech car given that it came out in 2009. and the nice thing is that
Even if you don’t buy entry level ones, you get dual-zone climate control, 10-way adjustable seats – now these seats they’re electrically adjustable forward and back – even in a 50/60 grand bmw or mercedes they often neglect to give you a seat that will move back and forward under its own steam – so definitely got plenty
Of kit on it. you could get this car in the uk with only three engines, now in the rest of the world there was a few different other engine options, so here you could get two petrol engines – a two litre and a 2.5, and then a diesel. elsewhere in the world there was options such as a 3.6 litre boxer flat 6 which –
Now you’re talking! it’s a real shame we didn’t get that here, so if anyone’s watching and you’ve got like a 3.6 then do let me know. the diesel was only available with the six speed manual, then with the two litre petrol you could get the manual or a cvt gearbox and then the 2.5 was only cvt. the weird thing is that
This particular car is the diesel and the world’s first diesel boxer engine, and i was wondering – does this mean it’s going to sound good? i was getting thought maybe it’ll be the best sounding diesel there is an advantage to this boxer diesel and it’s that it’s a little bit more like a petrol engine
Got much more linear performance it doesn’t have that low down turbo shove-you-back and then it’s gone, and you have to change again it’s much more like smooth and… okay the revs still run out it’s got an electronic handbrake, it’s not where you’d expect it to be – it’s not down here in the centre console, it’s to the
Right of the steering wheel. now obviously subaru knew this would be a bit weird, they’ve literally got this sticker next to it telling you how to use it whoever had this set… likes sitting up straight! up front it’s a pretty practical car you’ve got bottomed bottle no problem and in the side pockets as
Well. you’ve got a sunglasses holder up on the top, this centre console cubby which sort of splits into a tray on the top and then a bigger thing underneath, there’s also another 12-volt socket inside the center console as well, and then a the glovebox is a reasonable size. most of them don’t have the great big screen in the
Middle here, so i’ll just go over this quickly – it’s not bad actually, it’s quite big, given this you’ve got sat nav which is okay obviously a little bit out of date now then you’ve got your bluetooth phone connections and a calculator and a calendar what’s that? i suppose he should show you around the back
Now it’s his turn, so i think i’m just going to subaru legacy tourer, where there’s acres of room it’s fantastic back here – crap loads of head room, loads of leg room in front of me even though it’s set for jj at six foot (184cm) tall, you could easily get a family in here. there’s not really much back here – there’s
Some decent door pockets with cupholders, there’s a weird little bit of storage also lean them (the seats) back a little bit, so i can have a little sleep back here as well which is nice. oh and there’s an arm rest with two cup holders in it, it’s got a great big load bay with a flat load lip, you can pull the seats down
By just pulling the little handles at the back so you don’t have to lean in to do it, you can either do it from in here or in the back. lots of storage underneath, there’s a little tonneau cover thing that you can take out like in a lot of estate cars. you get these hooks that you can pull out and hook things on to as well.
This video if you think backseat jj is helpful on. and then i’m gonna get going – i was talking about this car being agricultural, i mean it in the nicest possible way of course, there was an advert basically just gets held up by a load of sheep that appears to be the advert – it’s like that’s the joy of owning
A subaru. tell you what actually, the visibility in this car is pretty good – i’ve got this horrible turning here to make, terrible angle, but there’s a lot of glass and i can see all the way down the length of the car and there’s not really a big blind spot or anything. to add to the visibility – the massive wing mirrors as
Well, you can see all sorts through that. the whole shape of this car actually with those massive wing mirrors, it’s kind of like a big tonka toy, it does add to that rugged feeling, it actually looks quite modern given that this car was made in 2009. it still looks like it could be a new car. bad car to to drive, it’s got
Huge wide tires on it and they they grip really well, and the all-wheel drive makes you just feel like you can get around the corner quickly and safely. the steering’s a little bit vague but once you get into the corner it it’s quite fun! i like the instrument cluster in front of you, it’s quite sporty in its font
And design and the little screen in front of you actually tells you what gear you’re in even in a manual which is unusual. it’s got an mpg meter i’ve never really understood the point of and in order to put that there they’ve got rid of the temperature gauge so all you get is a little light that tells you that
The engine’s cold and then it goes away when the engine’s warm. so the problem is to achieve that that quality feeling that subaru tend to have, it does suffer in other situations – the ride is a bit firm, it’s not massively uncomfortable it does handle potholes germans have got to offer, so it’s not massively noisy
At speed but at the same time it’s from the back there, but generally otherwise the interior feels well screwed together. do want a version of this car that can go on stilts. they put some plastic cladding on it and stuff but basically it’s the same car they just extended it upwards into the air. thanks to my
Mate roger for lending me this car, he reckons he’s not a car guy but all the cars he’s ever owned have been weird and wonderful like this. if you want a practical estate car and you’re in the market for something a bit different and you don’t just want the same old car that everyone else wants, i’d certainly give this car a
Look – it’s it’s all about – it’s different and it’s not it’s not a bad car, so you don’t have to be different and have something crap – you can be different and have the dependable rugged all-wheel drive car that will take you anywhere. it’ll still get it’s got all the toys on it for a car this age.
The comments which model you have. if you fancy watching any more jj on cars videos then i’m going to put one up here for you to watch yeah cheers for watching and i’ll see you in the next video!
Transcribed from video
Subaru Legacy Review // Solid, dependable and… different By JJ on Cars