SOUND CHOICE

The time has come to hand back the keys to our Subaru Impreza and there’s a lot we’ll miss about the classy hatch. For a start, there’s the Harman Kardon audio, which puts some luxury car set-ups to shame for its clarity and “live” sound.

The leather seats have proved kind to troublesome backs on long trips up and down the coast and the Apple CarPlay makes sending and receiving text messages fuss-free and safe.

We even got used to the array of screens in the cabin, which allowed us to navigate the satnav and our playlist simultaneously.

Our only frustration was with the in-built voice recognition, which couldn’t understand the word “mum” and threw up half a dozen alternatives that were well wide of the mark. We eventually found a workaround by asking Siri, who nailed it first time.

The new global platform that underpins the Subaru is top-notch. The cabin is quiet, the suspension glides over bumps and keeps the car composed through corners and the steering has a reassuring feel.

The safety features work unobtrusively, although the lane-keeping — which steers you back into your lane if you wander — tends to leave things to the last minute and make sharp, unnerving inputs. The jury is out on whether the tech is a gimmick or genuine lifesaver.

Apart from that, we haven’t had a single gremlin in roughly four months of driving. The cabin plastics also look as good as new.

Its Achilles’ heel — which kept the Impreza out of Car of the Year contention— is the continuously variable transmission. On the open road it’s fine but under light throttle in stop-start traffic it lurches and grabs.

The engine, no modern marvel, does the job well enough but the CVT takes time to find the sweet spot and dulls its performance.

As a day-to-day commuter, though, the Impreza is hard to fault.