Customer experiences are a good way to improve your driving and learn your car's features and, most importantly, capabilities. Subaru is known for its off-road prowess, but mostly in the motorsport sense, for its no-nonsense off-road adventure. They're quite capable in that respect. Cue the Subaru Customer Experience, an off-road advanced driving course showing what the likes of the Forester, Crosstrek, and Outback can do off the beaten path. Subaru Southern Africa hosted us with a current-gen Forester Black Edition.
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The Setup
Ultimately, you'll ask yourself who this course is for. Well, you don't need to be a WRC Rally Champion or F1 boffin to be able to do this course. If you've purchased a new Subaru recently or even own an old-school model, you're welcome to attend this event as a learning experience and to improve your off-road driving skills. Plus, it's a fun day out for the family.
Off-road trails range from simple dirt driving to obstacles that will leave wheels floating, 35-degree gradient drops and side gradients where you'll try your best to keep yourself upright in the seat. During our session, the customer vehicles were on the modern side, taking advantage of the X-Mode All Terrain Program, setting up the cars for dirt driving, and supplying vital information to the driver. The Forester Black Edition was used as a demo vehicle to show off things to consider when you're off-road driving, as well as the trick hill descent control.
The Forester
The Forester Black Edition is essentially a top-spec current-gen, 2.5i-S ES CVT model but comes with an aesthetics kit featuring blacked-out exterior trim pieces, even down to the vehicle's badges. Regarding the powertrain, the 2.5-litre naturally aspirated boxer petrol four cylinder with a CVT 'box remains. All 136kW and 239Nm is sent to all four wheels via an active torque split AWD system. The classical Subaru Symmetrical All Wheel Drive is enhanced with X-Mode, Subaru's All Terrain Programme, which increases traction and control in several road conditions. Working with the torque split system, you get the best traction possible by using lower gear ratios to channel extra power to the wheels with grip, making the traction control more sensitive to wheel slip, intervening earlier and employing hill descent control.
In conclusion
We encourage participation in customer experience days for new and old vehicle owners, regardless of brand. It's a gift of knowledge that sticks with you and helps you negotiate potentially tricky situations. The Subaru day specifically had excellent instruction and some decent challenges on the obstacles presented. This one was also not expensive, at roughly R1000 per person and R320 per passenger, so it would be a lovely gift if you knew anyone who owned a Subaru. It was well worth spending the Saturday afternoon. If you'd like to attend one of these days, contact your local Subaru dealer to see when the next one is.
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