4 ms·

I own a 2014 Subaru Impreza and my brother in-law a 2017. I've driven both extensively. Sometime during those years, Subaru switched from knobs and levers to a

by arpyzo 5y ago

I own a 2014 Subaru Impreza and my brother in-law a 2017. I've driven both extensively. Sometime during those years, Subaru switched from knobs and levers to a touchscreen and the controls are so much worse! 1. The controls on the 2014 are obvious, easy to find, and my choices are readily apparent. In the 2017 I have to search for them and often guess their meanings. If I'm actively driving, I just give up because it's too distracting. 2. The controls are not as responsive. Sometimes there's a lag. Sometimes they don't respond at all. 3. There are bugs with the digital controls that simply don't exist in the analog versions. As an example in the 2017 the radio turns on every time the car gets started regardless of if it was on when the car was turned off.

patpending 5y ago
I have a similar problem with my 2017 Pacifica that replaced my 2005 Voyager. Using the touch screen to control the heat and air-conditioning is extremely slow in the Pacifica, and you can't do it without looking at the screen which can't be used with gloves. There are physical buttons and knobs for a few of the controls, but it seems that they're just talking to the same software as the touch-screen, so they're just as slow to respond. Adjusting the heat without looking at the touch-screen is pretty much impossible. IMO the touch screen should not be used to control any aspect of the car's operation. It should only be for phone, navigation, backup camera, and entertainment.
- organsnyder 5y ago
  I also have a 2017 Pacifica, and for the most part I don't mind the controls (the physical buttons are responsive enough that it doesn't bother me), but there are definitely a few functions (heated/cooled seats, mainly) that I wish I didn't have to dig through menus to find. Such a contrast from my 2009 Civic (albeit no heated/cooled seats on that vehicle).
- toast0 5y ago
  It might depend on the trim of the Pacifica? But for the hvac controls that have buttons (fan speed, driver/passenger temps, mode) the physical controls seem responsive enough and I don't use the touchscreen ones, except maybe sometimes for defrost if I can't find the button; cycling through the modes can be painful. You can't get the different zones back in sync without the screen though, which is annoying. And going from lo to hi takes forever, too. At least the fan speed knob seems good enough. The touch screen in general is decidedly not great; it's better than my C-max (sync2) in many ways, but I really like how the sync2 was designed --- they clearly considered how to make it useful, but then implemented it in the slowest environment possible.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
Worse, in the 2015 Toyota and 2019 Honda that we now have - if one of us listened to heavy metal on volume 30; and the other one is more of a mellow pop on volume15; they'll have to wait until the car turns on, boots, and timeouts the warning/license messages, before car will accept the volume down / turn radio off input and kill the cacophone. UNacceptable. And yet now the norm. I'll do you one better - I'm hanging on to my 2004 Subaru WRX for these and similar reasons too :). I go through dealerships every year or two looking for replacement... and keep my WRX with happiness in my heart.
- Chris_Newton 5y ago
  I also hang on to an older car for much the same reasons. Every now and then I’ve had a courtesy car from a garage while mine was in for a service, typically something very recent. I almost invariably dislike them. You could argue that’s because of familiarity. Obviously I like a lot about my car or I wouldn’t have kept it for this long! But truly, it’s not that I don’t think there’s room for improvement on my old car. There have been plenty of advances since its time that I would welcome if I bought a new vehicle: improved efficiency, safety features, practicalities like better external lighting, and so on.¹ For me, those benefits always seem to be outweighed by the horrible state of controls and displays and “infotainment” systems in new cars. They’re cluttered and intrusive and distracting. I’m not sure which is worse, touchscreens that take your eyes off the road, or cluttering the steering wheel with controls for a phone that it is almost never appropriate to be using while driving anyway in my country. Meanwhile, apparently I still have to take a hand off the wheel for a second or two to change gear or switch on various external safety lights. This should have been some sort of meme punchline, not real life. Between poorly designed controls, the security and privacy problems that seem to be rampant in modern cars, and the sense that EVs might be the future but there are still some big unanswered questions, I expect it will be a few more years before I change to a new vehicle unless some practical consideration forces the issue first. ¹ I’m still waiting for the windscreen that automatically enhances the driver’s full view in low light or poor weather conditions and subtly highlights the required driving line through junctions as directed by the navigation system, but I reckon we’ll have that too before the self-driving flying cars are here.
jfengel 5y ago
Huh. My 2020 Impreza has lots of knobs and levers. About the only time I interact with the touch screen is to control the apps I use (mostly maps and podcasts). Even the podcasts app rarely requires me to touch the touch screen; there are volume and back/forward switches right on the steering wheel. (And also on the console below the touch screen.) Maybe that's switching back after 2017, or perhaps you use more of the controls than I do.
- gizmo385 5y ago
  I've got a 2017 impreza and my experience is similar to your's. Everything I'd want to be a nob or switch is and the touch screen is almost entirely controllable quite easily from the steering wheel.
Jtsummers 5y ago
Re (3): It's still an issue in the 2018 Impreza. I've gotten used to it now, but it's still frustrating. Especially if I ended the drive with a phone call. On phone calls I have to really crank up the volume (nearly max) whereas for music and other things I have it very low (10-15? The numbers mean nothing to me, not loud). So when I turn it on after a call I get blasted by NPR for about 5-10 seconds before the audio volume dial actually responds (sometimes it takes the early attempted dialing down but delayed, other times I have to try and dial it down again). Other than audio controls, though, everything else is responsive, I don't notice any lag. It really seems to be an issue with their stereo system. Either it's not fully booted (and can't respond to controls yet) or there's some mediating system that transmits the controls which isn't booted up as quickly.
- drivers99 5y ago
  I have the same problems with my 2019 Impreza. It responds sooner if I'm not in reverse, but I am usually in reverse first because I need to back out of my garage. It usually doesn't respond to the volume knob messages until a second after shifting into forward. I say "messages" because the turns of the knob appear to be queued up somewhere, but it doesn't have as much time to process those while it's displaying the rear-view camera on the screen.
- Arrath 5y ago
  I have a problem like this in my 2018 Dodge! The bluetooth takes a wildly variable amount of time to connect when starting the car, and the bluetooth doesn't have an input gain option, like aux input does. This means I need to turn the volume up a ways to hear anything over bluetooth. This also means that between starting the car and bluetooth connecting I'm getting blasted by some random radio station at increased volume.
gilbetron 5y ago
I have a 2016 Outback and love nearly everything about the car, except the stupid console. Just horrible in the ways you describe. Laggy, unintuitive, and just irritating to use. I only ever use the actual buttons on the steering wheel. Not only is the console touch screen bad, but the actual buttons for the HVAC system are weird and unintuitive. 4 years of owning it and I still push the wrong buttons.
numpad0 5y ago
OT but since there seems to be multiple Subaru owners — if you are experiencing an issue with the clock on MFD(the small display on top of the dashboard) being too fast, probably depends on models but the causes are, 1) that there’s no CAN bus messages in Subaru cars that offer GPS time, and 2) that at least older models of MFD counts time by dividing 125kHz CAN bus crystal, where a sane choice would be to use 32.768kHz one. It’s not just your car, the issue is in design. To hypothetically fix it a firmware hack would need to be built. I learned this when a friend of mine told his is always way too fast and often makes him upset for a moment that he might be late to work — don’t know he meant it justify flooring it but sounded like he was genuinely annoyed.
UncleMeat 5y ago
I have a 2015 Crosstrek. It is a great car. The console is awful. Truly awful. Push the volume button within a few seconds of turning the car on to turn the radio off? Doesn't even register. Even if you give it a minute to warm up, it is half a second of lag on a physical switch. The touch screen has a half second of lag and requires several presses to do something as simple as switch from the radio to bluetooth.

by arpyzo 5y ago

patpending 5y ago

I have a similar problem with my 2017 Pacifica that replaced my 2005 Voyager. Using the touch screen to control the heat and air-conditioning is extremely slow in the Pacifica, and you can't do it without looking at the screen which can't be used with gloves. There are physical buttons and knobs for a few of the controls, but it seems that they're just talking to the same software as the touch-screen, so they're just as slow to respond. Adjusting the heat without looking at the touch-screen is pretty much impossible. IMO the touch screen should not be used to control any aspect of the car's operation. It should only be for phone, navigation, backup camera, and entertainment.

organsnyder 5y ago
I also have a 2017 Pacifica, and for the most part I don't mind the controls (the physical buttons are responsive enough that it doesn't bother me), but there are definitely a few functions (heated/cooled seats, mainly) that I wish I didn't have to dig through menus to find. Such a contrast from my 2009 Civic (albeit no heated/cooled seats on that vehicle).
toast0 5y ago
It might depend on the trim of the Pacifica? But for the hvac controls that have buttons (fan speed, driver/passenger temps, mode) the physical controls seem responsive enough and I don't use the touchscreen ones, except maybe sometimes for defrost if I can't find the button; cycling through the modes can be painful. You can't get the different zones back in sync without the screen though, which is annoying. And going from lo to hi takes forever, too. At least the fan speed knob seems good enough. The touch screen in general is decidedly not great; it's better than my C-max (sync2) in many ways, but I really like how the sync2 was designed --- they clearly considered how to make it useful, but then implemented it in the slowest environment possible.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

Worse, in the 2015 Toyota and 2019 Honda that we now have - if one of us listened to heavy metal on volume 30; and the other one is more of a mellow pop on volume15; they'll have to wait until the car turns on, boots, and timeouts the warning/license messages, before car will accept the volume down / turn radio off input and kill the cacophone. UNacceptable. And yet now the norm. I'll do you one better - I'm hanging on to my 2004 Subaru WRX for these and similar reasons too :). I go through dealerships every year or two looking for replacement... and keep my WRX with happiness in my heart.

Chris_Newton 5y ago
I also hang on to an older car for much the same reasons. Every now and then I’ve had a courtesy car from a garage while mine was in for a service, typically something very recent. I almost invariably dislike them. You could argue that’s because of familiarity. Obviously I like a lot about my car or I wouldn’t have kept it for this long! But truly, it’s not that I don’t think there’s room for improvement on my old car. There have been plenty of advances since its time that I would welcome if I bought a new vehicle: improved efficiency, safety features, practicalities like better external lighting, and so on.¹ For me, those benefits always seem to be outweighed by the horrible state of controls and displays and “infotainment” systems in new cars. They’re cluttered and intrusive and distracting. I’m not sure which is worse, touchscreens that take your eyes off the road, or cluttering the steering wheel with controls for a phone that it is almost never appropriate to be using while driving anyway in my country. Meanwhile, apparently I still have to take a hand off the wheel for a second or two to change gear or switch on various external safety lights. This should have been some sort of meme punchline, not real life. Between poorly designed controls, the security and privacy problems that seem to be rampant in modern cars, and the sense that EVs might be the future but there are still some big unanswered questions, I expect it will be a few more years before I change to a new vehicle unless some practical consideration forces the issue first. ¹ I’m still waiting for the windscreen that automatically enhances the driver’s full view in low light or poor weather conditions and subtly highlights the required driving line through junctions as directed by the navigation system, but I reckon we’ll have that too before the self-driving flying cars are here.

jfengel 5y ago

Huh. My 2020 Impreza has lots of knobs and levers. About the only time I interact with the touch screen is to control the apps I use (mostly maps and podcasts). Even the podcasts app rarely requires me to touch the touch screen; there are volume and back/forward switches right on the steering wheel. (And also on the console below the touch screen.) Maybe that's switching back after 2017, or perhaps you use more of the controls than I do.

gizmo385 5y ago
I've got a 2017 impreza and my experience is similar to your's. Everything I'd want to be a nob or switch is and the touch screen is almost entirely controllable quite easily from the steering wheel.

Jtsummers 5y ago

Re (3): It's still an issue in the 2018 Impreza. I've gotten used to it now, but it's still frustrating. Especially if I ended the drive with a phone call. On phone calls I have to really crank up the volume (nearly max) whereas for music and other things I have it very low (10-15? The numbers mean nothing to me, not loud). So when I turn it on after a call I get blasted by NPR for about 5-10 seconds before the audio volume dial actually responds (sometimes it takes the early attempted dialing down but delayed, other times I have to try and dial it down again). Other than audio controls, though, everything else is responsive, I don't notice any lag. It really seems to be an issue with their stereo system. Either it's not fully booted (and can't respond to controls yet) or there's some mediating system that transmits the controls which isn't booted up as quickly.

drivers99 5y ago
I have the same problems with my 2019 Impreza. It responds sooner if I'm not in reverse, but I am usually in reverse first because I need to back out of my garage. It usually doesn't respond to the volume knob messages until a second after shifting into forward. I say "messages" because the turns of the knob appear to be queued up somewhere, but it doesn't have as much time to process those while it's displaying the rear-view camera on the screen.
Arrath 5y ago
I have a problem like this in my 2018 Dodge! The bluetooth takes a wildly variable amount of time to connect when starting the car, and the bluetooth doesn't have an input gain option, like aux input does. This means I need to turn the volume up a ways to hear anything over bluetooth. This also means that between starting the car and bluetooth connecting I'm getting blasted by some random radio station at increased volume.

gilbetron 5y ago

I have a 2016 Outback and love nearly everything about the car, except the stupid console. Just horrible in the ways you describe. Laggy, unintuitive, and just irritating to use. I only ever use the actual buttons on the steering wheel. Not only is the console touch screen bad, but the actual buttons for the HVAC system are weird and unintuitive. 4 years of owning it and I still push the wrong buttons.

numpad0 5y ago

OT but since there seems to be multiple Subaru owners — if you are experiencing an issue with the clock on MFD(the small display on top of the dashboard) being too fast, probably depends on models but the causes are, 1) that there’s no CAN bus messages in Subaru cars that offer GPS time, and 2) that at least older models of MFD counts time by dividing 125kHz CAN bus crystal, where a sane choice would be to use 32.768kHz one. It’s not just your car, the issue is in design. To hypothetically fix it a firmware hack would need to be built. I learned this when a friend of mine told his is always way too fast and often makes him upset for a moment that he might be late to work — don’t know he meant it justify flooring it but sounded like he was genuinely annoyed.

UncleMeat 5y ago

I have a 2015 Crosstrek. It is a great car. The console is awful. Truly awful. Push the volume button within a few seconds of turning the car on to turn the radio off? Doesn't even register. Even if you give it a minute to warm up, it is half a second of lag on a physical switch. The touch screen has a half second of lag and requires several presses to do something as simple as switch from the radio to bluetooth.