Solid Subaru Crosstrek stuck between a rock and hard place

The Subaru XV was renamed to the Crosstrek in 2023. Picture: Jaco van der Merwe Last year we bemoaned the Subaru Forester’s lack of presence outside the Japanese brand’s loyalists. It sadly doesn’t get any better for its smaller Subaru Crosstrek crossover SUV sibling.

Like with the Forester, the Crosstrek offers practical comfort, exceptional built quality and proven reliability. But its price, which starts at R609 000, is a huge turn-off in a market turned upside down by the Chinese revolution. Also not helping is the Crosstrek’s initial identity crisis.

What started life as the Impreza XV and later became the XV, settled on the Crosstrek in 2023. With Subaru’s local footprint as small as it is, don’t feel too bad if you weren’t even aware that it’s not the XV anymore. Here the Forester can at least rely on its bulletproof heritage spanning almost three decades.

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While it also has a tough time luring buyers away from the product from the People’s Republic, it has at least earned a name that resonates with its brand loyalists. The Citizen Motoringrecently sampled the Subaru Crosstrek in top-of-the-range 2.0i S guise which will set you back R699 000. As the name suggests, the crossover SUV is powered by a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine which produces 115kW of power and 196Nm of torque.

The free-breathing mill is mated to CVT which sends the twist to all four wheels via the Subaru Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive system. Subaru says that the always-on all-wheel drive system has been improved to offer faster response times to enhance agility and control. Active Torque Vectoring and SI-Drive driving mode management adds more stability to the drive along with the X-Mode off-road management system.

The latter offers selectable pre-configured modes in form of Snow/Dirt, Deep Snow and Mud. All this advanced hardware along with the award-winning EyeSight Driver Assist Technology means that the Subaru Crosstrek is one of the safest cars on our roads. The car’s turbo-lag free punch from its free-breathing Boxer mill is more than enough, even in the Highveld’s thinner air.

The CVT does tend to drone when you push too hard, but it is acceptable for the odd overtake. A slightly more relaxed approach to daily traffic downplays the CVT so much that you won’t even notice it. Our fuel consumption worked out to just under 10 litres per 100km. As we only drove it for around 300km in city traffic, it will only go down with open roads added to a combined cycle.

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