Gadgetory

now for the most part Subaru buyers are not just Subaru buyers they tend to be fans so what will the fan base think of this new forest or the 2014 has more all around more high-tech and less towing capacity let's drive this 2.5 I limited and check the tech now obviously the Foresters not dramatically bigger but it's grown a little bit in most dimensions the weight has stayed pretty low though they use a lot of what they call high-strength steel which gives you a lot more strength without a lot more bulk you're also gonna spot one easily by the new face much boxier much more aggressive if you will and no longer to the headlights flow into the grille it's an easy way to spot one or just look inside if it's got to see the T transmission it's got to be in 2014 that's all new now the first thing I noticed getting into this Subaru is what the hell are those big ol lobes hanging down here from the headliner this is what they call their eyesight camera system there's a camera here's one here and what's interesting I've never seen this before they're actually looking through midair and then through the windshield normally these kind of things are bonded to the glass as we've seen before but these cameras powers several features and they're optional by the way they power the lane departure sensing they power forward collision avoidance letting you know when you're closing too fast and they also I believe are powering some of the adaptive cruise control now the next screen we get to is this guy down here in the eyebrow this is a sort of a helper screen because the big boy is down here and this is standard on this trim of car but let's go back to that helper you've got several modes there including one about the drive line as you see some of the historical mpg stuff current mpg on this kind of rotating motif and then some places to handle vehicle settings it's basically sort of a fancy trip odometer taken several different directions what I'm not crazy about is they use the little screen for the backup camera and that's a safety thing why wouldn't you make that bigger and route that video to the big screen okay onto the main screen now now it's a wonky little interface but if you hit this little button you get some of your audio choices AM and FM with HD by the way satellite radio is optional but it's in there aah-ha streaming support though not on my phone my aha app is running my phone is paired it keeps telling me it's not running and not paired so I can't show you much about it I'll take their word here's how our ipod looks hooked up to the USB here in the console it's a pretty good reader it's relatively responsive not the best not the worst but my biggest gripe is that the album art is ridiculously small just don't bother and instead bump that over and give me more room for metatag data that's way more useful my bigger gripe gets when you come to navigation and while the basics work alright here I find it's under processor it has a lot of issues getting to things quickly if you want to enter a destination it's still by bucket the way cars used to do it so you got to go address then Street then City you can't just blurt the whole thing out now the next techno tour comes down here in the console around the shifter this is a big headline in this car for the first time now Subaru Forester moves from a four-speed automatic to a CVT that's gonna save Subaru some money first off because they no longer have to make fender badges that say Forester Smithsonian Edition that for speed was crazy antiquated now you've got a CVT which is a very modern gearbox notice it has no shiftable gate just a low range and no paddles this is a fairly pedestrian transmission we'll see how it does on the road in a moment and right ahead of the transmission related to it is a big ol badge it screams out ex mode it doesn't turn you into a super hero instead it engages kind of an all-encompassing get me out of trouble mode if you press this button you see something change up here on the screen and now the computer is taking control of the details of accelerator of independent wheel braking of how the transmission holds a low gear of how the all-wheel drive clutch is biasing power it basically says let me handle the off-road mode and I will crawl out of whatever you're in now because we're in a 2.5 i Touring which is kind of mid high level we have a lot of nice these in this guy did you notice this big panoramic roof this guy is standard there's no optional cost on that and it's one of the biggest ones in the business you've got a power liftgate also included and that your camera showed you small as it is is also thrown in now the reason that our Subaru is called a 2.5 is because there's a 2.5 I two and a half liter fuel-injected dual overhead cam horizontally opposed four-cylinder Subarus got their whole DNA tied up in this engine and all-wheel drive what's interesting about these boxer motors is they're real flat and they sit real low does wonders for center of gravity I mean basically the metal part of this engine stops way down there so all the weight is kind of here on down the numbers 170 horse Evan t4 foot-pounds of torque it's a fairly torquey mix of those two 0 to 60 for this 3400 pound vehicle happens in 9 seconds nothing to write home about there but the mpg is 24 32 is a nice set of numbers for economy on something this relatively boxy though as I mentioned fairly light but the first thing I noticed about this Subaru is not a good thing I know there's a good motor in there I've driven this one before but this transmission is getting in the way the power response is almost no response at all it's loopy and spooly and elastic and I hate that given the fact that there's no shiftable gate either no sport mode no paddles you are stuck with this kind of disconnected driving behavior it's not good now as I mentioned all Subarus except the BRZ come with symmetric all-wheel-drive it's known for being very balanced for aft and left-right in terms of the weight and the array of the equipment it's also known for being very tough and basic you don't get any weird intrusion of it feeling like an all wheel drive vehicle there's no weird gear whine as I showed you there's no sort of convoluted sort of mode switches you just have that simple X mode button and even that's only when you get in trouble ok now the driver assistance tech that comes out of these two eyesight cameras first of all the lane departure stuff is really spot-on it just hits it just right right as your tire it starts to kiss the painted line it comes on and it beeps and gives you indicator here on the dash the forward collision warning I find it's too touchy though I'm really not close to any car or closing on it that fast and it starts to be bits red light that's a little annoying now what is interesting on this cars I don't think I've seen on any other vehicle is it has a hey stupid wake up function if you're at a red light and the traffic ahead of you starts to move and you don't after about two car lengths it beeps and says car ahead of you has moved telling you to stop looking at your damn phone and start driving again in traffic okay let's price the new 14 forester in this 2.5 I limited trim this is min high in the range and remember all wheel drive is thrown in thirty thousand eight on top of that twenty four hundred bucks will take you seen that style that's for the eyesight package adds in those two cameras that help power adaptive cruise control lane departure warning forward collision warning and they also role in high-intensity discharge headlights it's a pretty good value and it's a nice basket of stuff though note you cannot get blind spot tech on this car all in about thirty three to four what has been a pretty modest revision on the outside but a big change in a lot of the guts