2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness: Review and Off-Road Trail Test

We finally get behind the wheel of the

2022

Subaru Outback Wilderness Edition. Does this off-

road

-ready crossover bring enough capability to the table or does it leave us wanting to buckle up more? We head to the hills of Malibu to discover that we are back. In California to finally drive this

2022

Subaru Outback Wild What the Wilder brings to the table is more off-

road

capability for an already very popular crossover, but first let's take a look at how we got here in 2020 Subaru unveiled the Outback Onyx At the time, this was the choice for off-road adventure as it came with a full-size spare tire and an upgraded X-Mode system.

Subaru was so confident in their vehicle that they gave us an extended loan so we could

test

the Onyx xt in all the extreme conditions we could imagine meaning sand, snow, dirt and rocks. He did incredibly well, but like all things, there was room for improvement. He identified three main problems with the 2020 Onyx xt when venturing into the woods. The departure and breakout of clearance approach number one were fine for the class, but if you can't get your wheels on an obstacle, you simply can't climb it. The interior's long front and rear overhangs made choosing a line that wouldn't crush the bumpers a tricky task.

Number two tires are included. the tires were best suited for pavement on dirt and sand they simply performed poorly number three mode x when we try to get out of difficult situations mode Fast, all this in mind, we didn't know that Subaru engineers were already working on a full line of

wilderness

-focused off-road vehicles to address these same issues and they're starting with this one, the 2022 Subaru Outback Wild, the first thing they do. What you'll notice is that in the black coating, much of this plastic is intended to not only make a fashion statement, but also resists gravel without scratching the paint.

By redesigning the bumpers, Subaru has also reduced the front and rear overhangs as much as possible, which improves focus. At departure angles at 20 degrees and 23.6 degrees respectively, breakover is also much better at 21.2 degrees due to an increase in ride height of almost an inch from 8.7 inches to 9.5 inches, making That should improve problem number one then upgrade the tires. A specially designed Yokohama Geolander on the

trail

, these combine a thicker lug design without becoming too aggressive, meaning they should provide additional off-road grip without completely sacrificing on-road performance. Subaru even included a fifth tire as a spare with a pre-installed pressure sensor that takes care of number two.

Finally, the dual-function will not shut down at speeds over 25 miles per hour, number three, done with those key elements addressed, let's take a closer look at some of the details in the rear, you'll find the same cargo capacity as the standard Outback: 32.5 feet cubic feet behind the second row or up to 75.7 cubic feet with the passenger seats folded. A light has been added to the power. door to illuminate the rear work space you are probably wondering about the tent on this vehicle, this is just to demonstrate the load capacity of the new ladder roof rails on top, there is now a weight limit 700-pound static, which means you can pitch a tent any way you want. on the highway you want to limit it to 220, which is called dynamic load, which is the most you can have on you while driving down the highway, so you don't want to load bricks in there before you start driving, which also shows the orange markings . in nature they are the same color regardless of the paint they are used to indicate action points on the vehicle at the top they indicate front and rear tie-downs they are recovery points it is important to emphasize that these are not recovery hooks with load capacity as you would find on a Jeep, instead they just add extra locations to thread a recovery eyelet.

Personally, I have no problem getting them back with these, but I would use them sparingly. The hood decal is not just for decoration as it actually reduces glare when driving into the sunset. The engine here is the same as last year's Outback xt, it's a turbocharged flat-four for up to 260 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque. The only transmission option is a high-torque CVT with an 8-speed manual mode, of course. This also features Subaru symmetrical all-wheel drive, the undersides are protected with basic skid plates, but more comprehensive coverage is available as options, increased ride height and more aggressive off-road tires affect economy, This gets up to 22 miles per gallon in the city and 26 on the highway, which is a significant drop of four mpg when driving on the highway.

Now let's take a look inside. It should come as no surprise that there is plenty of room in the second row for a six-foot adult. torso leg proportionate this is where I would sit if I was driving and I have plenty of room I can also tilt this back there is a lever down here where it is if I want to recline and down here we also have two USB plugs Plus two stages of heat that move forward , the main cabin is very similar to last year's Onyx market so let's go ahead and get started the seats are really comfortable and I know this because I have driven almost 3000 miles straight indoors in xxt and these are very similar seats they are just reupholstered for this model I get three stages of heat that are They control on the main screen unfortunately you can't get a heated steering wheel on this vehicle which is a bit strange of course it supports Apple Carplay and Android Auto and last year they updated their head units with a really cool feature.

Screen Car Play, that's right, this is one of the few portrait style screens that supports full screen Carplay and what you get is one of the best Carplay experiences. If you have a 2021 to 2022 Outback, you can go to your dealer to schedule that upgrade. The update also adds an auto start/stop button to the main screen, as for this

outback

desert you get even more off-road data on the main screen, which is a nice touch in terms of active safety. All the big hits are here: collision mitigation and adaptive cruise. Control with lane centering thanks to the vision system It also has blind spot warnings and a rear camera with automatic braking Unfortunately, both the reversing camera and the front camera are the same low-resolution units found in the Onyx XT.

I just remembered that this screen vehicle has a tent on top, so we'll go find another car. The vehicle I'm driving today is equipped with the optional rear brake and sunroof navigation package which has a total price of $39,965 including destination, oh yeah, the power is quite a bit. Well, this one has the same basic powertrain as the Onyx xt, but the difference is that it has a 440 rear end which is basically the same rear end as a Subaru Ascent, so you'll get a little more torque specifically off the line. You're really going to feel more torque and I felt it right there, so they made a number of changes, not just on the exterior, it's not just an appearance package, I mean, they really went through and fixed a lot of the things.

I think in terms of off-road, it's not ideal, but right now I'm just feeling the road feel and I don't even hear these tires that often with an all-terrain tire, you'd just hear some kind of r. Yeah so far the road matters, I mean it feels like I'm driving an Onyx high, you can something like that. I feel that in the corners, but it's not plump, it really is, you know, doing a good job of keeping me stuck to the road and giving me good control, so they've selected a different suspension setup than what you get in an

outback

. standard.

Not only did they add spacers to get an extra inch of ground clearance here, they actually used longer springs and then readjusted everything and in doing so, they ride like a normal Outback, which is really nice. try the adaptive cruise control I'm going to go ahead and press set I'm going to press the center wheel it's going to accelerate the pace of the vehicle in front of me let's get as close as possible yes, it's automatic steering, keep that lane now this is going to turn, that's it a stronger turn than the lane detection is actually equipped for because it's actually designed for multi-lane highways, not roads like this, but I don't have a multi-lane highway available so I had to

test

it there. but like I said we've done tons of testing with the Outback Onyx It's just moving. the gears, but it does a good job of emulating it, it's not something I'd really use in a CVT, but it's there for people who like that sort of thing and there's nothing against it, if you like shifting gears , great, do it now that we have Let's get the pavement out of the way, go into the woods and see what this thing is really capable of.

Now we're driving up the side of a mountain in Malibu. Malibu is actually very hilly and we have a couple of hills to ourselves which is great. I'm going to test out some of the features here, specifically, we have ground clearance that is important here: 9.5 inches, which is just a hair less than a 4 runner. It also has improved approach and departure angles as well as braking due to Of course it's higher but now we have the new improved x mode which doesn't turn off you just put it in deep snow mud and every time you get below 25 miles per hour, starts running when you drive away, turns. off, but you won't have to turn it back on now, that's just deep snow and mud, standard dirt and, uh, dirt and snow doesn't do that.

The standard in the way you shuffle that power, so the dual x mode, the second x mode is deep snow mud which actually allows for more wheel spin now, one of the problems we had with last year's model was that when you were spinning the wheels over 25 miles an hour and sometimes you weren't moving but the wheels were spinning it would shut down so we were constantly spinning. Turn it back on, now they say it's not a problem so let's go ahead and turn on x mode. I'll put it in deep snow and mud and start this climb.

You'll now see more wheel spin than you would in standard mode. mode x and is designed to do that, but it will still take power and mix it back into the system. This path really isn't that difficult, so I'm not really sure why we're in x mode here, maybe it does. It gets worse as we go, this is very tight and this is where I really appreciate that not only did the approach and departure angles improve, the sides of the leading edges are also tucked in which improves the turn, you're not going to hit it. on the inside of a corner quite easily or in a groove on the outside so far this is pretty easy.

I haven't even needed x mode so I'm turning it off. We'll find a place where we can test x. So in a little bit they are very tight curves that are really easy to navigate and that's something you also have to think about if you're going off road, some people think, oh you know, the f-150, but the problem is a lot of these

trail

s. . They are very tight and you need a vehicle with an excellent turning radius like this one here. I can do it? I can do it? Oh, not quite. If I had hung it a little wider it would have worked a little better.

Alright. Let's do it. Up here, oh yeah, turn those wheels and we'll go up, okay, keep going. This is very tight and then we're going to climb to the top. We haven't activated x mode yet. I haven't seen a reason for it. Truth be told, Subaru's standard all-wheel drive is good enough in most situations only if you're doing more things.extreme. Do you even need x mode? Although you know there are ruts of snow and mud, that kind of thing can be really useful now that these roads are It's all new to me, I've never been here before, so we saw the product reveal here a while ago.

Oh look, we have rocks in the middle of the road. This is where ground clearance can be really useful, so I have that first. stage x mode on and i'm using this for hill descent control and i can use the cruise control to go faster or slower. No, it's set up now, the way Subaru does it is if I go faster, it will go a little faster. It basically takes control of the speed that you last accelerated to, so now I'm in seven, but if I want to go fast, if I want to slow down, I just come to a complete stop, take my foot off the brake and now it's going to be . doing it at three miles an hour two really great okay and then once I put my foot on the accelerator the accelerator takes control again.

The nice thing about x mode is that you don't have to press buttons you have to mess around with things it's just there for you whenever you want it if you're already in x mode visibly I have a very good idea of ​​where my wheels are there is a slight arch in the hood which helps with that now of course we have some inherent limitations with the interior chassis so it has improved approach and departure but it still doesn't look anything like a jeep it's just that it's a class different vehicle and the benefit of this over something like a jeep is that it's really fun to drive as if we were driving on concrete before, it's really nice to drive in jeeps with paved surfaces and not so much.

I would say this would probably be pretty accurate to what most

wilderness

buyers would probably go through and this is just eating it, no problem, I'm just going to slow it down and keep the throttle very light and I'm on. the first stage x mode, which will be the most aggressive now for anyone who says that. The cvt can't go up. I'm kind of leaning back in my seat because it's so steep and it's going so well. I'm crawling at a fairly slow speed at five miles per hour, which is very controlled. I'm not using momentum to launch myself upward. hill and it's going great now where am I where is my way oh there's my way okay so let's talk about tires these aren't ko2 or falcon wildpeaks these are trail tires and they're really good for things like this yeah you need something.

More extreme, knock yourself out, go buy something, but this is a great compromise tire for roads and surfaces where you need just a little more, but without compromising paved surfaces. Now let's see how the of power through that wheel and in turn provides more torque to the wheels with grip. This works much like an e-locker found on some more extreme off-road vehicles in this Wild Edition. Subaru has also tweaked the CVT to perform better specifically in steep uphill situations, although we've never had any problems with the CVT in our testing. Greater capacity is always welcome. I was kind enough to place a pile of rocks right in the middle of the field, so let's see how well this system works.

I'll keep it in snow and dirt mode because I don't want excessive wheel spin in this situation, but I really want to use that increased approach angle. I'm going to keep the throttle light. I'm going a mile an hour now I'm waiting to hear some noise. Now this has underbody protection and of course an improved departure angle which is useful and here we go easy now I'm still in x mode and this is quite steep but I'm going to use x mode to slow my descent which What it's doing is breaking each individual wheel as needed to keep it going straight, it's a very good system, so right now it's showing negative 23 degrees, negative 23 degrees, still 23 and it's just driving for me at three miles an hour, which makes this descent really steep, it's super easy and the great thing about it.

No stress? I mean, you can go down a steep, slippery hill and yes, the ice is going to pose its own problem. There's a negative 25 right there. Okay, and then I just hit the accelerator and I'm fine, so that's my point of view. The Subaru Outback Wild who are a little more interested in off-roading this will not replace a jeep it will not replace a precursor it is a totally different type of product this is for even

subaru

said this is not for people who go camping it is for people who go a little beyond the camp, to do something else once they get there, this is not to move Moab, so let's not confuse this product with something else, but for the additional capacity that they have.

I've given it, I think they will sell a lot of these for conducting sports television. I'm Ryan Douthit, thanks for watching, make sure to subscribe, give us a like, leave a comment, is this what you want? Are you looking for something a little? a little more aggressive