Here's Why the Subaru Crosstrek is a Crazy Bargain - 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Review

In 2023, the average sales price of a new car is around $48,000 and that makes this

2024

Subaru cross Trek even more impressive considering that for $24,000 you get the practicality of all-wheel drive, but the question is , since t

here

are many budget cars on sale, why? Would you pay your money for this one specifically? And that is what we are going to discover today when we take a look outside. I'm going to show you some of the features and technology that goes into this. Next, we'll try putting a bike on the back to see how practical it is and, most importantly, take it out on the road to see what it's like to ride, starting with the outside first.

Well, it's very Subaru style. It doesn't even seem like a brand new car to me even though it's built on their new platform, but after all this is the brand new Cross Trk and I think they knew their customer base, they knew what they liked and this seems like a super beer like the old ones but that's not all bad, I'd say it's not terribly over the top styled or trying to make too much of a statement and if t

here

's anything positive to say about this exterior it's really this alpine green paint, it's kind of a no metal.

Forest green paint that actually looks pretty good on this vehicle. If I'm honest, the Sport trims have these accents all over the place and then of course they are now doing the Wilderness trim on the Subaru cross Trek so if you need even more terrain. more clearance than this, this one has 8.7, you can get the Wilderness version to achieve that. One of the things that I constantly see Subaru do that I personally enjoy is that they don't seem to oversize the wheels on their cars now on the base vehicle you're getting 17 inch wheels here on the Sport and on The Limited you get 18 and then, interestingly, in Wilderness they go back down to 17 and the reason I like that they don't put huge wheels on their cars is because you get more sidewall, so it's better Offroad, which is certainly a focus for Siraru, but also With more sidewall you also get a little better handling on the road and are able to absorb some of those little nuances on the road, just like tires do.

Rebalancing the Falcon ZX tires in a 225 55 18 inch size under the hood is where things are quite similar from a perspective that a Subaru engine offers, the base car has a 2L naturally aspirated engine that makes 152 horsepower in the sports car and above that you get a 2.5 L. it makes 182 horsepower of course this is where a lot of the cost savings come from with this car. This is not a particularly advanced engine or particularly high-powered from a horsepower perspective. Now, in theory, you should get pretty decent fuel economy. with these with the 2L getting 27 and 34 city for highway, this car with the 2.5 rated 26 city and 33 highway in the 350 Mi I drove this car I averaged 32 m per gallon which involved about 70% highway and 30% city driving, but still pretty solid numbers for a car with permanent all-wheel drive inside the Subaru cross Trek, things are refreshingly familiar, they're not trying to be completely

crazy

and outlandish and do what many manufacturers they're doing where it's more of a form over function this is a function over form cockpit what do I mean by that?

Well, let's start with the space excellent space I have 61 excellent headroom enough room here in the front and enough room in the back, which is quite rare for this In this segment, I could sit behind myself with plenty of room for the legs and also for the head, which is something that cannot be said for many vehicles. In this segment, out of space, visibility is excellent at the front and rear, you can see it from this vehicle. A lot of cars have these super aggressive, sloping roof lines and you can't see through them, that's not a sexy thing, so it's not a sexy marketing thing, but when you live with a car day in and day out it's extremely important and the rest of This is very useful because it is intuitive, so the only drawback I will say, I think with this interior, is this very large screen, its response is a little slow and it takes a little while to start up, but I can forgive it given everything else .

Because you still have a physical volume knob, you still have physical buttons to increase or decrease the temperature here and you also have a physical toggle switch for the heated seats, this is something that was absent in the Outback Wilderness that I drove where you had to do it. I explored a menu structure to turn on the heated seats, which was quite annoying, so everything else is pretty usable and straightforward, old school analogue gauge cluster, nothing super digital and then the other One thing that's definitely worth mentioning is that they're putting Subaru's sights on. All of these are standard, even the base model, and the view is a kind of adaptive cruise control.

Lane centering. I think it'll also stop you from trying to hit pedestrians at low speed, so it's all standard, which is pretty cool, so bravo to Subaru for getting it. That's right, making this a usable cabin, let's try putting a bike in the back of this thing before taking it out on the road. I'm constantly impressed with Subaru's effective use of space and the Cross Trek is no exception. This is my 29 inch road. bike that I can fit without removing the front wheel, even the CRV I drove recently, which is a full and much larger SUV, could not achieve this for sport and adventure lovers, for whom of course this car is designed for you. very happy with the practicality of this car, of course if you like the bike test be sure to hit the subscribe button below so you don't miss future videos.

You know it's fun when you get in this vehicle if you would blindfold me. and I could drive this somehow blindfolded or I guess you hide all the badges, you hide the dashboard, so I can't say exactly what the vehicle is, but I just drove it and felt how the suspension felt, how the engine. It's so Subaru and I mean that in a very good way because what they are doing in the suspension and dynamics department is excellent for this segment, essentially you have a super compliant and comfortable ride that can go on all surfaces and to the right. now we are on the road with little undulations, no big deal for this, we are here in Colorado and in Colorado there is no underground sewer system, everything is above ground, that's why they slope the roads and streets. and in certain ways, so there can be a lot of undulations and steep roads and things like that, this thing never bottoms out, you can hit them at high speed, you can go over speed bumps at high speed, it just doesn't care, this thing absorbs the speed bumps, so Well, and my favorite part about all modern Subarus is that they tend to do a good job in the suspension category and I guess in this segment specifically with a Cross Trek when you're looking for something that can do with the Cross Trek. a little bit of light off-roading or at least going down a dirt road because you're using this as a kind of lifestyle vehicle, you're using it to go hiking, using it to continue your travels or whatever and it just really excels In that, not only does it have the suspension clearance to be able to do that, the ride refinement is really great because of the harshness of the noise vibration as well, so not only do we absorb the bumps but I don't hear anything.

There's a lot of road noise, there's very little wind noise in this thing, and I'm actually really surprised given how relatively expensive it is, I mean, close to $30,000 in the mid-20s to $30,000s, it's not at all A cheap vehicle in a way, but when I started looking at other vehicles in this price range, it tends to offer a lot, especially since it comes standard with all-wheel drive, but I can drive it and I've put 350M on it and taken it on road trips. and I drove it around town and like I said for the price it's great, super quiet on the highway, much quieter than I expected and it really allows you to enjoy a vehicle at a pretty affordable price because they've really figured it out .

They put out this formula and they know who their customer base is more specifically with this car now, is there any downside? Well if I could think of one it would be this engine with its foot on the floor so this is the 2.5L and my recommendation if you were to go buy a Cross Trek would be to get at least the 2.5L for what they offer two liters and a 2.5 liter. I guess it also depends on where you live, so here we are at an elevation of about 5500 feet, maybe close to 6000 feet and The reason this is important is because naturally aspirated engines are greatly affected by altitude , so this engine has significantly less power compared to what it would have at something like sea level if you lived at a regular elevation and that's just it.

You have to work really hard if you're going up mountain passes and things like that, so I wouldn't recommend the 2L in a place like Colorado, maybe in high elevation places areas of Utah, if you live at sea level, maybe time. You could get away with the 2L if you're someone who doesn't mind a slower vehicle, but there's a bit of difficulty with this and the fact that this 2.5L makes 30 more horsepower than the 2L, I just can't imagine the two L. being really suitable, uh, especially again for this Colorado audience. I know a lot of people in Colorado buy Subarus because I see them everywhere so it's something to keep in mind that the engine is really where a lot of the cost savings are and that's really the most important thing I could say is that We talked about the ride being really good, it's very quiet, it's got a lot of technology, so it's a lot of bang for your buck and of course they're willing to sacrifice some of the cost.

From the engine perspective, that's where you don't really get the latest and greatest in technology, but it's a naturally aspirated engine, it's probably going to be reliable because Subaru, as long as you don't buy a sporty Subaru, tends to be reliable, we all know their engine problems with their wxs and sti's of yesteryear even some of the brz's have had problems but when it comes to just normal vehicles their naturally aspirated engines tend to be pretty reliable so i think it will last and actually I'm pretty impressed with the fuel economy let me check what we're doing so far 32 mil per gallon on 350 Mi that's pretty good uh that's pretty good for an all wheel drive vehicle of this size. and it's true that I've done a lot of highway driving, but I would say it's probably 7030, so in that sense, the fuel economy is better than I expected for a permanent all-wheel drive vehicle and that permanent all-wheel drive vehicle.

This is really the reason why you are buying this well because you want something maybe you live in a northern climate where it snows you want something that is safe with its all wheel drive this is what I mean for a small sum of money uh this is Now I've already talked a lot about the infotainment on the interior screen or the interior segment, but just touching on a few things here with the technology itself, having adaptive cruise control is very nice as it yells at me for lane changes. The feature is a bit annoying. I'm sure there is a way to disable it.

I haven't figured it out, but when it comes to the rest of the technology, adaptive cruise control is great for controlling the pace of the car in front of you and not having to keep resetting the cruise control, however what I will say is that it is a bit over the top so if the car in front of you slows down a bit it tends to slam on the brakes so it's not the most refined experience but I don't think anyone expects that at this price range and I think So overall you're happy to get those levels of features at this price range, so I won't complain too much about that, I've certainly got a bit more used to the HVC controls here, although I still wish I had physical buttons, but at the same time At the same time it's nice to have this big screen for the map, you know, just using it for navigation is very, very clear, with the big map.

Of course you can see more of the map and the road ahead of you so I enjoyed that the stereo is pretty good and as I mentioned before it's pretty quiet so it's actually a big surprise for me because I just expected that A cheaper car sits cheaper and this has a very solid feel. Subarus tend to be pretty well made, no squeaks or rattles which is important and you also know the fuel economy is good so from a daily driver perspective this is a great option. I can see why so many people buy this. I see cross routes all over Colorado and for an all year round vehicle that can carry all your stuff, it fits on my bike without removing the front tire which to me is abig plus, this is just a great vehicle and it also offers an experience that is very familiar, it's not very high tech, you walk in here and you don't know how to operate anything, it's all pretty intuitive. and simple, so Bravo to subu Subaru, they are making a great product, they know who their customer base is with this, it's pretty evident and if you are that customer base, I think you're really going to like this, especially in this color. let me know what you think about the color below.

I've had a few friends give me some different ideas on color. Personally, I really like this army green and they offer a lot of other interesting colors in this car, so let me. I know what you think in the comments below. I appreciate you watching us as always and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye bye.