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I have a 2013 Outback Limited that is basically right before all this stuff got really stupid and weird. It's a great car other than it's not very fast and it

I have a 2013 Outback Limited that is basically right before all this stuff got really stupid and weird. It's a great car other than it's not very fast and it gets really bad gas mileage. Amazing in the snow. I have had it since December 2012, so I've had plenty of service visits where I got newer loaners. (I special ordered my car to basically load it but not have Starlink, not have the Sunroof, but have the leather seats and the HK upgraded stereo.) Every time I have gotten a newer Subaru as a loaner it strikes me that they are worse cars for all this new stuff. The user interface is horrible in the new ones. In a lot of cases they have a skeumorphic interface up on the touch screen that mimics the physical controls in my car! The actual physical controls are about 100x faster to operate and you quickly learn where the buttons are without looking. I had an Ascent Onyx loaner last summer.. the entire touch screen UI looked like it was barely operating above 10fps. Just gross. Lots of the UI is black and white as well, not even tasteful grayscale. The Onyx I had also had the upgraded HK stereo and that is not as good as the one in my car as well, it sounded noticeably worse. The electric steering on the new Subarus is terrible as well. My old Outback is not exactly a sports car but getting out of new one back into mine it feels like you're getting into a Porsche or something when you feel the hydraulic steering. Engine/Turbo lag on a lot of the new ones is gross as well. This is of course even worse! My car only has 120k miles on it, I plan to keep it for another 4 years and then maybe give it to my kid when he gets his license. Somehow I doubt Subaru will have a competitive vehicle by then. For me to consider another one they'd really need to have an EV Outback/Forester/Ascent or a Hybrid version that gets at least 40mpg. And they need to fix all this horrible infotainment stuff in a way that the car operates better than a kids toy and actually drives well like an older Subaru. Also they need to get off the whole stupid thing with giant rims. It's supposed to be a Subaru, it needs to have tires appropriate to going relatively fast on dirt roads.

DwnVoteHoneyPot 2y ago
In addition to your comments, I think Subaru's all-wheel drive system has been switched to electrical instead of mechanical, making it worse. There are roller tests on youtube which show Subaru AWD being outperformed by Ford AWD systems.
- ben7799 2y ago
  They have different AWD systems in different vehicles and for some vehicles there is more than one system depending on which transmission you purchased. (At least when there was a choice) Mine is electrically controlled (and many Subarus are) but it's still connected full time. IME driving other electrically controlled non-full time systems what you feel in those are the electrically controlled clutch packs completely disconnect the rear wheels and the AWD is 100% disabled until the traction control system kicks in. Then you get a brief moment where the car feels out of control until the clutch activates the AWD. The tradeoff is that system that completely disconnects the rear wheels results in those vehicles (E.x. Honda/Toyota) getting much better fuel economy than Subarus as they operate as front-wheel drive almost all the time. I have never been in any Subaru that behaved that way. And a roller test is not where it matters anyway. Roller tests are contrived. Where you feel the difference between permanent AWD and part-time AWD is medium and high speed situations where the vehicle starts to lose control. Most people will never put any family crossover/SUV into a situation anywhere close to the roller tests or hill ascent tests. All of this seems to become completely meaningless with EVs being the future.
- olyjohn 2y ago
  The CVT in combination with the terrible traction control also kills any chance you have of getting out of a stuck situation. Subaru's AWD system is now mostly just marketing. So it's basically on part with most AWD systems, because most of them really are a joke.
  - ben7799 2y ago
    I'm curious which exact model/year you had and how you got stuck. I've never even gotten anywhere near close to getting stuck in 12 years. But I'm not a Subaru offroad enthusiast. It seems like lots of people really want to use a Subaru for situations where they should have gotten a mountain bike, dirt bike, ATV, etc..
  - Melatonic 2y ago
    I have a CVT in my 2017 H6 Outback and the traction control is very easy to turn off. Two buttons and both the traction and spin control is off and now it is just AWD with a limited slip differential in the back (feels pretty similar to my 2006 Outback H6 which had no electronic traction control). You can wheelspin all day if you want or feather the throttle or whatever - offroad driving has been amazing
reginald78 2y ago
We actually own two Outbacks, a 2011 and a 2019. Both my wife and I hate the touchscreen system in the 2019, it is full of irritating bugs and even the physical climate controls (which IIRC were going away for the 2020 model year) have horrible indicators of their status compared to the older one. I'd say the backup camera is a welcome addition for the newer one but if the roads are even remotely dirty the camera almost immediately becomes totally obscured rendering it useless, which around here occurs at least half the year. Combined with the battery drain issue I will probably not buy another one. At the most I'll give them a test drive to see if the control system has been returned to some semblance of sanity. Unfortunately all new cars seem to be privacy nightmares so I'm not sure how I'll avoid that.
- ben7799 2y ago
  The 2024/2025 Ascent is what I had as a loaner that had the skeumorphic UI on the screen that looked exactly like an older Subaru's physical climate control layout. It was a major WTF when I first saw it.
01100011 2y ago
I have been stranded twice because of Subaru firmware bugs which they knew about and failed to notify me. First one was the battery charging bug(which still happens even with the firmware fix, just more slowly). The second was the fuel gauge bug. This is a 2017 Outback, my second and last Subaru I'll ever own. Regarding Starlink, there's actually a battery drain issue on older systems because the 3G modem fails to find a base station (because 3G is deprecated) and drains your battery doing retries. You can remove the Starlink module, but since the Bluetooth microphone and front speakers are routed through it, you'll lose that functionality unless you spend $80 for a dongle to restore them.
lightedman 2y ago
" It's a great car other than it's not very fast and it gets really bad gas mileage." My 2013 Outback Limited with rally package (wheel paddle shifters etc) gets 32 on the highway with my driving habits and almost 28 offroading. That's with larger tires and a disconnected swaybar for better articulation, everything else is stock. CVTs don't respond well to lead-footing.
- winrid 2y ago
  The disconnected swaybar won't impact mileage FWIW
  - lightedman 2y ago
    It actually does when you're off-road. If you can keep all tires in contact with the ground you aren't wasting fuel spinning one that isn't in contact with the ground (I keep the traction control off when offroading to avoid the system engaging its brake-based power delivery since it isn't an actual 4x4.) The difference has been absolutely measurable, with a ~15% increase in fuel efficiency in very hilly or rutted terrain.

DwnVoteHoneyPot 2y ago

In addition to your comments, I think Subaru's all-wheel drive system has been switched to electrical instead of mechanical, making it worse. There are roller tests on youtube which show Subaru AWD being outperformed by Ford AWD systems.

ben7799 2y ago
They have different AWD systems in different vehicles and for some vehicles there is more than one system depending on which transmission you purchased. (At least when there was a choice) Mine is electrically controlled (and many Subarus are) but it's still connected full time. IME driving other electrically controlled non-full time systems what you feel in those are the electrically controlled clutch packs completely disconnect the rear wheels and the AWD is 100% disabled until the traction control system kicks in. Then you get a brief moment where the car feels out of control until the clutch activates the AWD. The tradeoff is that system that completely disconnects the rear wheels results in those vehicles (E.x. Honda/Toyota) getting much better fuel economy than Subarus as they operate as front-wheel drive almost all the time. I have never been in any Subaru that behaved that way. And a roller test is not where it matters anyway. Roller tests are contrived. Where you feel the difference between permanent AWD and part-time AWD is medium and high speed situations where the vehicle starts to lose control. Most people will never put any family crossover/SUV into a situation anywhere close to the roller tests or hill ascent tests. All of this seems to become completely meaningless with EVs being the future.
olyjohn 2y ago
The CVT in combination with the terrible traction control also kills any chance you have of getting out of a stuck situation. Subaru's AWD system is now mostly just marketing. So it's basically on part with most AWD systems, because most of them really are a joke.
- ben7799 2y ago
  I'm curious which exact model/year you had and how you got stuck. I've never even gotten anywhere near close to getting stuck in 12 years. But I'm not a Subaru offroad enthusiast. It seems like lots of people really want to use a Subaru for situations where they should have gotten a mountain bike, dirt bike, ATV, etc..
- Melatonic 2y ago
  I have a CVT in my 2017 H6 Outback and the traction control is very easy to turn off. Two buttons and both the traction and spin control is off and now it is just AWD with a limited slip differential in the back (feels pretty similar to my 2006 Outback H6 which had no electronic traction control). You can wheelspin all day if you want or feather the throttle or whatever - offroad driving has been amazing

reginald78 2y ago

We actually own two Outbacks, a 2011 and a 2019. Both my wife and I hate the touchscreen system in the 2019, it is full of irritating bugs and even the physical climate controls (which IIRC were going away for the 2020 model year) have horrible indicators of their status compared to the older one. I'd say the backup camera is a welcome addition for the newer one but if the roads are even remotely dirty the camera almost immediately becomes totally obscured rendering it useless, which around here occurs at least half the year. Combined with the battery drain issue I will probably not buy another one. At the most I'll give them a test drive to see if the control system has been returned to some semblance of sanity. Unfortunately all new cars seem to be privacy nightmares so I'm not sure how I'll avoid that.

ben7799 2y ago
The 2024/2025 Ascent is what I had as a loaner that had the skeumorphic UI on the screen that looked exactly like an older Subaru's physical climate control layout. It was a major WTF when I first saw it.

01100011 2y ago

I have been stranded twice because of Subaru firmware bugs which they knew about and failed to notify me. First one was the battery charging bug(which still happens even with the firmware fix, just more slowly). The second was the fuel gauge bug. This is a 2017 Outback, my second and last Subaru I'll ever own. Regarding Starlink, there's actually a battery drain issue on older systems because the 3G modem fails to find a base station (because 3G is deprecated) and drains your battery doing retries. You can remove the Starlink module, but since the Bluetooth microphone and front speakers are routed through it, you'll lose that functionality unless you spend $80 for a dongle to restore them.

lightedman 2y ago

" It's a great car other than it's not very fast and it gets really bad gas mileage." My 2013 Outback Limited with rally package (wheel paddle shifters etc) gets 32 on the highway with my driving habits and almost 28 offroading. That's with larger tires and a disconnected swaybar for better articulation, everything else is stock. CVTs don't respond well to lead-footing.

winrid 2y ago
The disconnected swaybar won't impact mileage FWIW
- lightedman 2y ago
  It actually does when you're off-road. If you can keep all tires in contact with the ground you aren't wasting fuel spinning one that isn't in contact with the ground (I keep the traction control off when offroading to avoid the system engaging its brake-based power delivery since it isn't an actual 4x4.) The difference has been absolutely measurable, with a ~15% increase in fuel efficiency in very hilly or rutted terrain.