New 2018 Subaru Legacy

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My wife and I sold our 2014 Honda Accord EX-L and bought a 2018 Subaru Legacy Premium. We are selling our house and are moving to Washington State in the Spokane area (Deer Park). I have a 2017 Ford F150 4x4 and we decided that an all wheel drive vehicle for my wife is in order. I have a couple of friends with Subaru's and they have nothing but good things to say about them.

My wife just had cancer surgery so anything difficult for her to get in and out of was out. We looked at all the Subaru models and she liked the entry/exit of the Legacy to be the easiest. That's were we started.

The biggest selling point was all the collision avoidance options available. We bought a Legacy with option package 15. That included Starlink, Navigation, Power Moonroof, Eyesight Driver-Assist System. Eyesight includes Pre-Collision Braking, Pre-Collision Throttle-Management, Lane Departure Warning and Lane Sway Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Keep Assist, Blind Spot Detection w/Rear Cross Traffic Alert and Lane Change Assist. It's a lot to learn about for sure !

The lane departure system is a little spooky at first. It gently moves you back to the center of the lane. You can feel it in the steering wheel. If you change lanes without a turn signal, it will let you know. My wife and I were driving down the freeway and there was a Semi with an oversized load. I was getting ready to exit the freeway but the semi's load was overhanging into my lane and it moved me away from it and sounded a warning. Surprised the heck out of me ! This will take some getting used to for sure.

It's not a powerhouse for speed for sure, but the AWD will make it handy in the winter months in eastern Washington. It's has a CVT transmission with steering wheel mounted paddle shifters. Don't really know the reason for this except to have some fun when you get bored. The sticker fuel mileage is 25/34 combined 29. Reasonable for this vehicle. 6K service intervals with 0w20 and full synthetic required. It will be Subaru filters and Mobil 1 EP. I will update this as we put some miles on .
 
Good luck with your new Subie. My '16 Forester is the best car I ever had.

Most importantly, hope the wife stays healthy and recovers from her surgery!


Frank
 
Nice car! I had a (leased) 2012 Legacy 2.5i CVT Premium. I enjoyed that car, but found the ease of entry/exit situation to be the exact opposite of yours. Hated the low seating and how low this car is to the ground. I also would get hung up in deep snow due to the low ground clearance. To me, the Forester is the best to get in/out of and has decent ground clearance.
 
Loving all the new features on 2018's! I just got a 2018 Equinox that is advanced too. Your collision avoidance package is better than mine.

Originally Posted By: Fatboymoe
Eyesight includes Pre-Collision Braking, Pre-Collision Throttle-Management, Lane Departure Warning and Lane Sway Warning,....It's a lot to learn about for sure !
"Lane Sway"? I need to educate myself on that one. Not sure what it is.

Originally Posted By: Fatboymoe
The lane departure system is a little spooky at first. It gently moves you back to the center of the lane. You can feel it in the steering wheel.
I didn't know Subaru had an active system, not just yellow alerts. I test drove a Tesla which steers itself and controls speed itself. Very disconcerting.

Originally Posted By: Fatboymoe
It's has a CVT transmission with steering wheel mounted paddle shifters. Don't really know the reason for this except to have some fun when you get bored. The sticker fuel mileage is 25/34 combined 29. Reasonable for this vehicle. 6K service intervals with 0w20 and full synthetic required. It will be Subaru filters and Mobil 1 EP. I will update this as we put some miles on .
The paddle shifters are for playing around, true, yet they are especially useful when descending mountain or steep hill slopes by shifting down manually to use engine braking, if you're not using the cruise control which should do this automatically these days (cars with "Hill Descent" control).

Good choice on oil and oil filter. Any full syn 0w20 will do for those short intervals really. Mobil1 EP does have a rebate coming from Exxon-Mobil via their website when you purchase the EP stuff. https://mobiloil.com/en/promotion/mobil-promotions ... There was some controversy with the bypass pressure settings on non-Subaru aftermarket oil filters, so its certainly safe to simply stick with Subaru oil filters, and they probably filter sufficiently. I generally like Fram Ultra, Royal Purple, or MicroGreen oil filters, but Subarus need either Subaru or I've heard Wix oil filters will work (bypass valve psi threshold issue).
 
Well, at least up to my 2016 Forester's manual, 0w20 engine oil isn't required, it's recommended. It says in the manual you can top up with other viscosity ranges, but they recommend going all 0w20 again at your next oil change. They sound a bit rough on a cold startup, but smooth right out in a few seconds.

I loved the paddle shifters on my Legacy. Like said above, they're great on long descents, to click it down a "gear" to slow down. My base model Forester CVT doesn't have this. You have to toggle the floor shifter to the left for "low".
 
Excellent choice. I feel like the Legacy should sell in higher numbers because it a great car priced competitively agasit the Accord, Camry, Fusion.. . My sister recentley got it's smaller stablemate, the Impreza, which is very nice.
They probably sound rough on start up for emissions. The fuel and ignition timing are programmed to warm up the catalytic convertor quicker on some of the newer engines that use direct injection.
 
Originally Posted By: skyactiv
..They probably sound rough on start up for emissions. The fuel and ignition timing are programmed to warm up the catalytic convertor quicker on some of the newer engines that use direct injection.


I have read that this is part of the noise. There is some type of "tumble valve" that actuates on cold start to speed warm up. You can feel and hear it depending on how your cold take off goes. You have more power and less intake moan when it turns itself off.
 
One thing that's different is the cold start-up RPM which is above 2000 RPM. I haven't seen this kind of start-up RPM in a long time. This is a port fuel injected engine, not a GDI.
 
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Originally Posted By: Fatboymoe
One thing that's different is the cold start-up RPM which is above 2000 RPM. I haven't seen this kind of start-up RPM in a long time. This is a port fuel injected engine, not a GDI.
What is Subaru doing? That just increases emissions before the catalyst warms up.
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Hi,
I have a 2017 Outback premium with eyesight feature and I'm glad I have it.
When "check engine" light comes on, it disables the eyesight and the car behaves very strangely. I had to crank the engine few time giving a little more gas to prevent the engine from stalling. I just disconnected the negative terminal on the battery to reset the ECU and it was good to go.
Since you are moving to Spokane area, I recommend you to have extra undercoating of your car. The city of spokane decided to spray something down to de-ice the road a few years ago. The rear end of my friends 2006 Pilot was corroded seriously. Most of Spokane area is quite flat so it's not bad to drive around as long as the roads are plowed but if you drive to South Hill area often during winter, I strongly recommend to have snow tires installed for better traction. The OEM tires on Subarus aren't that good.
 
Congrats! Ive always liked subarus, especially the legacy sedan and wagon. Those mpg numbers are great for an awd car. Bummer they don't seem to have a turbo mt version anymore.
 
I really liked the concept of Adaptive Cruise control but in reality, I don't really like it, too much of braking or reving IMO. I have stopped using it on our 15 Forester, unless I am tired while driving.
 
Hope your wife's recovery continues to be fast and thorough.

Good choice on car, lot for the money. Back with the previous gen engine (EJ) some Subaru turbo guys (Forester XT and Impreza WRX) had trouble with spun main bearings on Mobil 1, granted they were running the cars hard (track days and etc) but the common denominator was Mobil 1. Probably some archive threads on NASIOC forum about it from back around 2007-2010. Likely doesn't apply to the new gen engines. Just flapping my lips....
 
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