2021 Subaru Crosstrek Review_ Does Sport trim bring more speed_ _ CarGurus.

This week's test drive is the 2021 Subaru Crosstrek. This car has forever earned my respect. I beat the hell out of one of these when I was driving in Iceland a few winters ago. That's a story best told over a few beers, but I'll tell you this right now. Here in New England, nothing short of an avalanche is going to stop a Subaru Crosstrek. It's more rugged than most SUVs and pickup trucks. It's efficient, it's simple, and it's affordable. And because it's a Subaru, the Crosstrek is quirky and it feels like an old car, despite it being brand new. Subscribe to the CarGurus YouTube channel because we've tested four other Crosstrek models, including two from the previous generation. You can watch those reviews and hundreds more when you subscribe or visit CarGurus.com. New for 2021, this very car, the Crosstrek Sport. It's a new trim, and even though the Crosstrek is the same car since 2018 and very similar to the first 2013 model, this little Subie is spicier. Starting with the colors, Horizon Blue Pearl and Plasma Yellow Pearl, they're both brand new for 2021. On the Sport, you get more black plastic cladding. That's been a classic feature since the 1995 Outback. On the Sport, the wheel arches are a little bit higher, so is the bumper treatment, a little more aggressive, more of that black. Dark Gray grille, dark gray 17-inch alloy wheels, mirror caps, and the same color goes for the badging on the tailgate. Come closer. Even better are the interior colors. Look at this neon yellow green on the steering wheel and for the stitching on the two-tone gray seats, the dash, the armrests, gear shifter, and lettering on the seat backs. These seats are covered in Star-Tex. It's a really soft and water repellent material, way better than vinyl or even some leather, and they look expensive. Then there's fake carbon fiber trim just because. I just sat inside the new 21 BMW M3 with this exact looking blue, yellow, and gray combo. Now you can have it in a Subaru for a third of that price. Ground clearance, there's lots of it. Look at how much wheel travel you have on this car. These are really long struts in a little car. That means it's going to be very comfortable and soak up almost any bump that you run into. 8.7 inches of clearance, really robust all-wheel drive system, and very short front and rear overhangs. That means you can clear obstacles that most any truck or SUV can. Five things you need to know about the Subaru Crosstrek. The Crosstrek rides 8.7 inches off the ground. That's higher than the Chevy Tahoe, Ford Explorer, Honda Ridgeline, and many other big SUVs and pickups. For 2021, there's a second engine choice, a 2.5-liter flat-four with more horsepower than the standard 2-liter. Subaru EyeSight gets an upgraded adaptive cruise control, and the whole system is now standard. When you step on the floor mats, you're stepping on recycled soda bottles. Want to know what else is reused? The interior. That looks like it's from 2010. For simplicity, nothing beats a Subaru. Here's why. The visibility. It's perfect. This low shoulder line, large windows, thin pillars. Not easy to accomplish with modern safety standards, and Subaru scores high in crash tests. There's analog gauges and knobs with lots of buttons to adjust important driving features. There's an easy-to-use touchscreen. Overall, great ergonomics and use of space for four people. 21 cubic feet behind the seats and 55 when folded. One of my friends owns a 2017 Outback. He was an engineer on the Blackhawk helicopter. That's an aircraft that hasn't changed much since the 1970s. He also used to own a 2000 Forester that he drove back and forth with a boat trailer across the country. I'm not going to get into that story right here, but his experience with Sikorsky is related to Subaru because they put the no in innovation. Overall, the design isn't much different than a 2010 Legacy, and parts that are Legacy, well, that's what makes a Subaru a Subaru. Like the crank handbrake, a pull tab for the gas tank cover, old-looking gauges and typefaces, this weird secondary display that works like a VCR, toggle switches for the heated seats that remind me of my mom's 1987 Volvo 240 back when I was 10 years old. No rear air vents, not even a power outlet. It's better now, but a few years ago, all the usual conveniences you'd expect in a car, like power seats or map lights, were considered a luxury for Subaru. Performance is also from yesteryear. The standard engine is a two-liter four-cylinder with 152 horsepower and 145 pound-feet of torque. The Sport I'm driving has the Crosstrek's new optional engine for 2021. That's the two-and-a-half-liter flat four with 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque. Even though it says Sport on the back, you can't get the six-speed manual transmission like you can in the other Crosstrek models, and there's nothing sporty about the CVT automatic. Yeah, it's a little lumpy there, but that's a Subaru idle for you. It's really coarse, loud, gritty, all the things you would say about an older four-cylinder engine, and it's unfortunate because it moves. It moves this car pretty well at 30, 40 miles an hour, and then it kind of runs out of steam, which is okay. It's not a speed dimming. It's not the WRX STI. It shouldn't be, but it just doesn't have a smooth, refined character like you'll find in, say, Honda engines. There are two drive modes, though, on this car. They affect the throttle and the transmission mapping. Subaru calls it SI Drive. You can change it with two buttons here on the steering wheel. If you put it in S, it will raise those revs a bit to help you, you know, get to passing better and all that type of stuff, but overall, it's just lacking some of the grunt that you'll have in especially some of the newer turbocharged competitors, and really, I don't really want to know what the base engine feels like because this car is already slow. The handling is soft, and it's kind of sloppy. The Crosstrek is tuned for comfort and off-road trails, and that's where it really excels, especially where there's no pavement or the road is broken up. You can just sail this thing over bumps and feel nothing. It's excellent. It's isolated. It's quiet, but you trade off some handling and some steering feel for that. What I do like, though, is that on some back roads, when it's been wet, you get a lot of leaves on the road. That's a perfect recipe for sliding out. The all-wheel drive system and the stability control are tuned so well that it just keeps me in line, and that's the type of traction and security that you'll get with this car. Just don't push it too hard, and it's going to reward you. So about my Crosstrek experience in Iceland that I mentioned earlier. That was 2014. This was a Subaru-sanctioned trip to try out the last generation Crosstrek, and I gotta say, I came away so impressed by that car's durability. We were driving through 90 mile per hour crosswinds. We were smashing the cars off snowbanks because we couldn't see where we were going. I drove through almost two feet of water, at least that's what it felt like. The water was up to here. The car is not designed for that, but it took every last beating. So these cars are really durable and almost indestructible feeling. It's like the Duracell of cars, really. The Sport includes two new modes for the X-Mode driving system. That is the low-speed off-road mode that you would use on very slippery conditions. It changes the all-wheel drive system. It also puts on hill descent control, so you can have snow or deep snow. Sounds like an 8-bit Nintendo system, right? Oh, max points. That's the auto stop-start system. It's really shaky and it's bad, but the fuel economy that it contributes to is good. 27 city, 34 highway, and 29 combined with a two and a half liter engine. 30 combined with the standard two liter engine. A little bit lower for the manual transmission. This is all pretty good for a lifted, really off-road capable vehicle. Aside from the older design, there is some modern technology underneath. EyeSight driver assists are now standard for 2021. That's forward emergency braking, lane centering, and an updated version of adaptive cruise control that does a better job of semi-automated driving. You can adjust how aggressive the adaptive cruise accelerates. But the problem with EyeSight is that it relies solely on these two cameras. When EyeSight came out in 2012, it was revolutionary. There was no other non-luxury car that offered so many high-tech driver assists at such a low cost. It was amazing. But fast forward eight years, radar sensors are now a lot cheaper. They're more accurate. Subaru doesn't use any forward radar, and that means in poor weather, with anything that obstructs these cameras, or say if the car you're following disappears around a tight turn, EyeSight can lose sight of what's ahead. But in a Subaru, you see things others don't, like birds. The touchscreen has apps for Subaru owners, birding in national parks, going on hikes. Obviously, if you own a Subaru, you're doing these things, aren't you? The Starlink system has a concierge for the nav, restaurant reservations, and it has SOS emergency calling in the event of an accident. Connecting to Subaru Starlink roadside assistance. The 2021 Crosstrek starts at $22,245, making it one of the most affordable new cars with all-wheel drive and so many standard driver assists. My car, the Sport, costs $29,145 with destination, plus an option for blind spot monitoring, moonroof, and the upgraded infotainment. Resale value is superb, and very few cars in this class can outdrive a Subaru when the weather is at its worst. I own an older Volvo, so I get why people gravitate to weirder cars like Subarus. These are very different cars than most new vehicles you'll encounter, yet Subarus are very popular. They're understated, terrific in cold climates, and they never overcomplicate the driving experience. Even with so many outdated parts in the cabin, the Crosstrek has a stellar reputation, and that's not an easy thing to achieve in the car business. For the full review, read it at CarGurus.com and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thanks for watching this video, and we'll see you next time.