2023 Subaru Forester Limited on 2040-cars

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2019 Subaru Forester Long-Term Update | Road trip to New Orleans

Our 2019 Subaru Forester long-term tester is rounding second base in its stay at Autoblog’s Michigan HQ, yet the blue-painted, gold-wheeled crossover hadnÂ’t left the Midwest throughout its first six months here, so I sought to change that by taking it down to New Orleans. The goal: Determine if the Forester is a good road trip car. Of course, my girlfriend and I also wanted to go to Mardi Gras, but either way, we were in for some long days of driving. There are a few umbrella categories a vehicle should excel in to make a vacation and road trip better for all involved. For me, those include comfort, utility and its driver assistance systems. Comfort I was fairly certain this category would be a boon for the Forester going in. It sops up Michigan potholes well, and it did an excellent job on the various road surfaces I encountered on the way to New Orleans, too. SubaruÂ’s passive dampers on the Forester are tuned to make rough roads more livable as opposed to whipping around a highway clover leaf. That makes for soft and rolling eight-plus-hour days behind the wheel. The cabin at highway speeds was loud, though. A lot of that has to do with the Michelin X-Ice winter tires current fixed, but there's also a noticeable amount of wind noise that follows that. Plus, if you ever need to get going in a hurry, the thrashy boxer-four makes its presence known above all other noises as the CVT pegs the needle near the 6,000 rpm redline. Our Forester has the high-end Harman Kardon audio system equipped, but we still had to jack the volume way up to hear podcasts and quieter music. The cabin noise was never overwhelming, but it did become tiresome after a few hours with this many sounds competing with each other. Since we were driving due south or due north, those crosswinds werenÂ’t just audibly annoying. Gusts were plenty capable of blowing the Forester around in its lane due to its tall, upright stance. ItÂ’s not like a big panel van, but it was still disconcerting at times. There were only two of us on this road trip, so the front seats were the only ones in use. I was plenty comfortable for the trip's entirety. The driver seat's electric lumbar adjustability left my back in good shape, and the upright seating position is a bit like sitting in a chair at a kitchen table. The seatÂ’s cushioning was supportive enough to keep me from complaining, but never too stiff so as to be uncomfortable.

2019 Subaru Forester Long-Term Update | It's gold wheel time!

Our long-term 2019 Subaru Forester is heading into the new year with a new set of shoes. Subaru’s all-wheel-drive system works perfectly fine, but all-wheel power is no replacement for a set of winter tires. And so our search for winter rubber began. However, the search didnÂ’t take that long, as a set of wheels and tires that fit our Forester happened to be laying around Autoblog HQ collecting dust. The wheels just so happened to be lightweight, gold 17-inch Sparco wheels we had previously fitted to our 2015 Subaru WRX long-term tester. Imagine our glee when we pulled these bad boys out of storage.  ItÂ’s only fitting that the blue Subaru in our long-term test fleet is also fitted with gold wheels as a tribute to all the gold-wheeled Subaru rally legends. The new Forester is nothing like a WRX or STI, but this setup has us smiling every time we walk out to the car. Take a nice, long scroll through the gallery above. We canÂ’t stop obsessing over how much better they make the new Forester look. Maybe a special edition package Â… just a thought, Subaru. Mounted on these wheels are new Michelin X-Ice winter tires. WeÂ’ve already driven it through a couple snowfalls in the midwest region, and the tires make this crossover a nearly unstoppable winter force. We hope to get some serious snow this winter that allows us to really take advantage of the new tires and the ForesterÂ’s high 8.7-inch ground clearance. More on that and the ForesterÂ’s performance to come. Unfortunately, the spare set of wheels we had lying around didnÂ’t have tire pressure monitoring sensors for the Forester sitting next to them. Until the little yellow light in the dash starts annoying us, weÂ’re going to forego the expense of buying a new TPMS at the Subaru dealer — we imagine many owners skip the extra $150 or so for the sensors and check their tire pressure the old-fashioned way with winter wheels, too. After all, the tire pressure gauge still exists, and it works splendidly. Watch out for another Forester update soon, as we get into some of the things weÂ’ve liked and disliked over the past few months. Related video:

Subaru announces 2019 Crosstrek pricing

For the 2019 model year, the Subaru Crosstrek doesn't get a big refresh, but it does have a couple changes coming down the pipeline. One of those changes is in the pricing. For 2019, the MSRP is up by $100. That means the base price for the Crosstrek 2.0i equipped with the six-speed manual transmission — the most bare-bones version — is $22,870, which includes the $975 in destination fees. So what's new for 2019? For one, Subaru's EyeSight driver assist technology — which includes adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, pre-collision braking and lane departure and sway warning — is available on the CVT-equipped base model. It's an $845 option, totaling $28,745. The Crosstrek Premium, which begins at $23,870, now comes with the 6.5-inch multimedia as standard. The Crosstrek Limited, at $28,170 has EyeSight, automatic braking and high beam assist as standard equipment. The Subaru Crosstrek, regardless of trim level, is all-wheel-drive, and powered by a 2.0-liter four-cylinder providing 152 horsepower and 145 pound-feet of torque. That is mated either to a six-speed manual or a continuously variable transmission. The CVT in Premium and Limited trims also offers a seven-speed manual mode with paddle shifters mounted to the steering wheel. CVT models also come with X-Mode and Hill Descent Control for loose or slick roads or off-road driving. The Subaru Crosstrek offers fuel economy figures of 23 miles per gallon city/29 highway/25 combined for manual-equipped models. The CVT-equipped version offers 27/33/29 mpg. If that's not good enough for you, you won't have to wait long for something better. Subaru has announced that the 2019 Crosstrek will be its first model to receive a plug-in hybrid powertrain, available by the end of this year. We don't know what the pricing will be on that, yet, though. Related Video: