The new 2010 Subaru Outback is an impressive combination of utility and efficiency. But what makes it so efficient is also what makes it rather annoying to me: its continuously variable transmission.
I recently spent four days with my family in the Outback on a 1,200 mile trip from our home in Connecticut to Niagara Falls and back. (It was beautiful and we had a great time. Thanks for asking!) We invited my mother along for the trip, since she has never seen the falls. At 5 ft. 10, she is a tall woman, and would be relegated to the back seat with our pre-teen daughter for most if not all of the trip.
First the good news: Mom really appreciated the extra 4 inches of leg room in the back. I own an older Legacy GT wagon (the same body as the Outback without the extra ground clearance) and know from experience she would not have been happy in the back seat of my car even for a much shorter trip. The cargo area swallowed all our luggage, plus the inevitable souvenirs with everything below the window level. If I had taken my Legacy wagon, I was considering installing a cargo box. Plus the new car was much quieter than my old one, especially with the engine turning a mere 2400 rpm at about 70. Finally, and best of all, even with all this added space, and driving pretty quickly, we got 28 mpg on the trip.
Now the bad news: while our four-cylinder Outback Limited is fast enough, when you push it hard, the CVT spins up the engine and leaves it hanging at high rpm until you let off the gas. And the Subaru boxer isn't happy or pleasant at high revs. It's coarse and loud. And every twitch of your right foot immediately and loudly announces your speedy intentions to your passengers and other drivers. In the old car, with stepped gears in either the automatic or manual transmission, the engine's noise wasn't so objectionable, because it didn't stay revved up as long. This is not damning the Outback in particular. As with many CVT equipped four-cylinder cars, they work well in a relaxed, leisurely drive but can be grating. More so given how quiet and refined the rest of the car is.
So the Outback presents a dilemma: Should you like it for its efficient utility and overall refinement? Or be annoyed by the accentuated engine noise due to the CVT? In the end it's a personal choice. 90 or 95 percent of the time, the Outback is great--except when merging or climbing a hill. For me, that's not enough to write off the Outback. But it's enough to make me consider paying the penalty in price and fuel economy to step up to the six-cylinder and its "normal" five-speed automatic.
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Eric Evarts
