2021 Subaru Outback review: Like an SUV...but an off-road wagon!

Good morning, I'm Paul, so in Australia we talk about the

outback

and the

outback

is the center of Australia. You know, there's a place full of spiders, snakes, you name it, it's all there. Subaru also has a car called the Outback. It's this one here, it finally has an update, it looks completely different and although it's been available in the US for just over a year, we finally have it here in Australia and I'm excited to show it to you because I have a soft spot for pickup trucks, so this is the top spec Touring model, it's priced at just under 50k, but that's a bit much;

You can actually get the entry level from 40k, so there's a lot of value available now. This competes with things like the Skoda Superb Scout and pretty much every other SUV out there because it straddles the line between truck and SUV. Today we are going to do a detailed

review

if you want to move on to other parts of this

review

. You can use the timecodes on the screen or if you're on YouTube just scroll down and use the chapters below and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell icon so you can find out from each of them.

The time we drove a car named after Australian places, let's talk about the exterior, so you have nine external colors to choose from. This is the color of the interior and there is also a lot of red dust and dirt inside, which is quite appropriate. that we have this color here um so this is like new now and I really like the design. I've always liked the look of the interior because I don't know, it gives you what you get with an SUV without having to have an SUV, so you still have ground clearance and you still have a big trunk.

Yes, let me know what you think about the design. I think it looks really cool, so on the front you have chrome accents and you also have some piano black which I love. how they try to fit it in where possible with the big Subaru logo and then they divided this section with this kind of matte black and then I don't even know what color it is, it's like a graphite looking color, I think so. It looks great because it gives you the signal that this is an SUV, but it's still not too much of a truck if that makes sense, so it's not too formal, but it's not too SUV like it just sits in the middle and I think we've really struck a good balance now in terms of headlights here in the top spec, you get matrix LED headlights, you get an LED daytime running light and that also lights up as an indicator, as well as a headlight washer placed on the back. lower and then a fog light downwards. there we will turn to the side, now we thought Mazda was the most adventurous when it came to the side cladding, but I think Subaru has taken the cake because here it starts normal and then starts to get a little unstable as it goes. out there so I don't know let me know what you think about that uh I don't know a little OCD and all the different angles are a little strange to me but I'm really looking forward to seeing what you think I like to watch.

These wheels have that kind of chrome look on the outside and then the darker look on the inside, they sit on a

road

terrain tire even though it's full-time all-wheel drive and you have the x mode which allows you to drive a little bit off-

road

if need be, they are stuck with a road tire so if you are going to be driving off-road or plan on driving off the beaten path I would probably look at an all-terrain tire just for that little bit of extra capability, okay, now around the side of the cars is where it gets interesting so the top spec model comes with these roof bars, they are pretty heavy duty roof bars.

In fact, you have parts that you have to undo to get them out of the mid-spec model. It actually has green elements built in here too, so I don't know if that will appeal to many people, but you get different designs depending. where you land on the inner range and then here with the Touring you also get this chrome strip just to break it up a little bit. The privacy glass has more interior down here, a little bit more plastic coating and then around the back you have the tail driven. The lights look great at night, a big interior badge and then symmetrical all-wheel drive, which is Subaru's trademark, and then you have a little bit more of that decoration on the bottom with that kind of matte black look and it to be. color we decided was at the bottom.

Overall, I really like what they've done with the design. It's not a huge departure from the previous one, but it still looks very nice and smart and, in fact, it's on the inside where things kind of went up a little bit more, we're inside the interior, um, key, this is what it looks like. , um, you have lock, unlock, it's the

subaru

button and then the home button, then on the back it's blank with a little. brushed aluminum on the side, it's a proximity sensing key and then you have a start over button on this side, now let's talk about style.

I think Subarus have improved massively over the last two generations, they used to be pretty plasticky inside now. They've gone down the path of really upping the game in terms of the premium feel and the fit and finish inside the cabin and you can see up here this is all nice and rubberized and then you have this premium soft touch material. There's a lot of piano black here that I don't love and you can already see it's dusty and this car is literally brand new so yeah, I don't know, I think over time the piano black is going to get dirty. fingerprints and things like that now this takes up a lot of space and I think it looks incredibly impressive, it reminds me of Volvo, you know, on the xc60 and the xc90, how they have that vertical tablet.

I'll review it in just a second. Now, what about your touchpoints? They are really soft and I can't wait to attack them with this adjurometer. We've tested all the major surfaces on this car if you want to see how it compares to other cars we've tested. tested, scroll down and look at the link in the description below. What about the build quality? I mentioned before that this has really improved. Everything feels very good. Everything is nice and solid and generally with Subarus they tend to feel like they are built. a nice german car of course let's talk about infotainment this is a brand new infotainment system for

subaru

and it's fantastic so it's called starlink it's 11.6 inches and as i mentioned before it reminds me of things like tesla with the model s and I'm also back. with their range of XC cars, so today I'm going to walk you through a detailed review of this so you can better understand how it works.

You'll notice it's divided into three sections at the top. Here you have static characteristics like temperature. At the same time you also have your driving modes and then you can also toggle between different things at the top like blank economy and also radio, right at the bottom you have climate controls, you can click on them to open the climate menu and make the necessary adjustments. and then in the center here are all the infotainment controls with shortcut buttons at the bottom to take you to the car menu, this is where you can change the driving modes and also switch between all the safety settings .

It also has a direct access to home. and then you have the profile screen. What I love about this car is that you can register a face, which means when you get in the car, this section here scans your face, recognizes that it's you and then shows all your favorite settings and this section will also pair with your phone specifically so that if you or your other half get in the car, you know which phone to pair, which I think is a really smart feature. Built-in satellite navigation. Works with Tomtom. It's pretty good. It's just a little bit of a delay you can see when I move the cursor.

It's a little slow to react, but you get smartphone mirroring and that comes in the form of Apple Carplay and Android Auto. They are both connected. I'll show you what. Apple Carplay looks, look at that great integration there, it takes up the entire center section and that's nice and fast as well as a very impressive setup there and I'm glad it's not a little shoebox that you sometimes see on cars . In fact, I've gone all out, let's take a look at what Android Auto looks like. It's a little ridiculous, so it's small. It is housed in the upper section.

It's not full screen like on the iPhone, which is quite disappointing I think. because yeah, that looks really crappy and then when you try to use it, it's actually pretty hard to see that stuff from here, it's really small, so yeah, a little disappointing now in terms of the rest of the features that you have. FM DAB Plus digital radio, then it also has a nine-speaker sound system from the Harman Kardon brand. You also have the ability to stream it directly from your phone, and if you don't have your phone connected as a smartphone, you still have voice recognition available. that can also be passed through the smartphone when connected through smartphone mirroring in terms of car information.

I also like this because this is kind of an off road subaru, you can see the lean angles and what the all wheel drive system does. and then very precise measurements here for your maintenance, so we will tell you exactly when you need to change your parts and give you warnings. What I really like about this infotainment system is here in the settings, what it really does is set reminders for birthdays and anniversaries, meaning you'll never forget your other half's birthday or wedding anniversary. , so keep that in mind and make sure you enter those things in um, yeah, look, there are tons of different settings you can change here, including connecting to a wireless network for software updates over wi-fi, as well as a Very impressive infotainment system in terms of the feature set, it's pretty easy to use while driving and it's a little daunting at first but once you figure out where everything is, everything is very easy to find once you're on the move, okay let's talk about safety features and there is an absolute stack of them here so you have autonomous emergency braking that works at low speed, high speed and it also works in reverse. it has front and rear cross traffic alert, it has blind spot monitoring built into those rearview mirrors, it has a lane departure warning, a lane keep assist, radar cruise control with semi-autonomous steering and the other fascinating thing is that This seat has an airbag built into the side of it and the way it works is that it is here to prevent the two outboard passengers from colliding in a side impact, but it also raises the base of the seat and prevents the passenger from rolling out from under it.

There's some really cool safety technology being implemented in new cars nowadays, in terms of parking, you only have rear parking sensors, which is a bit strange. I would have liked to see front and rear parking sensors. Instead, I'll show you what the camera looks like now. Being a 360 camera you have the standard quality of your reverse view camera which is pretty good but because it's so narrow on the screen it can be a little tricky to see things but you get those guidelines there and then you can Click here to make the transition. between the camera to get a close view of the rear and then a side view of the left front wheel and then one more press takes you back to that screen.

You also have the ability, while the car is moving, to simply click the view button and that shows the cameras as you drive and you can also transition between them before moving on to the next section. I just thought I'd explain the history of this car, so the Outback came about because Australia was actually developed as a A working prototype of this originally, but the United States was doing it at exactly the same time and then Subaru Japan said, "Okay, Let's make this car and we'll call it Outback," which paid tribute to the work Australia did on this, which is nice.

Great, let me know in the comments section below. A kind of virtual survey. I'm the only one who thinks this is a better alternative than an SUV. Why would you buy an SUV instead? I really want to understand it. I made that decision and chose an SUV over a full-size truck. Let me know why what's the appeal of an SUV instead of an off road truck like this. Okay, let's talk practicality and we'll start with connectivity. You have an auxiliary port down here, two USB slots with 2.1 amp charging, what about the storage? Where are you going to put your phone?

Your phone can easily fit into the cup holders. There is no drama here. There is no chargecordless phone, so nothing happens when you put your phone down. down there, which is a little disappointing, it would have been nice to see a cordless phone charging in this car and what about that cup of coffee? Well, you have two slots here, if you put it in the left one, it disappears down there and it's a little tricky to get out while you're driving, but they have this clever system that you can switch between the two and you'll notice that the cup of coffee is much larger. easy to get to and then there is plenty of space to store the bottles.

There are no teeth though, so the bottle can move around a bit, but you can place the bottle inside the door if you want to rotate it towards the center console. It's a two-tier setup, so you have this slot at the top for the weird stuff. that's also rubberized and then you have the center console with a CD player. How deep is it? That gives you an idea of ​​how much space there is. It's not huge. We have a secret storage slot down here, another little tray on top that is rubberized and also a glove box, it's not the biggest glove box in the world but it fits the manual plus a bottle and finally you have a holder for sunglasses on top okay let's talk about comfort and we'll start with some. of the features you have here dual zone automatic climate control you have heated seats a heated steering wheel nappa leather seats very similar to the design here plus it hugs you very well you have these perforations to keep you cool on hot days there is also the fit electric for the driver and front passenger and also seat memory for the front passenger and the seats themselves are really nice and comfortable.

The steering wheel fits well in the hand. It has a decent size. All of these controls are easy to reach and then this top spec. It also has a sunroof. Okay, second row of the Outback. I like it a lot. There's a lot of room here, so this seat is very far back for my driving position, but when you get out of the car, it actually pushes it back a little further. so it gives you an idea of ​​how much legroom there is. I have plenty of knee room. Toe room is really good and head room is pretty good too.

This side goes up a little bit, but for the most part. That's going to be fine now, what about storage for your bottle? So in the center armrest here you have two cup holders, put your bottle in there, there are little rubber teeth on the edge to keep it in place and then inside the door you can throw it in as well. the bottle there with plenty of space you have map pockets on the back of the seats in the center here you have air vents heated seats for the two outer seats you have two 2.1 amp charging sockets you have iso attachment points on the outboard seats too, the only thing I really don't like here is that you have to build your own seat belt for the center seat, which can be a little frustrating if you need to free up that space.

Well, let's talk about cargo space. If you're not getting an SUV, are you sacrificing anything in terms of cargo volume? Not really, so you've got a little over 500 liters of cargo space here and it's a pretty decent space because you've got a lot of versatility. You've got hooks on the side, you've got these retractable hooks, as well as a 12 volt outlet, a little bit of netting here, on the other side, there's a subwoofer, let's take a quick look at how it fits into our bags, look, there you go. . I have tons of space and then the other advantage here with the interior is that under the load floor you have a full size alloy spare, which means if you're driving inside and you get a floor, you have a recovery option there, the other good news is that when you fold down the second row using these you get a practically flat floor so it's a decent space and I don't think you're sacrificing anything by not using an SUV instead of a truck so we're on the road inside Subaru.

The first thing I noticed here before checking the engine is this center armrest that I'm cutting out and every time I turn left I found this on a few different Japanese cars. It's a strange trait. um, but I don't know if it's because I have gangly dimensions, but yeah, I always seem to cut this off and it gets a little frustrating, but anyway, now the engine in the subaru outback is a two-liter naturally aspirated gasoline engine and medium, it's a boxer, which means it has that flat configuration, it produces 138 kilowatts of power and 245 newton meters of torque, now it doesn't weigh as much, which means you don't need to have a tremendously powerful motor to run, so this is almost good, even if it's on the short side, so if I give it a little kick here so it's flat against the board, I think it gets up and moves, it's not lightning fast.

I would love it if I had a little more energy now, all that. The power and torque are mated to a continuously variable transmission, which means that instead of stepped gears, it actually just has one infinite gear and you know it's a CVT because when you get into it, the revs just go up and stay there. and it just holds those revs, you have a manual shift mode that gives you eight gears to choose from using the paddle shifters or using the shift lever and that gives you a little bit more control if you're towing or just want to take advantage of it manually.

When you select gears, you also have a button here on the steering wheel that switches between smart drive and drive. Driving is effectively just a sport mode and when you activate it it simply revs up a bit more and prepares you for The Subaru Rumble claims the Outback uses 7.3 liters per 100 kilometres. We've been averaging around 11 and a half. We've driven predominantly in the city, so it's a little higher than it normally would be. We can't see what this is like afterwards. On a decent highway stint it should drop a bit, but it seems like in and around town it's consuming a bit more fuel.

Now that you're a Subaru, you also have x driving modes, so pressing the small car icon brings up x modes. allows you to switch between snow and dirt, normal snow and deep snow and mud. All this does is effectively vary the stability control to give you a little more freedom of movement. This is permanent all-wheel drive and that is one of the big advantages of it. Over many of its competitors, most of them have on-demand four-wheel drive, while this always sends some degree of torque around the car, it just gives you a little more traction and confidence, especially on unsealed surfaces like gravel. or snow.

It doesn't give us an official zero to 100 time, but we thought we'd check it against our stopwatch to see how it goes. We just got out on a chipped country road and found that the road noise isn't that bad. tires but I do get a little bit of wind noise and you can tell that tire noise comes on when you change some of those road surfaces, it's not the end of the world but if you're doing long distance trips it's probably something You're going to notice that, I think just turning on the radio should help you avoid hearing it well, let's talk about the handling, look for it in a couple of these corners, look, it's actually not that bad, it's got a little bit of body roll, but for the most part with that permanent four wheel drive it grips the road very well and is quite attractive and you also have that sonic note of the boxer engine, it is a unique sound and you know exactly what it is once you hear it.

It's um, and it's also not too dull in the cabin when you get up, normally with CVT once they get up in the rev band all you can hear is the engine knocking, it's actually not that bad, which has me very impressed. However, about the handling, it's sensational. I remember the previous generation of the Outback was also quite impressive in terms of the way it drives, this is no exception, it just feels very nice and smooth, it is absorbing the bumps very well and then also the same. history with speed bumps, you can just ride over them, I think they've tuned it to be more comfortable and if you do any kind of light off-road driving, like driving on a gravel road or going camping, I think you'll appreciate that too. smoother ride.

It won't make you run around the cabinet. It really is just a nice place to sit. What about the turning circle? So 11 meters is not terrible or surprising, but it should mean that. You don't have to do three-point turns every time you want to go around town. Now, if you're going to go to that camping spot, you have a ground clearance of 213 millimeters that will get you over most of it. obstacles and it's actually more than many other mid-size SUVs in this segment, let's talk about visibility. Yes, you are not sitting as high as in an SUV, but I can still see clearly in front, there, the rear view mirrors are really big, you have the blind spot monitor built in and then the visibility from behind is excellent if you have the headrests of the second row up, may block vision a bit, but the rear window is quite large so it's easy to go out and then you can clearly see the sides of the car, oh so the Subaru Outback, as opposed to the Australian Outback , it will not try to carry you while you sleep or eat you while you swim.

The Outback is just a really good all-rounder, it's a great alternative to an SUV and I think it kind of proves the theory that people have an obsession with SUVs and think that's where they should go if they need a large family vehicle. , this type of vehicle does it all. that an SUV works without having to own an SUV, so it ticks all those boxes in terms of disadvantages. I would love to see a little more power and torque. Yes, it's an improvement over the previous generation, but perhaps a turbocharged engine would be better. It's nice to just give it a little more confidence behind the wheel, but other than that it drives great, has plenty of room inside, that new tech suite is really cool and is loaded with all the safety tech you need if you have a family .

Also, let me know in the comments section below, do you own a Subaru Outback? Why is everyone paralyzed by them? What are the highlights? What are the low lights? Is there anything you don't like? Let me know in the comments section below if you enjoyed this video, make sure to share it with your friends, hit the like button and don't forget to subscribe to our channel, but until next time, take it easy.