Review Subaru Forester 2019 – International First Drive

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MUCH has already been written about this new Subaru Forester, as the fact that it n & # 39; There will be no XT variant or a diesel engine a variant. Nowhere. At least not for the foreseeable future. But there will be a hybrid variant that will arrive in Australia with more grunts than the vehicle we tested during the demonstration campaign in Japan at the end of last week … But Subaru will not say how much this variant will offer a grunt. Nor would he disclose where he tests Forester during his development, the project manager Tomoyuki Nunome telling Practical Motoring that he "tests in many different places around the world."

As a market important for the brand, Subaru Australia is naturally proud that, although it is not allowed to adjust and adjust the suspension for our market, it is able to test prototypes during the phase development and provide feedback. Practical Motoring has been told that Subaru Australia engineers provide "a lot of comments that improve cars"

What is the Subaru Forester?

The Forester is both the most awarded vehicle of Subaru Australia and the brand's bestseller. a quarter of all Subaru sold in 2017 were Forester) and it is hoped that this all-new Forester, which will arrive at Down Under in September, will continue the winning ways of the old car. And, based on a brief overview in Japan (in vehicles in Japan) we see no reason to doubt Subaru's confidence in the new car.

The all-new Forester is the third vehicle to be built on the brand's global modular platform (Subaru Global Platform) that debuted on the world's first ever. Impreza then on the XV. This platform, as we discovered from these two other vehicles, offers significantly improved torsional stiffness and thus improves driving and maneuverability, while allowing more room for the interior. 19659042]. final price or specification announced, but there is still much to tell. For example, this new Forester sees the brand begin to make key changes to the powertrain, such as the decision to drop the turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder that effectively kills the Forester XT and drops the Forester range diesel engine . You can expect that the diesel will soon be removed from the Outback

Instead, the new Forester will only be offered, at least in this country, that at 2.5. -liter four-cylinder Boxer making 136kW at 5800rpm and 239Nm of torque at 4400rpm. There is a slight increase in the current car's 2.5-liter engine because the new engine is direct injection and, according to Subaru, about 90% or more of the engine parts are new. And it's the same with the CVT; it's not the same as the old one, but this one gets seven simulated speeds, depending on the driving mode, and is, more or less, the same as the CVT updated in d & # 39; 39; other Subaru new version.

There have been changes to the steering system, suspension, X-Mode and more. Built from the Subaru Global Platform, the new Forester is both stiffer and stronger, quieter and there is more interior space. But one of the big improvements was the visibility out of the thing.

There will be some who will look at the pictures on this page and will struggle to fine tune the changes from the old car to this one. They're gorgeous, but no brand knows how much risk you run when you bother with a design that works … remember the Tribeca and how fast Subaru has changed the look of this car.

As with the Liberty and the Outback, Subaru's focus was on improving the practicality of the Forester and the door openings rear seats are now wider to access the rear seat and, for example, install a child seat. Indeed, the space for the legs at the back has been improved (about 5 cm) thanks to an increase in the wheelbase which is now 2670 mm and between 498 and 1768 liters of trunk space. 1300mm; a motorized hatchback will likely be available on some models – and another for the Forester.

The new Forester gets new front and rear seats and an electric parking brake replaces the old hand-operated parking brake. And, like other Subaru recently released, the new Forester gets the brand 's latest 8.0 – inch infotainment unit with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity. As well as a driver monitoring system that, in addition to being a first for Subaru, allows owners to create custom settings (up to five); By using a camera, the car recognizes the driver and changes things like mirrors, temperature control and the seat. The system also keeps an eye on the driver and warns them if they are distracted – if they look away for two seconds or more.

The new Forester launches the second generation of the brand's X-Mode harshness system that offers a two-stage installation covering snow / dirt and deep snow / mud. The ground clearance remains at 220mm with identical towing weights

What does the interior look like?

For the new Forester, Subaru softly and gently touches the interior, focusing on things that make it comfortable rather than the exhibitor, according to the director of the program, Tomoyuki Nunome. What becomes clear when you get inside the thing is the family link between vehicles like the XV and the Outback, dials used for climate control at the general layout of the chart. edge, and that's fine. Forester Review "width =" 1024 "height =" 631 "srcset =" https://i0.wp.com/practicalmotoring.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2019-Subaru-Forester5.jpg? w = 1024 & ssl = 1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/practicalmotoring.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2019-Subaru-Forester5.jpg?resize=150%2C92&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/practicalmotoring.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2019-Subaru-Forester5.jpg?resize=400%2C246&ssl=1 400w, https: //i0.wp .com / practicalmotoring.com.au / wp-content / uploads / 2018/07/2019-Subaru-Forester5.jpg? resize = 768% 2C473 & ssl = 1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/practicalmotoring.com. to / wp-content / uploads / 2018/07/2019-Subaru-Forester5.jpg? resize = 750% 2C462 & ssl = 1 750w, https://i0.wp.com/practicalmotoring.com.au/wp-content/uploads /2018/07/2019-Subaru-Forester5.jpg?resize=360%2C222&ssl=1 360w "sizes =" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px "data-recalc-dims =" 1 "/>

Subaru wants its vehicles to be usable and durable and that there are more flexible materials than ever before, like cars In the case of the transmission, the glove box lid and the upper parts of the door card, there are still harder but finer grained plastics in the sections where you want harder materials. While the Japanese cars we piloted will be slightly different from the cars we will have at Oz (the infotainment systems you see in the photos will not be the same as those cars in Australia), it is clear that The quality of the materials of the new Forester is a decent step compared to the old car.

Sit behind the wheel and feel the space that is partly due to a clever trick of the designers to push the vents to the dashboard edges to emphasize the width in the cabin. But we also need more glbad … the pillars A and C are now thinner and the rear window also larger, allowing greater vision towards the front and back

[19659039] The new front seats are comfortable and electrically adjustable can be adjusted to suit drivers of all shapes and sizes; the steering wheel offers correct height and range adjustment. The shape of the seat (wider and with more padding) is more favorable than the rather flat and unremarked seat of the old car. The quality of the leather is also better on the new car.

On the rear seats, there is much more room than in the old car, thanks to the wheelbase slightly longer (2670 vs 2640 mm) . Indeed, with the front seats tuned for me, I found that I had lots of feet and room for the legs (although that may not be very clear on the photo showing my legs and feet.)

There is also a good place for the head and shoulders and the rear seats, such as the front seats, are well formed and better upholstered than the front seats. ;before. The car we drove to the preview event had directional air vents and outlets at the rear of the center console and an armrest that could be folded over the back of the middle seat.

As mentioned at the beginning of this review, the purpose of the design of the new Forester was to focus on the evolution of areas based on practicality. And nothing is more obvious than in the boot which, although slightly larger, offers a wider rear opening of 1300mm (over 1166mm), which means that loading golf clubs will not force you to twist the bag; you can just load it directly. The width of the actual boot is 1100mm upwards from 1073mm and the floor is 35mm longer at 908mm. The starting volume is 498 liters, which is down on the numbers that you could have read elsewhere (but up compared to the old car) because in Australia, the Forester will come with a full-size spare part [19659037]

That's a standard across the range, the Forester is available with a power liftgate that opens and closes much faster than on the other Subaru models. The 60:40 rear seats can be dropped by levers in the boot with a 12V socket and several hooks scattered around the boot. When you drop the rear seats, the new design makes a flatter floor than on the current car; it's not totally flat, but there's a lot less lip at the point of transition than before.

How is it on the road?

loop of one kilometer long. We had eight or nine laps before going on a short "off-road" ride to try out the X-mode settings. If you watched the short video I posted on Facebook, you'll see that this n & rsquo; Was not a very difficult track, although there was a 26-degree hill that was designed to showcase the secondary X-Mode setting … but I'll come back

Under the bonnet is a 2.5-liter Boxer four-cylinder developing 136 kW at 5800 rpm and 239 Nm of torque at 4400 rpm. Equipped with direct injection now (the old engine was injection in the port), the engine is about 90% brand new and offers an increase in power and torque of 126kW and 235Nm. That does not seem to be a big difference on paper, but coupled with the updated CVT, the new Forester feels much more urgent than the old car; and for comparison, the Australian writers present were able to convince Subaru Japan to let us run into an old Forester

while a CVT will never be everyone's cup of tea, especially those who do not Never have one in the new Forester is about as good as they get and in "manual" mode it makes a reasonable impression of a traditional automatic. The thing reacts well to the throttle controls and makes the most of the engine and all without the buzz of past CVTs.

Indeed, the whole car is incredibly quiet. You hardly hear the engine at start-up, and even when you push it in, the engine runs cleanly with the note hardening but is still muffled. Subaru said that it twisted the crank behavior which resulted in a quieter engine with less vibration but the old car was not exactly raspy so you would be hard to choose the difference.

In terms of driving and handling, new model, thanks to the new platform, feels much more agile and controlled than the old car (chbadis stiffness and torsional stiffness are both rising 40%). Although this did not allow in any case to have a definitive evaluation of the chbadis, the loop that we traveled was full of turns and the Forester has very well mastered confirming what we already knew from. Impreza and XV (even after flying the old Forester) and it is that dynamically the SGP is superior to what preceded it.

Where the old car rolled in bends and pitched and plunged under the brakes and had much more slowly steering, the new car was stretched with a minimum of roll in the turns, excellent damping without hump and a direction that seemed well weighed, consistent and direct in its action. Indeed, Subaru estimates that the steering change capability of the new car is about 15% better than that of the old car and I agree with that

What is what is that off-road? Of course, I was determined to make the new Forester work as hard as possible. But there was little on the course to worry the Forester except for a 26-degree hill. There was a hole and a free area at the base of the hill to try to make the vehicle lose traction and fail in its normal and regular X-mode climb. And that was done for me. Turning the X-Mode dial to the right and engaging the deep snow / mud function, however, saw the thing quickly and easily climb the hill.

Now Get a Precise description of the operation of the "extra" X-Mode feature was difficult because of the language barrier. But after a lot of questions and hand gestures, I think we managed to get a pretty good idea of ​​what the system is doing. You can read more about X-Mode in general HERE so I'm going to keep talking about the new addition to X-Mode which, according to Subaru, was introduced largely because the owners wanted improved performance in deep snow and mud. In a nutshell, the system consists of disabling the engine-based traction control system to allow more slippage (because the engine does not kill power) when driving in mud or snow. And that was as far as the initial explanation of the system was going, but I felt that it did not adequately explain what was going on because I could hear and feel some sort of traction control while driving in snow mode / deep mud … [19659039]

The system runs engine traction control, yes (and a big confusing point has been made with most Aussie reporters s & # 39, moving away after that, but not PM, we annoyed the engineers for a clearer description). But what was not clear from the slides or the initial description of the system, it is that it leaves the control of active brake traction, which allows the system to cut off the Feeding a wheel coming out of the ground. but will not attempt to kill a spinning wheel and therefore gain momentum when you cross a thick mud.

But there's more, when the Subaru AWD is 50:50, but by the time you start driving, it's starting to change constantly by 40% and 60% of the driving at the front or at the rear, but with the adjustment of snow / deep mud activated, the system tries to maintain the 50:50 drive distribution. We will need more time with the car, but our short distance has shown that Subaru has made the Forester even more powerful than it was before … it may be the The average low-performing mid-size SUV you can buy. [19659041] What about security?

There is still no NCAP clbadification, but Subaru Japan claims that the new car will outperform the old car and so one could imagine that it will get a five-star rating. There are driver and front pbadenger airbags as well as curtain airbags that go all the way into the boot. In Japan, a hood-mounted pedestrian airbag will be installed but it will not come to Australia.

Subaru Australia would not be fired on variants that will get what safety features but all variants with EyeSight will offer autonomous emergency braking, reverse auto braking, rear vehicle detection that monitors oncoming traffic when you come out of a parking space, as well as lane departure warning and badistance and pre-collision braking that works if the system detects a vehicle ahead and the

The Forester is also, of course, permanent all-wheel drive with the usual suspects like ABS, traction and stability controls, rain-sensing wipers, reversing cameras and sensors and much more. 19659041] So, what do you think?

It may have been only a short drive but it was long enough to suggest that Subaru upgraded the all-new Forester in each area.