Getting the car was an ordeal because my parents did not decide to pull the trigger on the new purchase until late in the 2014 model year, 2015s were already being delivered to Subaru dealerships, and so with the help of Danielle at Hodges Subaru (who apparently no longer works there) I was able to gain access to the dealer list and scour over the 14, yes, only 14, Subaru Outback 2.5i Premiums left in the US to find one that met my parents' desired color choice. I ended up arranging for purchase through a dealership in Vermont and took a nice long trip to retrieve their car there. So that was the past, and now the car is going on 2 years.
Onto how the car actually drives.
The leading characteristic of driving this vehicle is pitch and yaw. Pretty well all turns lead to body roll and rather significant amounts of it. Braking leads to the nose diving. I am not a fan of the spring rating on this vehicle. You do feel bumps in the road though they are severely muted. Things that would be bumpy or jarring in other cars are absorbed fairly well between the suspension and large tires with big sidewalls, this is still on original equipment tires which are Continental ProContact GX P225/60R17.
If you do take a corner or on/off ramp at speed you will find ample body roll and a fair amount of understeer. But the car still feels like it is in contact with the road at all four wheels and the body roll does not give the feel of a car that is about to roll, unlike when I test drove a 2014 Subaru Forester and found it a harrowing experience. I appreciated this.
From a dead stop I had to turn the steering wheel a bit over 180 degrees. While moving at low speeds, 5-20 MPH, it took a bit over 90 degrees. When at lock on the steering wheel for parking lot and parking maneuvers I hear a bit of clunky and get weird feel seemingly from the front suspension. I do not know what this is about.One nice feature about this car is that the steering wheel has no real dead zone in it. If you turn the wheel even a little bit the car changes direction.
Both my parents wish they could get an Outback similar to their old 2000 Subaru Outback (Harmony) which currently is suffering 16+ year old Midwest car issues in the form of higher maintenance costs due to mechanical failures and body rust. The Midwest is noted for being terrible for cars and rust due to the salting of the roads during the winter. Both feel that the older Outback drove better, felt smaller, has less body roll, and was more responsive. My mother feels like she more readily feels motion sick in the newer Outback.
This being a 2014 Subaru Outback and last of the fifth generation has what feels like a dated interior. The climate controls only include four fan speeds and there is no automatic climate control, dual zone or otherwise. As opposed to my 2014 Subaru BRZ Limited which has 7 fan settings (each progressively increasing) this Outback only has 4. And we all feel that you have a choice between inadequate airflow and quiet or adequate airflow and noise but nothing in between. Basically it needs a setting between 2 and 3 on the fan speed.
Also it would be wonderful if Subaru of America would take not on this: my parents would have loved, and would be willing to, pay more for a car with dual zone automatic climate control and a manual transmission. It makes road tripping with people who have different temperature preferences, or even errand running, so much more enjoyable for both occupants of the vehicle. Please open this option from Limited trim levels only or allow a Limited trim vehicle be purchased with a manual transmission (as is available for the BRZ, WRX, and WRX STI) for the whole product line.
The stereo unit is also frustrating. For a "Premium" it is pretty bland. More so it is frustrating in the the only way to connect a phone via Bluetooth is to use the voice command options. There is no setup menu for Bluetooth on the audio system head unit even though there is a setup screen for things like the audio balance, equalizer settings, and screen brightness. None of us are certain why they made the Bluetooth phone connection setup this inconvenient.
Regarding headlights I am a big fan of HID projectors or LED units due to their excellent light yield and increased driver visibility and safety. This being a non-Limited Subaru it only came with halogen projectors. Again, Subaru will allow you to get HID / LED lighting on many of the Limited models across the product line but if you want a manual transmission you are relegated to the lower output and less safe halogen options because no upgraded headlights are available without a CVT transmission (not true for the BRZ and I think WRX STI and maybe the WRX, not sure on the WRX). But again, take our money and give us the car we want rather than a second class car because you did not select a CVT.
To me the steering wheel feels hard and bigger than I would like. The audio controls on the steering wheel are a convenient feature.
Overall the gauge cluster is rather plain but functional.
My parents do not like leather and so elected to have the STI Duracon Shift Knob over the stock metal and leather shift knob. My problem with this is that the Duracon knob is made of a lightweight plastic and to me the lightened weight makes the overall shifting action not feel as smooth as it could.
The front seating position is high, upright, and very truck or SUV like compared to the more car like seating position of the 2000 Outback which seated more like a car. Even with the driver's seat bottomed out the seating position and ride height of the car is very high and SUV like and I find this very uncomfortable. And while the driver's seat is very adjustable I feel like it was designed for a person much bigger than me and that it does not hold or hug me well.
Getting in and out of the driver seat was a lot more of a step down than I would have liked, and more of a step up as well. Considering that most of these will be driving around suburbia and not off road trails they could afford to lose some of this height. This would likely help with some of the ride height issues and handling.
The visibility out the rear is not particularly good especially when parked next to a similarly sized or larger vehicle in a parking lot and backing out of a spot. Also the rear end hangs out a ways over the rear wheels so you have a lot of the tail out into parking lot traffic before you can really see what is going on. I am not a fan of this car when parking. I find cave like cars disconcerting for parking maneuvers.
The 2014 Subaru Outback 2.5i Premium came with the FB25B engine. Displacement is 2,498 cc. It is DOHC. Bore is 94 mm and stroke is 90 mm with a compression ratio of 10.0:1. Peak power is 170 bhp delivered at 5,800 RPM, while peak torque is 174 lb·ft delivered at 4,100 RPM.
I talked to my parents some about their ownership experience regarding this Outback. It comes back as mixed. They have had no major maintenance issues and estimate they burn about 1 quart of oil every 5,000 miles using Subaru's synthetic 0W20 from dealership oil changes. Before their first oil change the oil light did come on and they had to add oil, more on this below. Their usual MPG is around 26-27 city mixed driving and 28-30 MPG on highway driving. So all in all the maintenance has been decent.
The car has a six speed manual and the gears are quite tall. I find the engine is comfortable cruising above 1800 RPM but if you let it dip to 1400 RPM the engine starts to lug. Around town in say 35-40 MPH situations I found 4th gear best. 40-45 MPH I would considering 5th gear. I probably would not shift to 6th gear unless cruising at a constant velocity and at least somewhere between 60 and 65 MPH or higher. Also if you are accelerating you really should down shift as gears 5 and 6 are truly overdrive cruising gears and the engine lacks grunt at cruising RPMs. It is best for the engine and transmission to downshift to 4th gear for any highway overtaking.
None of the three pedals give a lot of feel. The clutch is super soft and the engagement point seems pretty low. The brake pedal is neither firm nor is it soft but I was more occupied by the nose dive than the actual brake feel when braking. The gas pedal is interesting. Whereas I normally feed my BRZ very little throttle to blip the engine speed for rev matching on downshifts I found that this car needed a significantly deeper blip. I would not call this car non-responsive though, more so it seemed like there was an initial dead zone on the gas pedal. This seemed really odd considering that the steering wheel did not have any play in it around center but the gas pedal appeared to have a slight dead zone.
The hill assist feature is nice and allows for lazier clutch work when starting on an incline.
The electronic parking brake is not something I am a fan of. I prefer a brake lever. When learning to drive on my learners permit my dad would have me do a hard right or left in a relatively empty and icy parking lot at 20-30 MPH and yank the parking brake on me mid turn so that I would get a feel for a skid or slide (back before transaction control on any of our cars) and say: "Don't hit anything." This was a great learning experience, possibly slightly abusive to the drive line of the car or at least the brakes, but something that he could not surprise me with in this newer vehicle with an electronic parking brake only accessibly by the driver.
If you have read this far you might think the whole experience was negative, which is not true.
The rear seats fit full grown adults behind full grown adult driver and passenger. The seats are squishy and comfortable and can be tilted back. This feature would have been wonderful when I was a teenager and we were doing family road trips in the 2000 Outback.
Seat heaters on the front two seats appear to extend higher toward the lower and mid back than they do in my BRZ and provide a better heating area.
If you need the cargo space you have an a lot of it.
The suspension absorbs bumps pretty well and this hill assist feature is a nice plus.
To me though the Subaru Outback of the second through fourth generations are really my favorites spanning 1994 to 2014 with the third and fourth generation being the best, though finding a used one in good working order with not rust is probably not an easy hunt.
While the older Outback and Legacy wagons were well sized cars they drove and felt more alive, at least to me, then their size and shape would indicate. They were good to drive. They drove significantly better than their dimensions indicated they should. They handled like they were something smaller and lighter than they actually were.
The newer Outbacks are bigger, taller, and visually look like much larger / chunkier vehicles than their predecessors. The reality is that while length has only changed by 2 inches and the newer models are 5 inches wider the height has been increased by 6 inches as well. These drive and handle like something as big or bigger than they are and heavier.
Some of these issues might be resolved if Subaru made the Levorg available in the US, which is basically a Legacy wagon with more car like than SUV like suspension. Though it would be preferred this was made available with a manual transmission. Another option would be the Subaru Legacy Touring Wagon.
As usual with Subaru, and as seems to be becoming a trope for me, the options availability for manual transmissions (not including BRZ and WRX / WRX STI) leaves a lot to be desired.You are a second class citizen. No matter how much you love your Subaru you should not expect to get the latest and greatest features on your new manual Subaru.
All things considered, seeing as my parents plan to be using this car for a good ten to fifteen years, there is serious discussion of down sizing to the better handling Subaru Impreza, especially while their car still holds a lot of value as a trade in. This is quite different from old as there was never any question of getting rid of the 2000 Outback until a few years ago when the rust was really becoming an issue.
Questions and comments welcome below.
Update:
So, shortly after my writing this up, but before I published it, Subaru sent out this linked document.
Apparently oil consumption has been a big issue and as such there is now an extended warranty for it.
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