Forester sports a colour upgrade
Subaru has made some changes to its Forester medium SUV. Nile Bijoux gets into the details.
Subaru has given the Forester medium SUV a small spicing up for the new year, coming in the form of the new X Sport model.
On the outside
The X Sport gets mainly visual tweaks, with orange being the main theme. There are orange trim inserts and orange detailing around the front splitter, side skirts, diffuser and roof racks. Key takeaway – Subaru likes orange.
It also likes black, with new 18-inch black wheels, black surrounds on the low-mounted fog lights and headlight bezels and a black grille.
On the inside
The main addition here is waterrepellent upholstery, like what’s found on the Outback X. Not totally waterproof, mind, just repellent. Other new features include collision-detection automatic door unlocking, an 8-inch touchscreen, a powered tailgate and a range-wide towing capacity bump from 1500kg to 1800kg.
There’s more orange too, in the stitching, button illumination and in the bezels around the air-conditioning vents.
Under the bonnet
Nothing to report here – the X Sport isn’t really sportier than any other Forester (except maybe the Hybrid). It uses the same 2.5-litre flat four and CVT transmission pair as the other non-hybrid Foresters, making 136kW/239Nm.
It’s not powerful but it is impressively frugal, with a claimed fuel consumption rate of 7.4L/100km.
On the road
Surprise – it’s still a Forester. That means a supremely sorted ride on pretty much any kind of surface you might encounter, enough pep in the 2.5-litre flat four to get into that gap in traffic that suddenly looked a bit smaller than you thought and plenty of tech to make the journey as comfy and easy as possible.
All-wheel-drive is still standard fare (this is a Subaru, after all) and while the CVT transmission does sap some of the fun, Subaru’s ’box is really one of the best. Sharp on the downshifts when you need more power and quick to reach for higher ratios to keep fuel usage down. Subaru’s SI-Drive is also included to help encourage things as needed.
All Foresters have X Mode to aid off-road capabilities. This alters engine output, throttle and transmission mapping, torque distribution and braking to make the vehicle more capable for ‘‘light’’ off-roading.
On tarmac, I can happily affirm that the X Sport additions haven’t changed the drive in any meaningful way, aside from the bonus stone that was lodged in the rear left disc brake and refused to be shaken out. It was stuck in the inside part of the disc mounting hub and I wasn’t about to pull the wheel off a press vehicle to get it out, much to the shock of an eagle-eared cafe patron that overheard my complaints.
As mentioned, the CVT is as good as it gets here and AWD inspires plenty of confidence. For when you don’t want to do much driving, the standard EyeSight kit allows for adaptive cruise control with lane-keep.
While EyeSight is very good, it’s one of the most vocal driver assistance setups on the market and not in a good way. It’ll beep when you wander from the lane, including going into a flush median to avoid a parked car and it watches your face too, ready to sound off if it thinks you’re not watching the road. Great ideas in principle, bloody annoying in practice.
The ‘‘keep your eyes on the road’’ message on the dash is naggy and it happens all too often if you wear sunglasses or even hold your head in an unusual way.
If I’m honest, I’m not a big fan of the orange trim. The bits around the exterior look OK, but the plastic surrounds on the vents and gear shifter feel a bit cheap. Could do without the
tangerine stitching, too.
The seats also reminded me of the weird mesh netting that lined children’s swimming togs back in the 1990s. Or do they still put that in togs now? Maybe they even did that before the 90s. Ah, I’m sure someone will tell me. . .
Either way, I’m not on board. I do like the water-repellent nature of the seats and if I had kids or used my vehicle for rougher stuff, it would certainly be appreciated and the weird design forgiven.
Verdict
Right, after all that, should you buy one?
Probably not. It’s not badly priced, slotting in between the 2.5 Sport ($42,490) and the
2.5 Premium ($49,990), while being right on top of it doesn’t exactly offer enough over the Sport to warrant the $5k extra.
The only real difference is the water-repellent seats and SI-Drive. If you don’t need them, either save your money or jump to the Premium, which gets a nicer interior (in my opinion) and X-Mode with deep snow/ mud.