2012 Subaru Forester X Limited All Leather Backup Cam Skirack Warranty Upgrades on 2040-cars

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Can we fool the facial recognition system on our long-term 2019 Subaru Forester?

Subaru’s DriverFocus system in our 2019 Subaru Forester long-term tester serves multiple purposes, but its facial recognition abilities are especially intriguing. If your face is registered in the carÂ’s system, the infrared camera will recognize you and adjust your seat and mirrors to the position initially chosen during the setup process. ItÂ’ll store up to five faces, automatically adjusting everything to the personÂ’s face it sees. The camera can recognize you in the dark or with glasses on, according to Subaru. It looks for the points on a personÂ’s face, but doesnÂ’t remember a specific person. This gave us an idea for a test. Can we trick it by using a photo of somebody elseÂ’s face? Check out the video above to see what happened. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

2020 Subaru Outback Suspension Deep Dive | More than meets the eye

The 2020 Subaru Outback is a completely redesigned car. It has a lot to offer in terms of new convenience features, and the driving experience is much improved. A good deal of that comes from chassis improvements, and indeed a lot of work went into making the body shell and suspension subframes more rigid so the suspension attachment points could be more robust and stable. Don’t let all of that rigidity talk make you think the ride itself is stiff. It isnÂ’t. Any suspension tuning engineer will tell you that a stable platform is necessary even if a smooth ride is the goal. Rigid attachment points make it easier to control ride motions and road imperfections within those components designed for that very job – the springs, dampers and suspension bushings. So letÂ’s take a look at what Subaru has done under the new Outback. What weÂ’re about to see doesnÂ’t just apply to the Outback wagon, but to the closely-related and also-redesigned 2020 Legacy sedan as well.   ItÂ’s no surprise that a vehicle like the Subaru Outback uses strut front suspension, but from here, a couple of details do look curious.   Like any strut suspension, the steering axis (yellow line) is defined by the pivot bushing at the top of the strut and the center of the lower ball joint. The entire affair will pivot about this line when the wheels are turned. The lower control arm (red) of the newly redesigned 2020 Outback is now a lightweight aluminum piece instead of the steel hunk that was used last year. As before, thereÂ’s a “direct-acting” stabilizer bar link (green) that attaches to the strut housing, an arrangement that maximizes the efficiency of the stabilizer bar because the motion ratio is 1-to-1 motion with respect to wheel movement. As for the stabilizer bar itself, itÂ’s now hollow to save a bit of weight.   This spacer (yellow) raises the body relative to the suspension. The Outback has one, but the lower-riding Legacy sedan does not. The spacer pushes the arm down (or the body up - take your pick), so that means the OutbackÂ’s reinforcing bracket (green) will also differ from that of the Legacy. While weÂ’re here, look at the round rubber bushing just below the spacer. That void space and square nub you see pointing directly at you will make sense in a short while.   Subaru couldnÂ’t simply put a spacer on the OutbackÂ’s rear lower control arm pivot and call it good. They had to do something of similar magnitude at the front.

Subaru turns a WRX STI into a bobsled and (barely) makes it work

When asked how confident he felt of a successful full run down the St. Moritz-Celerina Olympic Bobrun in his specially prepared Subaru WRX STI, professional rally and stunt driver Mark Higgins responded, "50/50." In reality, he was probably being generous. It wasn't supposed to be so death-defying. In fact, Subaru's original plan was to have Higgins make several runs down the icy slope, some with journalists in the passenger seat. We were among those who traveled all the way to Switzerland for the chance to experience an automotive bobsled ride. One look at the run's famous Horseshoe Corner was all it took for us to second-guess that idea. Well, that and our pesky sense of self preservation. Higgins, though, is one of those rare humans to have been born without that fear-of-death gene. Not only is the Manx driver a professional stuntman – his resume includes sequences for Daniel Craig's James Bond – he also won the British Rally Championship three times and is the four-wheeled record holder at the famed Isle of Man Snaefell Mountain Course. So, when Higgins says some sort of vehicular stunt has only half a chance at success, well, let's just say that most mortals would say something more akin to "a snowball's chance in hell." On the topic of snow and balls, it's worth noting that the timing of Subaru's bobsled run wasn't set by choice. The Olympic Bobrun hosts regular events every winter through late February or early March. Since the track at St. Moritz is the only run in the world without an artificial cooling system, warm weather means no sledding. Combine those two facts and you end up with a very narrow window in which Subaru could go about making the modified track and a WRX STI actually fit together. Enter the boffins at Prodrive. The British engineering firm first started modifying vehicles for racing in 1984. By 1990, Prodrive was focused on turning turbocharged Imprezas into championship winners for the likes of Colin McRae, Richard Burns, and Petter Solberg. So it comes as little surprise that Subaru turned back to Prodrive to figure out how to modify a 2015 WRX STI in a way that would make it survive the pounding it would sustain on a bob run. For the record, this isn't just any 2015 WRX STI. It's actually the same car Higgins used in 2014 to set a lap record at the Isle of Man.