Sunday Drive: Subaru Forester X Sport

Sunday, 31 January 2021

Top Medium SUV: Subaru Forester

SUBARU FORESTER X SPORT
Base price: $47,490
Powertrain and economy: 2.5-litre turbo-petrol flat four, 136kW/239Nm, CVT automatic, AWD, combined economy 7.4L/100km, CO2 170g/km (source: RightCar).

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is just another Forester. But you’d be missing the orange accents.

Vital statistics: 4625mm long, 1815mm wide, 1730mm high, 2670mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 498 litres, 18-inch alloy wheels.
Safety: Five stars (ANCAP, tested 2019)
At a glance: Still a Forester so capable on and off-road, high level of kit for the price.
Who should consider it: People who want a capable, family-friendly SUV and really want water-repellent seats and orange plastic highlights.

Subaru has given the Forester medium SUV a small spicing up for the new year, coming in the form of the new X Sport model.

ON THE OUTSIDE

X Sport gets mainly visual tweaks, with orange being the main theme. There are orange trim inserts and orange detailing around the front splitter, side skirts, diffuser and roof racks. Key takeaway – Subaru likes orange.

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Those water-repellent seats are in the rear too, and the material is used again in the door.

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It’s still a Forester so excellent off-road capabilities are a given.

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Honestly, the orange plastics are a bit much.

It also likes black, with new 18-inch black wheels, black surrounds on the low-mounted fog lights and headlight bezels and a black grille.

ON THE INSIDE

The main addition here is water-repellent upholstery, like what’s found on the Outback X. Not totally waterproof, mind, just repellent. Other additional features over the standard Sport include collision-detection, automatic door unlocking, an 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system, a powered tailgate and a range-wide (excluding hybrids) towing capacity bump from 1500kg to 1800kg.

There’s more orange too, in the stitching, button illumination and in the bezels around the air-conditioning vents

UNDER THE BONNET

Nothing to report here – the X Sport isn’t really “sportier” than any other Forester (except maybe the Hybrid). It uses the same 2.5-litre flat four and CVT transmission pair as the other non-hybrid Foresters, making 136kW/239Nm.

It’s not powerful but it is impressively frugal, with a claimed fuel consumption rate of 7.4L/100km.

ON THE ROAD

Surprise – it’s still a Forester. That means a supremely sorted ride on pretty much any sort of surface you might encounter, enough pep in the 2.5-litre flat four to get into that gap in traffic that suddenly looked a bit smaller than you thought and plenty of tech to make the journey as comfy and easy as possible.

All-wheel drive is still standard fare (this is a Subaru, after all) and while the CVT transmission does sap some of the fun, Subaru's ‘box is really one of the best. Sharp on the downshifts when you need more power and quick to reach for higher ratios to keep fuel usage down. Subaru’s SI-Drive is also included to help encourage things as needed.

All Foresters have X Mode to aid off-road capabilities. This alters engine output, throttle and transmission mapping, torque distribution and braking to make the vehicle more capable for light off-roading.

On tarmac, I can happily affirm that the X Sport additions haven’t changed the drive in any meaningful way, and it remains a pleasantly composed and supremely confident thing on the open road.

As mentioned, the CVT is as good as it gets here and AWD inspires plenty of confidence, while the standard EyeSight kit allows for adaptive cruise control with lane-keep assist.

Speaking of EyeSight; while it is very good, it’s one of the most vocal driver assistance set-ups on the market and not in a good way. It’ll beep when you wander from lane, including going into a flush median to avoid a parked car and it watches your face too, ready to sound off if it thinks you’re not watching the road. Great ideas in principle, rather annoying in practise.

The “keep your eyes on the road” message on the dash is naggy and it happens all too often if you wear sunglasses or even hold your head in an unusual way.

If I’m honest, I’m not a big fan of the orange trim. The bits around the exterior look okay, but the plastic surrounds on the vents and gear shifter feel a bit cheap. Could do without the tangerine stitching too.

The seats also reminded me of the weird mesh netting that lined children’s swimming togs back in the 1990s. Or do they still put that in togs now? Maybe they even did that before the ‘90s. Ah, I’m sure someone will tell me…

Either way, I’m personally not on board. I do like the water-repellent nature of the seats and if I had kids or used my vehicle for rougher stuff, it would certainly be appreciated.

VERDICT

Right, after all that, should you buy one?

At $47,490 the X Sport is priced right between the 2.5 Sport ($42,490) and the 2.5 Premium ($49,990), while also nicely splitting them on equipment and specification.

For the extra $5k asked over the standard Sport you do get a good amount of extra kit, including quite a bit of equipment from the Premium (the bigger infotainment screen, sat nav, folding door mirrors, bigger alloys, the power tailgate, power front seats and the driver monitoring system), which makes it a pretty sharp deal, but you have to wonder if you are not better stretching the extra $2k to jump to the Premium.

I guess a lot will depend on your attitude towards orange, really.