Live thread: One week with a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness

Wanna ride shotgun with the GRM crew?

Welcome to this week’s test vehicle, a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness: more cladding, more ground clearance, more off-road bits.

How does it compare to the regular Crosstrek?

Keep an eye on this thread.

Read the rest of the story

First impressions: Pretty much feels like a Crosstrek but with knobbies. How so? More sidewall flex, a little more sway in the ride and, obviously, more ground clearance. 

You can see how the Wilderness package impacts fuel economy, too.

EPA numbers: city, highway, combined.

Crosstrek Wilderness: 25, 29, 27

Crosstrek Sport and Limited: 26,33, 29

Impreza RS: 26, 33, 29

All three have the 2.5L. 

Some more photos because pics or it didn’t happen:

Two 90-minute highway drives in it today. Totally comfortable, totally no issues. Go, get there, come home. Comfortable, quiet. Totally enjoying the latest Impreza chassis. 

Cool color, not a huge fan of the center console and center stack area on these. Not really a good spot to fit a phone. I also still hate they killed the manual in these. I had a 2017 5-spd and even with a 150hp it was a blast to drive and take on trails. The CVT which both my ex-gf and ex-wife have equipped on their crosstreks is not my favorite. 

I also love the color and, yeah, a stick would make this a slam dunk.

My phone fits fine in the cubby. 

I've found that faux carbon-fibre door and dashboard inserts allow me to take on much more radical terrain.

David S. Wallens said:

I also love the color and, yeah, a stick would make this a slam dunk.

My phone fits fine in the cubby. 

I haven't been in the new crosstrek yet but the similar setup on the outback, I could not fit a pro max iphone in there. 

Some pics of the phone cubby:

The CVT programming is supposed to be much better than it was 10 years ago.

How did it perform in your estimation?

I just bought a 17 Crosstrek with stick shift and it's very fun to drive. My phone fits in the middle cubby hole also.

I drove one at the LA auto show, it seemed nice to sit on, but it was far too slow for a new car, and there is a giant black plastic square around the rear view mirror that completely blocks the view of a pedestrian stepping off the curb at a stop light.  I would say average at best, and dangerous for anyone as tall as I am due to the huge blind spot in the middle of the windshield.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

The CVT programming is supposed to be much better than it was 10 years ago.

How did it perform in your estimation?

Not terribly snappy when asking for full throttle from a roll-in but fine once moving. The big tires can’t be helping the situation. 

I keep getting emails from Subaru to trade in my '19 Crosstrek.  But I still like it at 54K miles.

In reply to Tk8398 :

That black box behind the mirror isn’t in my way but, yeah, it is rather big. 

I’d say that taller folk should sit behind the wheel before committing. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I'm 6'4 so that's probably why it doesn't work for me, I did drive the Outback Wilderness also and although it has a similar black box I could see underneath it without it being too annoying.

Put some miles on the Crosstrek this weekend as we visited my folks. The car was good for the mission: quiet on the highway, decent on gas (26 mpg without really trying in a mix of highway and back roads) and comfortable. No seat issues after a few hours. Logical controls. Nothing that got annoying after a while. Since I’m short, that black box behind the rear-view mirror pretty much disappears after a while. 

Would the regular Crosstrek or even the Impreza RS work just as well for us on this trip? Yes, definitely.