2016/17 Outback. Any thoughts ??

2016/17 Outback. Any thoughts ??

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HARTLEYHARE1

Original Poster:

588 posts

129 months

Wednesday 5th July 2017
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Getting closer to changing the family car and the outback is in the top five

Any opinions greatly appreciated as not exactly a VW in popularity so any advice is very welcome

rastapasta

1,863 posts

138 months

Tuesday 11th July 2017
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Hi,

Hi. Ok so I own a 2014 Subaru Legacy estate here in Switzerland. Its the 2.5i model with about 180bhp. When I was looking for one our garage man warned us off the diesel version. He said that quite a few had been sold in Switzerland and they have a poor reputation for reliability relative to the petrol model which is 'tried and tested' with the same engine going into the Impreza Forrester XV for the Swiss market. I do about 30,000km a year and the car has not missed a beat since i bought it at one year old in August 2015 with 17,000 on the clock. Its now a 68000km. The comfort and standard equipment levels are very very high. I can highly recommend it in this regard. The Bluetooth is a bit fiddly to set up and there are some build quality issues such as the boot cargo cover having a clip that falls off every time you use it and the cup holders having a partition piece that comes out whenever you but a large water bottle in it. In terms of petrol use, the tank has a range of 800km and I would do about 650km per week.

But this is only minor in the overall context. Service is every 15000km. Do not neglect this and make sure the previous Owner has not either, especially if you do plump for the diesel. Cabin noise is quite low but then you miss a little of the boxer burble. I miss it in the winter anyway as I have to run winter tyres which are super hard super noisy but work well on the snow and Ice. Also I would go for 16" alloys. The arches may look a bit starved but your back will be glad of it as the suspension is a touch on the hard side. Handling is quite good but the steering can lack a little bit of 'feel'. The Awd system lets you really push it into the corners and it grips forever. Torque isnt particularly great but they have a good top end. The Manual gearbox is notchy at first and takes some getting used to. But honestly they are beasts on the road and will conceivably allow you in poor road conditions to leave the posse behind. You may have only the option of CVT, if this is the case the system itself is good and improving all the time. I have driven CVT in the Outback and Levorg and can confirm that the vast majority of the people knocking it haver never driven with it. You will also get the Xtrac mods that come with the tricked out suspension. This is a nice system. If you are going to drive on rough roads you will be very glad of it. In normal conditions they are not the fastest on the road but certainly not the slowest. They are quite hard to drive in the Awd/maual form in traffic as its a permanent system and so the car can be quite jumpy at low speeds. But otherwise the system is simpler and yet far far superior than the Haldex systems on for example VW group cars. If you need to know anything more then PM me.

HARTLEYHARE1

Original Poster:

588 posts

129 months

Tuesday 11th July 2017
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Hi, Thank you for the excellent feedback

Actually going for a test drive today and will report on here to the masses of outback owners my opinion smile