Face Off: 2017 VW Golf Alltrack vs Subaru Outback 2.5 Limited

Hey, my good friend Sam, marking up for TV testing this summer is a tester of both the Subaru Outback truck and the all-new

2017

Golf All Track truck: super-off-road trucks that did the worst to me. I loved it. But these two cars, more than any other summer, have been asking for a head-to-head comparison, so that's what we've done here. We have both test drives together in the same video so you can see how they compare head to head with the Outback. We know it was redesigned for the 2015 model year, so there's not much to talk about here in terms of styling, but there are a few features I want to point out, the obvious one being the fact that we're in an interior, so we have the lower cladding down here on the skid plate treatment which visually gives it a more off-road II look as we go down the side.

I want to point out the fact that we have 18-inch alloy wheels here in the

limited

trim level. It's a good thing they haven't gotten bigger like many crossovers and SUVs have because that still gives you a nice tall sidewall for better handling when you're outside. Off-roading is something we've seen with many crossovers, since you have 19, 20 and even 22 inch wheels, you can't really take them off-road for a comfortable ride, it's just made for the street, now it has a few visual things here we have this roof rack up here that gives it a three to four inch taller silhouette appearance when in reality that roof really ends here.

It's nice looking but it's also very functional because it's a real roof rack that you can actually put a lot of accessories on the back here on the Outback. It's a pretty familiar look, just like on the front you've got the built-in spoiler here with a third row brake light and just like them, the side view of the roof. The rails up there really give this a bulkier SUV look, even though it's just a truck lower fascia. Down here you have the look of heavy duty black plastic and this one here actually has the power tailgate.

Now you can open this in various In many ways you have a button inside, there is a button here at the bottom to close it and you have the key fob, now it doesn't have motion activation like some vehicles, but what it does have is a height adjustment. You can adjust the height at which it stops so that when you go to press that button to close it, if you're a shorter person you don't have to reach as high or if you're taller, you can adjust it to open it all the way up. the way so you don't hit your head all the time is a pretty cool feature.

I think right off the bat it has a lot of styling elements that really set it apart from the Golf SportWagen. A different grill. A completely different lower front. fascia that has a kind of skid plate element down there, in addition to the black plastic cladding, fog lights are standard on this vehicle, also standard or halogen headlights, you can get a lighting package that has bi-xenon headlights and LED running lights daytime running, but that's an extra tire package on this one, they're 18-inch alloys. Now, if we get into the lower trim levels, you get a 17-inch alloy wheel which I suspect is probably a little better off-road capable. protection for that wheel with a taller sidewall, the 18 here, a very nice wheel but honestly a little more suited for pavement use, going down the side here, a big difference again down below is that the bottom liner has lots of cladding and also I have a nice metal trim piece that gives it a classy and unique look here on the upper standard roof rails and I'm sure your Volkswagen dealer will help you with lots of different accessories so you can attach your toys to this thing here on the At the rear of the Alltrack, one big difference that you'll see is that down here on the lower fascia, you've got dual exhaust tips and you've got that kind of skid plate style treatment that I think actually looks pretty cool here. and also something else.

I always like to point out that with Volkswagens, this one has the trademark logo, you pull it with your fingers to open the rear hatch. Now, you may have noticed that this doesn't have an electric opener like some vehicles in its class, not a big deal because this is still a car, not so much a large SUV with a big, heavy door, the interior of the Outback is It looks a lot like a sedan or a car because well that's what it is, it's not really a true SUV, it's really big and tall, this is a car that's lifted up so you feel like you're sitting in a car, but the seat has enough adjustment range that you can lift it up and have that SUV look because it has a little bit of extra height with the suspension height that it is here, so you still have that SUV Ness as far as the imposing view goes, but in As far as sitting here goes, it feels like a car and what they've done with the design is very tasteful.

I think I like the dark black here, this comes with a lighter. colors, but the dark black with this kind of satin finished wood grain really looks good, it is faux wood, but it is very well made, faux wood and the quality of the material here is very good. I think it's really mid-grade, not that kind of thing. You'll find an Audi, but it doesn't have many of the cheap, tacky things found in some of the mid-grade competitors. It has everything you can get, with a few exceptions, the new Touring model offers a little more trim on the interior, soft moldings on the doors, the steering wheels, the leather wrap on the steering wheel, it's a lot of controls, you have infotainment controls , you have driver safety assist controls as well as paddle shifters here, paddle shifters for the continuously variable transmission and they actually feel of reasonable quality they are not made of metal but they are not cheap plastic like some of the competitors, it is tilt and telescoping but can be adjusted manually now these seats are 10-way power seats In the Limited model here you have a four-way power passenger seat, very comfortable, they are firm seats and provide a lot of support, but not as firm enough to be hard, they really have a good level of support, especially from side to side. and I weigh about 170 pounds and there is a lot of room here where you could be a larger person and still find a lot of comfort.

The center console is arranged very simply. You've got the infotainment system up here and then you've got HVAC down here. You've got a really nice area down here for your phone, a big phone can fit in there and you've got the auxiliary and USB ports plus a 12 volt port down there, so there's plenty of room for whatever devices you have. Really nice cup holders here and down here, right behind the shifter, are the controls for the hill descent control, as well as the all-wheel drive in X mode, sitting back here in the back seat, like I was saying, up front, very much like sitting in a sedan or a car because that's what the legroom is based on, as you can see, very, very good, these seats are halfway back, they have a lot of room here.

Headroom is also quite good, although there is a sunroof that sometimes takes up a bit of space. there are some nice amenities back here we are

limited

so there are vents back here for HVAC there are heated seats that's always a good thing. One thing that surprises me, I don't see back here, there are no power ports or USB ports yet. Guess Subaru will probably add that at some point there is a folding center armrest here that has cup holders and these seat backs adjust for tilt, so that's good now that this doesn't slide, it's not as necessary here because it doesn't. we make.

I have a third Roah now the good thing is these seats, of course, as you would expect, they fold in a 60/40 split, there are levers back there that you can pull that actually allow you to put them in now, the cargo area back here very big because this is not a crossover SUV which is a little bit shorter, it's a full length truck so you have a nice big bed back there that allows you to put some pretty big things in there without even folding these seats down but once you have even a larger area with a reasonably flat loading floor?

Now underneath there is also a spare tire. Always good with a crossover or SUV. Anything that is marketed to us is something to put out into nature because there is a lot of it. of cars now have that puncture repair can in an inflator that won't help you cut a tire on a rock if you look at my other videos where I reviewed the Volkswagen Golf and the sport utility vehicle. You know I really like this interior, it's very German, very professional, it doesn't have a lot of weird, artistic design innovations that really try to impress you.

No, this is a place to work, it's a place to live and everything is designed. in a very functional and German way now, one thing that differentiates it from the standard Sport Wagon is the finishes here on the center console, as well as the dash appliqué, it's a metallic carbon finish, not piano black, and I like that better actually because it doesn't It doesn't show dust and dirt as much as fingerprints also here on the door panels and on the front. You get a sort of carbon fiber type aluminum pattern finish that is very nice. From the looks of it I think I like it and it is unique to this car that is now sitting here these seats are very comfortable these are Volkswagen sports seats I have always liked them here they are upholstered in v-tex which is vinyl it is not leather and unfortunately Volkswagen does We do not offer leather on this model, at least not yet.

The good news is that it is available in a variety of colors. You can get a very rich brown color as well as tan, and on certain models, you can also get a two-tone combination of gray and black. Now, sitting here, the driving position is very identical to the sport wagon or any other Golf, you notice that the car is sitting a little higher, so you have a slightly more commanding view of the tilt and telescoping steering wheel than you really do. It allows you to get a good view of your two instruments and also a nice and comfortable place.

Now we don't have memory seats here, but not at this price glass, something you would expect when it comes to storage, there's a nice big area down here. for your phone it's closed and I have a pretty good sized phone and it completely fits in here and you can close it if you don't want to look at it there are ports down here for all the things. you need to plug in your phone and include that USB port down here, cup holder, there is storage space here but it's not a really big space, the good news is down here in the doors there are big map pockets where you can put a lot of things , two or three bottles. of water plus a few other things back here in the back seat, you're sitting in the back of a Golf SportWagen, it's a car, so it's not like a lot of SUVs, where I really tend to talk about the fact That you have a little seating position, you have one here is because you're in a car, you don't have that really high SUV light field, but the good news is there's a lot of space back here.

I'm about five-nine in these front seats. They are placed right in the middle because they are placed for me in the front, so now I have a lot of space. If your front passenger here was a little bit bigger and came back, I have a little bit of room to spare here and if they were shorter, why would there be even more room back here? The headroom is very good because well, we have this huge piece of glass up here that actually, sometimes sunroofs take away some headroom, but this one actually opens up some headroom. up and makes it nice and bright, it's comfortable back here, that's the big plus, is the fact that these seats have a lot of bolstering, so you sit in them and they keep you in place, there's room for a third passenger here . in the middle, but they will sit a little higher and be a little less supported.

One of the guys back here that is very near and dear to my heart is the rear HVAC vents here in Arizona and when it's hot. in the summer it's always something I look for when I'm stuck in the back of someone else's car. There is also a folding armrest here with cup holders. What there isn't back here are heated seats. This class does not necessarily put them. Back here at this price range, so it's not necessarily something that I call missing now in the back because we're in the van, there's a lot of storage behind this seat, there's a lot of room in the back and the best part, for Of course, it is You can fold these seats, they fold in a 60/40 split, but in addition to that, the center armrest has a door that allows you to pass through if you still have passengers on both right sides, so if you have skis or other things, reallymakes it convenient, it's an added feature now that when the seats are down you have an almost flat cargo floor and the best part is that under the rear cargo floor you have a temporary spare tire and in the center you can see the fender subwoofer for the audio system, but keep in mind the fact that there's actually quite a bit of room there where you can store a lot of other stuff under the cargo floor.

What's under the hood here is something that sets Subaru apart. Aside from virtually every other well-known automaker except Porsche, and that's the horizontally opposed flat-four engine, this 2.5-liter with 175 horsepower and 174 pound-feet of torque here came in at a continuously variable transmission or CVT which is classified here. at 25 mpg city, 32 mpg highway and 28 mpg combined, the large crossover, so I always ask how it's doing well. It's a four-cylinder engine in a pretty big car, so we're not talking. It's sports car territory here when it comes to power delivery, but I think it's very refined for being a pretty hard-working four-cylinder and this transmission. continuously variable actually has some cool features, it has a manual mode here that allows you to get the feel of the year is good on a real transmission and it gives you shift points that you can use these paddle shifters for, which is pretty cool, not all CVTs give you that and it actually works quite convincingly.

Look at that now, it still acts like a bit of a weird thing for a normal transmission, you can still tell you have a CVT here, but if you're on a back road and want to have a bit of fun, it will allow you to do so or even more importantly if you drive off-road. road and you want to make sure that you can be in the right gear ratio for what you're doing, you can have that control, so I'm pretty happy with this and that doesn't come out of my mouth very often for a long time. anything with the fuel economy of the continuously variable transmission is really what I was interested in because it's rated at 28 mpg combined, that's for an all-wheel drive crossover SUV type vehicle, that's pretty good now yeah, it makes up for it a little bit with horsepower, but let's be honest, the six cylinder doesn't really have much more horsepower, it's around 250 256, it's not at all competitive for a 6 cylinder engine, so my previous argument was why not look at the four cylinders at least you get the fuel.

Economy, while fuel economy is what I got here, it's rated at 28 mpg. I got 29 during my week with 29 and a half to be exact, but I usually round it up to 29 mpg. What's under the hood of the All Track is unique. The available engine is a 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine with direct fuel injection. Here it has 170 horsepower and 199 pound-feet of torque and in my test vehicle here it is done with a 6-speed DSG automatic transmission. A six-speed manual will be available. a little later next year, so how's it going? Alright, now there's a big difference between this and the Golf SportWagen.

This has the 6-speed DSG robotic manual automatic transmission. Now I know that sounds like an oxymoron. You are not familiar with broadcasts. It is essentially, mechanically speaking, a manual transmission where the computer makes the shifts for you. It has a normal clutch like most manual transmissions so when you shift it feels like one and that really comes into play when you put it in the manual shift gate or when you use the paddle shifters you get much stiffer shifts , much crisper shifts that are a little sportier than you might get with a little smoother feel than what you get from the automatic, so that's a big plus here in the Alltrack.

I like this. Quite a bit of an engine, although I'm more of a TDI diesel guy, being the only engine available in this car isn't a penalty at all, it has plenty of power when you ask for it and has a very nice sound. a little turbo lag, so if you like the sporty feel of a car like this, you can have power almost any time you ask for it now. Fuel economy. Now I said I like diesel, it's because the fuel economy and you still get the power here, this is rated. according to the EPA at 25 mpg combined in my week with that I got 29 and that was a pretty good mix of highway and city driving so I didn't even try that hard and the air conditioning was on because even though it's November here in Phoenix, the air conditioners are still on because it's still 80 degrees most of the time in terms of driving, this rides and drives very similar to the car it's based on, it has a nice, quiet, stable ride, Solid, has a nice spring.

Stiff, I'd say, but not so stiff as to drive harshly, which means it's pretty sharp when you try to throw it into a corner. Fully independent front suspension. Fully independent rear suspension. No rotating beams or anything like that. They made a lot of quiet adjustments which are actually worth it for the front windshield with road noise insulation, lots of sound deadening and wind noise is pretty low. Putting it in a corner works quite well even though it has electric power steering and is still quite sharp. And in general, the first thing that makes me blush is that it looks a lot like the Golf SportWagen.

It has a little bit more ride height which is actually not an inch, but six inches according to the specifications, so they have given it that extra. ride height you'll need to be able to take it off-road in a little rougher territory, but they haven't made it so high that it really affects on-road handling, identical to the sport truck and Here, as we're in the SEL, I have larger 18-inch alloy wheels, which gives me a little more road grip feel when I put it into the corners, so if you like the feel of the German car when it comes As far as handling and the ride, it still hasn't become soft and rollover like an SUV by any means and of course it's a very quiet ride here, these tires don't make a lot of noise, a lot of sound that ends up on the floor as well as everywhere on the vehicle and there's not much wind noise coming from that panoramic sunroof, so we're all good here, at least on the pavement, let's do something right here, my mogul test, what is this?

Mobile here where I lift one front wheel off the ground and one of the rear wheels either off the ground or with very little traction, is proof that not all SUVs that are really good at driving on all four wheels and on the off-road, everyone can do it. It achieves this, especially most of the mid-size crossover SUVs it competes with, but here it has EX mode, which really boosts the symmetrical all-wheel drive system for maximum traction articulation. You can apply torque vectoring to individual wheels as you go, so it's a good option. To see how it actually works, I now also have Hill Start Assist and Hill Descent Control, which should prevent us from rolling back downhill when I take my foot off the accelerator, so here we go, I'm just going to drive.

Up here, nice and slow, get into position here, my front wheels are sinking, okay, so right now my front wheel is in the air. You can see this kind of sway here, my rear wheel back here, very little traction, so in With a lot of vehicles we would get stuck, so I'm just going to hit the accelerator nice and easy. Now I have this in off-road mode, which is a different mode that comes with this and offers a There are several different changes to the traction control system and it offers hill descent, but as you can see here on the screen, it also has different gauges that they give you a kind of all-round metric.

Now I'm going to get here very slowly. and because this is a car, not an SUV, I can't drive up this thing as steep as I normally do because I'd be going into that front fascia down there, so we're going up here right now, that front wheel went over. it's literally hanging off the ground the rear wheel here behind me has very little traction and it just wanted to turn there so I'm sitting here a little stuck now I'm going to hit the gas nice and easy and no problem it was able to direct traction to the wheels that had it and stop the wheels from spinning.

It wasn't very good. The mobile test was fun. This really is the great equalizer when it comes to any crossover or off-roader. vehicle and that's the washboard road of the desert because here at speed it doesn't matter if it's a Range Rover or a Wrangler, this sur

face

here, even though it's a really rough off-road vehicle, it can make some of the best off-road vehicles feel like a lot and what I'm discovering here is that this car is freaking awesome. I don't feel any rattle or lockup in the frame, or rattle in the steering suspension, I'm feeling a little bit of... and the adjustment sound when I really hit the hard stuff, but this thing holds together, that's how solid it is. what you'd expect from most large SUVs and crossovers;

It's downright fun here, you can just blow and go here like you would in a Jeep Wrangler almost. It's amazing because we have these 18-inch wheels with low-profile tires. The driving is a little tough when you get over some of the tougher stuff. If you had a lower version with 17 inch wheels it might be a little softer. but when it comes to how well it handles here, how well it lowers traction, it's very good. I don't feel any rattles or shudder in the suspension or any kind of steering lock, which happens with SUVs, so the good news is that, although it rides quite stiff, it has a nice firm and solid feel.

Now I feel a little rattle, I think it's coming from the panoramic roof up there, which is a common trait, but for the most part this car feels fine. Pretty solid, more than I expected since it's not really an SUV, okay my friends put it together for these two. I think the most important thing here is that, if we're honest, we're not really comparing apples to apples because the Subaru is a size up, it's quite a bit larger, an overall car several inches larger in all directions and the fact is

golf

family cars really are more in line with the

subaru

impreza if the cross track was a full truck and not just a five door hatch that's really what we'd be comparing to the

golf

all track but that being said , you all see these cars in the same light and buyers who buy trucks are comparing these two cars.

It's just that the other big thing that really sets these cars apart is that the Subaru actually has a little more off-road capability and it's not so much the traction in the all-wheel drive system but the ground clearance of the Subaru. It has a lot more ground clearance and has tires with higher sidewalls, much better if you are out there crawling over rocks and stuff like that, it will now protect your wheels, because of these differences the golf now handles much better. It really has a much more German driving experience on the road, it has larger wheels relative to those tires so it has a good driving presence, so it really depends on what you're looking for.

Are you looking for a ski car? Are you looking for something that you are going to spend most of your time on the sidewalk with or want a vehicle that you can really crawl around the rocks with, that is where it is, you know if you have a kayak and if you go into the forest on paths firewall or something, that Subaru might be your best bet, but if you're going to ski well, it might be the golf course, now all that, if I had to choose one of these. two, both made my stay list. I really like both.

I'd probably choose the Volkswagen too just because, if I'm honest, I'm a Volkswagen guy. I'm kind of partial to that brand and always have been. I've owned a lot of them and really prefer the Alltrack, so I want to know what you think. Comment below. If you have any questions I can answer, go there. The other big thing here is The fact that we have both test drives for these two cars goes into a lot more detail than what we did here, so click over there and see more either way. I'm glad you came to watch TV fueled by Sam's protest, hey Marv.

I hope you enjoyed the rides.