– By Rod Fuller –
Subaru’s XV has been around for five years and with only minor upgrades in that time, it still the trend setter in the compact SUV market. So with a new XV due later in the year, I took the current model for quick tour around parts of NSW.
Looking at the XV in the company car park, I couldn’t help but notice how desirably different the XV looked, compared to the sea of mediocrity of company sedans that surrounded it.
Brightly coloured, its distinctive look of a muscled up Impreza suits the ‘fun in the outdoors’ image. I felt like strapping a mountain bike to the roof and heading off into the bush.
The XV is a fun car, riding on its 17” alloy wheels, it is very nice and comfortable to drive. Safe and stable with Subaru’s renowned AWD system giving the car a very sure footed feeling. The six speed CVT transmission delivers the engine’s power very smoothly, but with only 110kwh under your right foot, the transmission is so smooth that the car starts to lose that fun feeling that is so attractive about it.
It drives well, very well and does everything right, however that fun edge its looks inspire just seems to get lost with the CVT. Paddle shifters help a bit, but not enough.
On the inside, luxury abounds, with leather seats, dual zone climate control, sunroof and more tech stuff than you can poke a stick at. Sat nav, easy to operate bluetooth, Pandora and Siri connectivity are all featured and are controlled through a 7” touchscreen which doubles as the display for the standard reversing camera.
If that’s not enough to keep your tech side happy, they’re additional USB ports front and rear to plug all your and your passengers’ other gadgets into. The leather seats are power adjusted in the front (8 ways for the driver) and electrically heated, but sadly no lumbar support. The rear seats quickly and easily fold flat to increase the load area to quite a handy space for a vehicle this size.
The Auto Stop Start feature is quite interesting and I especially liked how the info display in the instrument panel changed, to tell me how much fuel I was saving each time the engine stopped. Over one tank of fuel, the Auto Stop Start stopped the engine for a total of 20 minutes and saved me 300ml in fuel. But the restart of the engine at times was rather violent, shaking the car quite noticeably.
Subaru also offers Data Dot DNA technology on the XV. Microscopic dots with the car’s VIN number etched into them are sprayed over all the parts of the car to make them easily identifiable, therefore making the car less attractive to would be thieves. And what’s more, for the first three years DataDot Technology (Aust) will pay the theft insurance excess on all new Subaru cars if they are stolen and not recovered within 45 days, despite the car being equipped with DataDot DNA and warning labels. That should get your fleet manger thinking.
If you are looking to convince you’re fleet manager that you need a fun compact SUV for work, you might be pushing it. But perhaps when they see the attractively styled XV that comes with Subaru’s reputation for safety and reliability, a five star ANCAP rating, unlimited kilometre three year warranty and three years fixed price servicing; you just might get there – if not you could always consider a novated lease.
Key information at a glance
Make/Model – Subaru XV
Model Variant – 2.0i-S
Vehicle Type – SUV (Compact)
Price – From $35900 Drive away
Seating Capacity – 5
Fuel Economy Combined – 7.0 l/100km
CO2 Emissions – 151 g/km
Fuel Type – ULP
Tyre Size – 225/55R17 97V
Tyre Brand OE – Yokohama Geolander
Spare Tyre – Temporary (Space Saver)
Warranty – Three year unlimited kilometre
