Crosstrek Wilderness Reviewed

Welcome to The Wilderness

Close your eyes and imagine a vehicle that combines the playful spirit of a classic, scrappy, off-roader with the solidity and comfort of a modern-day SUV.

Open your eyes, it's the Crosstrek Wilderness.

This isn't another commodity crossover, nor is it a suburbi-tank; it's purposeful, honest, and fits in a parking space.

The Crosstrek Wilderness is a perfect compromise, it's able to preserve the charm and capability of small, lightweight offroaders while keeping its road manners intact. It won't be the biggest or baddest on the trail, but its small footprint, charming personality, and impressive capability are sure to keep you smiling.

Crosstrek vs. Competitors 

During our testing, it successfully tackled challenging steep climbs and uneven slopes where 2 or more wheels had a significant loss of traction. The capability of the car was never a concern. The Wilderness trim boasts 9.3" of ground clearance, a 20-degree approach angle, and 33 degrees of departure. Additionally, it comes standard with hill descent control and dual-function X-Mode with the added Deep Snow & Sand functionality. This system lacks the mechanical limited-slip diffs found in the GKN-equipped Bronco Sport or the Honda Passport with i-VTM4. However, even with open diffs Subaru's Traction Control software is so good it's almost magic.

Unfortunately, one drawback of the Impreza underpinnings is it lacks the low-range gear ratios found in serious off-roaders like the Ford Bronco or Jeep Wrangler. It does, however, include a reduced final drive when compared to the regular trim Crosstreks, which allows the Wilderness to crawl slower, launch quicker, and use only slightly more fuel.

Despite the shorter final drive ratio, the fuel economy is impressive for what it is, but on par for the segment; offering high 20s across the board, which for something with off-road tires, cladding, AWD, and a lift feels like miracle work.

It's got the angles and cladding to go places, and some powertrain mods to make sure you get there.

Interior, Creature Comforts, and tech.

The interior includes durable, yet supple upholstery, copper accents, and a somewhat invasive touchscreen interface. The car's hatchback configuration and folding rear seats make it surprisingly practical for its size. I was able to sit comfortably behind myself at 6 foot 3", with good headroom and tight but acceptable knee room. If I can fit, a regular-size person should have no trouble. Absent is rear seat heating, which would be a nice feature in Canada, but given the price we think it's a fair trade. An optional comfort & convenience package gives you some extra features like a power sunroof and a Harman Kardon sound system. We would vouch for the sound system but the sunroof lets a little extra wind noise into the cabin. Nothing the cover can't fix to be fair.

The overall fit and finish are excellent, we pushed and prodded at every surface we could find, and the car remained dead silent with not a creak or rattle to be heard.

A "feature" I enjoyed was that everything looked like what it was. If it looked soft, it was soft, if it looked durable it probably was, if it looked like carbon fibre, it wasn't, but it felt like it!

The steering wheel is small, comfortable, and has a pretty quick ratio thanks to it being a hatchback in disguise. The large central infotainment is bright, colourful, and high resolution but lacks some polish. From a visual standpoint, the screen appears far more upscale and modern when compared to the hard buttons in prior models. However, as far as usability goes, as much as it looks like a big phone in the dash, it's not. Swipes, taps, and touches need to be fairly deliberate, especially when the vehicle first starts. Give it 30-45 seconds depending on the climate and the lag mostly goes away. Luckily your fan controls and some other programmable shortcuts remain permanently displayed. There are physical temperature buttons, but they got the piano gloss black treatment... brutal.

Overall the interior is well-thought-out and an ergonomically sensible place to be, especially given the price and off-road credibility. The seats and trim look like they could be power washed, but don't feel like they came out of a child's Power-Wheels. The seats, door cards, and centre console are soft, appealing to look at, feel solid, and should hold up to an outrageous amount of abuse.

The only issue I seem to have is the touchscreen, It's just too big and feels out of place in an adventure vehicle, where I should add, you are likely to wear gloves!

Powertrain

If you consider yourself an enthusiast, the powertrain in this little terror isn't going to set your pants on fire.

If you do lots of city and trail driving, you'll never think about it. If highway pulls or Baja is your scene, you're going to wish it had a turbo.

The Wilderness comes with the larger 2.5L boxer motor, providing 182hp & 178lb-ft of torque, which is up 30hp & 33lb-ft over the standard engine in a non-wilderness trim.

You get a little more power and body cladding, but what else?

You get an oil-based transmission cooler for increased thermal load when offroading, crawling, or high-stress creeping. You also get Subaru's famous full-time symmetrical AWD, in addition to dual-mode X-mode. This is absolutely one of the best brake-based torque vectoring AWD systems on the market. Last but not least you get a 4.1 final drive as opposed to the 3.7 in non-Wilderness trims.

The shorter final drive in the wilderness combined with the extra ponies and full-time AWD make it feel zippy and true to character. It's already effectively a lifted Impreza hatch, the wilderness just gives you more of a good thing.

Controversial Take

When I think about the number one complaint with CVT transmissions, it's always the drone. The reason they drone is to keep the engine at a constant RPM to maintain consistent power output. An incredibly popular vehicle genre that makes full use of this effect is the side-by-side. A CVT's ability to keep an engine at maximum output makes a great deal of sense for off-road ripping. It's strange to compare a crossover to a dedicated shredding machine, but it makes the Subaru's transmission sound more desirable.

In our experience, the CVT is far less intrusive than other journalists make it seem. I would argue that a good CVT is more enjoyable to daily drive than a herky-jerky and poorly tuned automatic. Under most throttle applications the CVT brings the engine speed up as necessary, occasionally simulating a shift under medium load, and then smoothly bringing the revs back down.

Unless the vehicle is FLOORED, the powertrain remains at a leisurely rumble.