The CVT really does a pretty good job of impersonating a dual-clutch transmission. The continuously variable transmission is neither droning nor artificial in most scenarios. The boxer turbo has been smoothed out in terms of power delivery and makes good use of its very broad torque curve to provide a kind of effortless, drama-free pull from most any speed. Our second run-in with the XT proved out Zach Bowman's thoughts in hisįirst Drive feature this past January. In terms of the performance part, we're nearly onboard. What Subaru hopes is that this top-end XT can offer more excitement than the most tricked-out of its mainstream competition, along with nearly as many features as the middle-luxury models that hover just above it. The price really threw you there, didn't it? The price really threw you there, didn't it? We'll admit that our default mental pricing of a Forester still hovers somewhere in the mid-$20k range – the XT's sticker threw us for a loop, too. Combined with a light-for-the class curb weight of around 3,600 pounds and Subaru's grippy all-wheel-drive system, the XT feels pretty quick in town and on the freeway.Īdd all of that up, and you've got a strong-performing, content-laden crossover, all for the sum of just $36,220 as tested. Subaru's turbocharged, direct-injection 2.0-liter boxer four-cylinder lay under the hood, ready to pump out some 250 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque at the flex of an ankle. Subaru's EyeSight system (adaptive cruise, lane departure warning and pre-collisionĪnd, of course, because of the XT trim, we knew that we were getting one of the most powerful crossovers in this segment, too. In fact, our Forester also had the only option package available on the XT Touring one that included keyless access, HID headlights and The top of the line Touring trim means that the Forester comes with features like 10-way power seats, leather, navigation, a Harmon Kardon sound system with HD radio, Bluetooth and more. In many ways, the comparative analysis gets most interesting when you start looking around forĬUVs to match up with the all-boxes-tickedįorester XT Touring that we had as a tester for a recent week. Here in 2013, the V6 breed ofĬrossover in this size class is all but extinct, and turbocharged four-cylinders with the power to compete with the XT are not thick on the ground. The XT might have been more of a raucous shopping-trip companion than, say, aįord Escape V6, but the basics of the cars offered a clear differentiation from the naturally aspirated, four-cylinder models found just a bit downmarket. Forester XT model to US customers for the 2004 model year, the shoe-shaped second-gen model fell into a ready-made competitive set of small, V6-poweredĬrossovers and SUVs.
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