Is Subaru’s Smallest CUV Ready for a Road Trip?
Published Oct 08, 2023 • Last updated 7 hours ago • 6 minute read
Photo by Clayton Seams
Go to any trailhead in Canada on a weekend and you’re guaranteed to find at least one Subaru Crosstrek parked there.
Make the journey up north of the grid of Toronto and the Crosstreks are thick as gnats buzzing around all the popular adventure-tourism destinations of Canada. You’ll see some lifted ones, some with parks stickers on the back, and most of them with roof racks carrying bikes, kayaks or skis. There’s clearly something about this little CUV that the Clif bar set really like.
What does it offer that competitors don’t? Sure, on paper it’s an affordable compact CUV with AWD, just like roughly a dozen others available for sale today. But there’s just something unique about the Crosstrek that others don’t seem to have. Maybe it’s the car-like roofline, the useful ground-clearance, or the actual off-road capability.
I’ve always been intrigued by this little CUV and I wanted to give it a proper test. I drove the all-new 2024 Crosstrek for 3,000 km on a Canadian road trip along the northern coast of Lake Superior from Toronto to Thunder Bay, Ontario. Along the way I visited five provincial parks and drove 700 km on gravel roads.
What’s new with the Subaru Crosstrek for 2024?
The Crosstrek is all new for 2024 and aside from the updated (and in my opinion, rather attractive) styling, there is a lot new under the skin. For 2024 we wave goodbye to the manual transmission option and the Crosstrek is available only with a CVT automatic. The other big news is that the more powerful 2.5L engine is now standard on all trims except the base “Convenience” which gets the 2.0L. The 2.0L makes just 152 hp while the 2.5 makes a much more sufficient 182. The base Convenience trim will run you $31,511 and our test car is a top-trim Limited which starts at $39,511.
Inside, all models — except the base Convenience — get a new 11.6” tablet-style centre touchscreen but only the top Limited trim gets built-in GPS navigation. (Base models make do with a 7” touchscreen.) The Limited also gets a 10-speaker Harman Kardon premium audio system, contrasting orange stitching on the seats and 18” wheels. The Limited is also the only trim to receive a power-adjustable seat. One power-adjustable seat! Competitors offer dual power front seats and even memory seats on top-trim versions. With all the switching of drivers back and forth across our trip, the lack of a memory seating function was dearly missed.
Is Subaru’s Smallest CUV Road Trip Ready?
I did the trip with my mom, and a full write-up focusing more on the actual trip and our adventures — as opposed to mainly the car itself, which is what you’ll find in this post — will be on Driving.ca in the coming weeks. With such a long trip from Toronto to Thunder Bay and back, we had more than the usual amount of time to learn about the car and what it’s like to live with. Especially how it handles a road trip!
The first thing I noticed while driving the new Crosstrek is the reason why I think so many people like and buy them: The ride quality is superb. It didn’t seem to matter how rough the going got, the Crosstrek handled bumps without issue. This is especially impressive considering that our tester was equipped with larger 18” wheels than the other models in the lineup which use 17s. In fact, during our trip, the RCMP closed a massive (and very remote) stretch of the Trans Canada highway in both directions between White River and Mobert to investigate and clear a fatal crash. With talk that the road could be closed overnight, we decided to detour 700 km around it which forced us onto no less than 100 km of unmaintained gravel roads. Though our Crosstrek acquired an unbelievably thick coat of gravel dust, we made the drive in total comfort. The suspension smoothness on or off road really must be commended as best in class. If the roads are bad in your area, test drive one of these.
However, not every area of the Crosstrek is imbued with such grace. For example, the fuel-saving engine start/stop function is one of the roughest I have sampled. Perhaps a quirk of the boxer engine layout. The throttle pedal for said boxer is also very sensitive. It feels like 50 per cent of throttle happens in the first 10 per cent of pedal travel. It means that driving the Crosstrek smoothly at low speeds requires patience and delicate inputs. Two and a half litres is pretty large for a four-cylinder and there are noticeable engine vibrations present in pretty much all driving situations.
How Fuel Efficient is the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek?
When climbing those hills we’d see a corresponding dip in fuel economy as you’d expect. Loaded heavily with two people and lots of outdoor gear, our Crosstrek averaged 7.0 L/100 km in real-world highway conditions. When the going took us up and over hills, that economy dropped to 7.3 L/100 km. Our best observed fuel mileage of the trip was a stint where we achieved 6.8 L/100 km.
Subaru Crosstrek Interior Features
Across our 3,000 km with the Crosstrek, it became our living room, storage area, and occasional kitchen. We got to know the inside of the ‘24 Crosstrek pretty well! I liked the contracting orange stitching throughout the interior of our Limited tester. All of the primary interior touchpoints had a quality feel to them and rests for your elbows were nicely padded. An electronic e-brake frees up space on the centre console for two deep cupholders but I found them to be too small for insulated water bottles or mugs. The 12V power port (a cigarette lighter in ye olden days) is awkwardly located near the base of the console. It meant that our charge wire had to run through the cabin to our suction-mounted GPS system. The Crosstrek has built-in navigation but it doesn’t interface well with CarPlay so I…
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