SUBIE LOVIN’
TELFO ESCAPES THE CITY, AIDED AND ABETTED BY THE OUTBACK’S SUITE OF DRIVER ASSISTANCE TECH
LAST MONTH, the Scientist and I handed our top-spec Outback Touring to our mate Sebastian Quirit, as we were keen to see what the owner of three actual children (as opposed to the furry kind) would make of Subaru’s big wagon. Seb was impressed with both the Outback’s ability to comfortably accommodate his brood, as well as the efficacy of the car’s EyeSight driver assistance tech. And as an avid club racer, he was also pleased to find the Outback is as entertaining in the twisty bits as one might hope a mass-market family car to be. While I regained custody of the Outback for Christmas, Omicron nixed our planned jaunt up the Hume and we instead settled for a couple of weekend missions around regional Victoria. The relaxed pace gave us the time and headspace needed to get better acquainted with some of the car’s tech features – something we hadn’t got to while using it as a commuter. Having recently received some unpleasant news in the mail from Victoria Police in the form of various infringement notices, the Scientist gently suggested I first suss out the speed-sign recognition and intelligent speed limiter systems. The warning system is handy and gets the speed signs right most of the time, though I’d appreciate the option of an audible speed warning. Hell, I’d take a mild electric shock at this point. The intelligent limiter is a neat alternative to cruise control when you’re in an area with regularly changing speed limits. You need to keep your foot on the gas to maintain forward progress, but the car will not respond to increased pressure on the go pedal once you reach the signed limit. Although if you really do need to get going in a hurry, flooring it will reset the system. And sure enough, the car will bring you back from say 80km/h to 60km/h as the signs change. As with the visual warning, the system doesn’t always clock the right limit (and still slows you down for 40km/h school zones in the middle of the night), but reassuringly, it errs on the conservative side, speed-wise. The limiter isn’t a cure for inattention or idiocy − rather, to make the system work its best, one needs to drive smoothly and pay attention. For anyone with the Sword of Damoclese hanging over their licence, it’s a handy tool. Think of it as the gamification of trying to keep your points.
The same applies to the semi autonomous steering function. Around town, we’d found it a frustrating feature, which saw us fighting the car’s inputs and then turning it off. Out on the open road, I had a moment of Zen-like clarity and realised I needed to back off and let the car do its thing. Driver inputs are still required − both to reassure the car that you still have your hands on the wheel and to make adjustments where necessary − but overall, the function is extremely easy to use. The self-centering isn’t perfect though and tends to hug one side of the lane or the other. For us, the jury is still out on the usefulness of the feature, though you may find it helpful in reducing fatigue. Our next task was to personalise a few key settings to suit our tastes. For example, we found the Google Maps directions were a loud, painful interruption to our podcast consumption. After some suffering, the Scientist clicked through a couple of menus to discover that she could adjust it – and it stayed that way, too. Same goes for the cruise control acceleration characteristics feature, which offers five levels between ‘eco’ at one end and ‘dynamic’ at the other. The ‘dynamic’ setting was great for dual carriageways, providing strong acceleration when we pulled out to overtake, while ‘eco’ was the setting of choice when traversing less-predictable B-roads. The exception to the set-and-forget rule is the stop/start function – if you’re not a fan, you’ll need to turn it off each time you jump in the car. Finally, setting up individual profiles via the Outback’s Driver Monitoring System was well worth it. Not only does it apply each driver’s personal seat, mirror and air-con preferences, but it also recognises which registered driver is behind the wheel and automatically pairs with the correct phone. The moral of the story is, while neither the Scientist or I are big on reading instructions – we both like to figure things out on the fly – taking some time to get to know the Outback yielded some useful results and made us enjoy an alreadyimpressive vehicle all the more. Fingers crossed we can get away for a longer trip, further off the beaten track next month.