The Subaru Crosstrek has always excelled at the kind of off-road usage that gets owners to their outdoor pursuits. The extra point for its ability to scrabble up rough trails is offset by one point lost for the slow base engine—though this year it doesn’t feel as slow. It’s a perfectly average 5.
Yes: all-wheel drive, all the time, with 8.7 inches of ground clearance but a lower center of gravity than competitors due to its flat-4 engine. It’s easy to toss around mountain roads and corners given its height.
The Crosstrek’s steering wheel tends to wander over the road crown, but that’s helpful when it goes off-road. Deeper in the woods, the X-Mode off-road function with the CVT comes with hill descent control that manages speed so the driver can focus on obstacles. Under speeds of 18 mph, X-Mode cuts throttle response to deliver torque more evenly and lock the slipping wheel. The Sport grade adds a Deep Snow/Mud function that essentially shuts off the traction control to permit wheel slip in a lower gear ratio that modulates torque so it can grunt its way out of sticky situations.
How capable is the Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness?
The Wilderness grade takes the path less traveled even more seriously, with the CVT tuned for better low-speed traction, more ground clearance, increased approach and departure angles, and longer coil springs with longer compression strokes. The approach angle increases from 18 to 20 degrees, the departure angle increases from 30.1 to 33 degrees, and the breakover angle moves up to 21.1 degrees from 19.7 degrees. The 17-inch wheels are wrapped in Geolandar all-terrain tires. A transmission cooler and more powerful radiator fan manage excess heat and boost the tow rating from 1,500 to 3,500 pounds. It’s overall more capable for more adventuresome off-roading, but the taller ride height and all-terrain tires can make it a little less refined on the road.
How fast is the Subaru Crosstrek?
The 152-horsepower, 2.0-liter flat-4 engine powering the base and Premium models is rated at 145 lb-ft of torque. Subaru says that while the (unspecified) acceleration figures remain about the same, the car feels subjectively less slow than the last model, but we still put it above nine seconds from 0 to 60 mph for the 2.0 model. It’s good enough for a 3,300-pound vehicle, but hardly a speed demon.
The 2.5-liter in Sport and Premium grades suits our tastes better. It makes 182 hp and 178 lb-ft, and gives the Crosstrek more guts. It won’t catch your breath off the line, with a 0-60 mph time in the mid-seven-second range, but passing power is plentiful and there’s none of the pokiness at speed as in the 2.0 liter. The added bonus is it’s equally as quiet as the 2.0-liter, which has been one of the Crosstrek’s bugaboos.
Its continuously variable transmission (CVT) drives all four wheels. The engineers stiffened the case of the CVT, mounted seats directly to the floorpan, added carefully designed sound deadening under the roof and elsewhere, and took a variety of other steps to reduce the volume of sound under hard acceleration. The result is a Crosstrek that doesn’t feel as desperate and overstressed while accelerating not much faster than it used to.
A stiffer chassis let engineers soften the spring rates of the 2024 Crosstrek, and the ride is indeed softer—almost to the edge of too soft for a Subaru, perhaps. On certain irregular road surfaces, we experienced a bit of “jiggle” as the springs softened wheel movements and the cabin moved gently as a result. It only cropped up on certain roads, though, and overall the new Crosstrek is far more refined than its predecessors.
