Test Drive with Nik Miles – 2023 Subaru Crosstrek

Join Nik Miles as he goes over the ins and outs of the new 2023 Subaru Crosstrek. Nik takes us on a test drive, tells us about all the newest upgrades and how the car feels while driving, and gives us an honest review of the vehicle.

After the video, make sure to check out our selection of Subaru Crosstreks at our dealership in Vancouver.

https://www.dickhannahsubaru.com/new/2023/crosstrek

I’m Nik Miles at Dick Hannah Subaru to check this out, the 2023 Subaru Crosstrek, famous for its torque vectoring and symmetrical all-wheel drive. It has 8.7 inches of ground clearance in this vehicle. We’ll check it out, its exterior, its interior, and how it drives on the road. So, let’s get started.

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Now the great thing about Subaru Crosstrek is you can actually have the car equipped how you want it. You can have it extremely equipped or you can have it very base level all the way up to the top of the line with things like power seats and a big engine. Or, you can have it base, with manual everything including transmission and a smaller two-liter engine. And so, you can get it in the completely simplest form or the most complex form. And that means you can get it inexpensive or completely loaded in the sort of luxury performance end of Subaru. And I like that, which means that you can get it just the way you want it. And very rarely do you get vehicles where you can get a manual transmission in this kind of configuration. It comes with that standard all-wheel drive, symmetrical all-wheel drive, and this version actually has the X-Mode in it which is great.

There are certain things that Subaru will not actually give away. And that, of course, is the symmetrical all-wheel drive and of course, it’s vectoring. They want it to be safe. The number one safety feature that Subaru always offer is the ability to see out of the vehicle. Their engineers always want you to be able to see everything as much as possible, so their visuals are the number one thing. They make the A-pillars as small and thin as possible so you can actually see everything when you’re sitting in the driver’s position. That’s paramount to them. The visuals are the number one safety feature in their vehicle and everything else comes after that. Safety features include seven airbags in this vehicle.

Now let’s talk about engines. There is a two-liter engine and a 2.5-liter engine in this vehicle. Apart from the six-speed manual transmission then there is a CVT transmission, and they have that mostly to get better fuel economy out of this vehicle. Now, this is the two-liter that we’re driving. The two-liter engine outputs 152 horsepower which is quite adequate. If you go to the 2.5 you can get a better horsepower out of it, going up to 182 horsepower which is a little more zip, and a little more power. But I’m quite happy getting the 2-liter engine with the lesser horsepower. It’s perfect for this size of vehicle with five passengers in it. And as you can see, pulling away from a light, no trouble whatsoever. Want to put your foot down with this two-liter I’m having no problem getting away from the light. It’s a little high revs if you put your foot down, but it speeds away to 60 miles an hour just like that, with no problems whatsoever. Nice, smooth, ride. The 8.7 inches of ground clearance with the independent suspension, is nice and comfortable, few bumps in this road, not really feeling it very much. The brakes, nice and smooth, slow down very quickly, didn’t feel any lurching forward or backward, and the steering was very precise, not jerky, and very good travel of the steering wheel. Puts you in the right lane at the right time. Came to a stop, nice and smooth, so a good function for a vehicle of this size. A nice, smooth ride and good steering. I would give it an A plus in all of those departments.

Now, let’s talk interior, very straightforward. Subaru has given it some nice touches, a nice fit and finish, and soft surfaces. It also has a nice double-stitching, and some faux carbon fiber looks to the inside as well. Multiple materials, multiple finishes on the inside, nice layout, even the upper screen which displays time and temperature, and miles per gallon has a nice hood on the top of it, so it’s shaded from the sun. You have three different screens visible to the driver; infotainment, you have your information display, and then your gauges, regular traditional gauges, and then a thin TFT in the middle with your information that can be selected by the driver.

Let’s talk about your infotainment and information here. As far as your tech Apple Carplay, Android Auto, touch screen, and selectable information here. You can decide what your apps are, and what information you get on the inside here. Of course, you have the EyeSight system that gives you all of the information that you need. Driver assistance systems here, and then your Starlink entertainment system. It gives you all of the stuff that you need as far as stereo. You can upgrade to a higher stereo if you want to. 6.5-inch standard screen, eight inch in the upper trim levels. So perfectly adequate for everything you need on the interior.

Subaru seems to do a really good job with their vehicles and putting a lot of good cladding on so when you do some sort of mild off-roading on forest roads, they always seem to have these sorts of low pieces of cladding here. As you can see at the bottom where this air intake is here, they have this piece of cladding at the bottom. We come up, the grille is surrounded with the paint color, and then they have this sort of mottled, almost like carbon fiber look around the grille. A piece of silver here at the bottom of the grille and then the big Subaru logo here and they have the stars here symbolizing inside the logo all the Subaru companies that come together as one company as well. Now the grille of course comes up here to the hood opening, nice sort of shape at the edge of the hood, and it comes into the lights here. These are of course incandescent lights, the blinkers are on the edge, and there are fog lights here at the bottom.

Let’s go around to the side here. Of course, then you start your fender. And then we talked about that cladding here, it sort of comes around the bottom of the bumper here, and then there’s more cladding around these 17-inch black wheels. And of course, they have a nice silver portion to the edge of the wheels here with the Subaru logo right in the middle of the wheels, and that’s kind of nice too as well. You see that tends to be only on luxury cars having the logo there in the center of the wheel as well. Cladding along the bottom of the vehicle as well. Black on the bottom of the mirrors but they have the body color. And then the window surrounds in black. Roof rails, of course, that’s nice to have roof rails because of course being an adventure-style vehicle. Subaru, of course, has all-wheel drive. You want to take it on that forest road. You can put your kayaks on top as well of that vehicle.

Coming around the back here, of course, the same wheels, front, back. Cladding around the back wheels and then the bumper starts here at the base of the cladding that comes off of the back wheels. And then the cladding has the reflectors and lights here at the back. And then, of course, the bottom here. We talked about pets getting in and out of the trunk here. Well, they put a piece of cladding on the back here, so the pets don’t scratch it up or you don’t scratch it up with luggage and stuff when you get in and out.

And then let’s talk about the trunk here. So, good height for lifting stuff in and out. If you have the back seats up here in the back, you get about 20 cubic feet here for luggage. Put those down it goes to somewhere around 55 cubic feet. In my math, that’s about 19 carry-on bags that you could put in the back. If you’re going on vacation with five people, you won’t need 19. Two people if you need 19, I’d like to see what you’re taking on vacation with you. But you could get with all the seats folded down 19 carry-ons here in the back. That’s quite a lot of space in the back of this 2023 Crosstrek.

Plenty of room here in the back for three passengers, two cups in each door, plus in the upper trim levels you can also get a sunroof. You’ll find about 36 plus inches of legroom here and also speakers in the back so those in the back can enjoy music.

If you’d like to put a 2023 Subaru Crosstrek in your driveway there are three ways to contact Dick Hannah Subaru. You can pick up the phone, you can come right here and test drive it, or you can check them out on the web.