Overview & Reviews

The Subaru XV Crosstrek might be marketed as crossover, but that usually implies some sort of SUV with carlike attributes. In actuality, the Crosstrek is more like a car with SUV-like attributes. Much like Subaru has done in the past with its Outback model, the smaller XV Crosstrek hatchback features an elevated ride height, a more off-road-ready suspension and rugged looks.

As it's based on the regular Impreza hatchback, the XV comes with a four-cylinder "boxer" engine mated to an available continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT). That combo delivers decent acceleration and above-average fuel economy. Add a nicely equipped passenger cabin and ample cargo capacity and you have a go-anywhere vehicle that should appeal to active outdoorsy types who might find Subaru's other offerings too pricey or thirsty.

Current Subaru XV Crosstrek Specs
The Subaru XV Crosstrek is an all-new model for 2013. While Subaru's all-wheel-drive lineup has developed a reputation for being unflappable in the face of some truly nasty driving conditions, this variation of the Impreza takes things to another level in dicey situations both on- and off-road.

The XV Crosstrek is offered in two trim levels, the entry-level Premium and top-of-the-line Limited. The base model comes standard with a number of desirable features including 17-inch alloy wheels, roof rack side rails, heated front seats, Bluetooth phone and audio connectivity, and an iPod interface. The Limited adds automatic climate control, leather upholstery, rearview camera and a premium audio system with an upgraded touchscreen interface. Major options include a sunroof and a touchscreen navigation system.

Under the hood, the Subaru Crosstrek gets a 2.0-liter horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine that produces 148 horsepower and 145 pound-feet of torque. Transmission choices include a five-speed manual and a CVT. All-wheel drive is standard.

The interior is pretty minimalist in terms of design, but the overall quality of the materials is high. Front and rear passengers enjoy a good amount of head- and legroom, and the standard heated seats are a nice touch given Subaru's popularity in cold-weather states. Folding down both sides of the 60/40-split rear seatbacks creates a flat load floor and 51.9 cubic feet of cargo space, a number that's on par with compact hatchbacks rather than small SUVs.

On the road, the Crosstrek's 2.0-liter engine delivers decent acceleration both around town and on the highway. When equipped with the CVT, however, the engine suffers from a noisy, droning tone that gets tiresome, especially when climbing hills. The CVT's true benefit shows up at the gas pump in the form of excellent fuel economy.

Despite the Crosstrek's increased ride height compared to the regular Impreza, handling is still fairly respectable on the pavement. And when the going gets tough, that extra amount of ground clearance and standard all-wheel drive makes it possible to handle light-duty trails without issue. Overall, we like the Subaru XV Crosstrek and think it's a solid pick for someone wanting a hatchback that can serve as a daily driver but also make it easy to access outdoor recreational activities.

User Reviews:

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  Dont bother buying - 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By luism2013 - August 9 - 9:07 am

  Car consumes way to much oil for a brand new car. Never thought I would spend so much on just oil. Spend more time getting oil for the car then I do getting gas. My oil light came on right after I purchased the vehicle and had the dealer see what was wrong they said it was just low. After topping it off I began my trip home and on an empty road the oil light came on had to drive it several hundred me to get oil. Took it in to a dealer and say the car normally burns 1 quart every 1200 miles. You do an oil change every 7000 miles thats 5-6 quarts of oil at 10 bucks a quart. Never had any problems. So with other vehicles first and last subaru I personally buy. Also the car over revs.

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  crosstrek hybrid-where has the quality gone? - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By ny2dc - July 5 - 7:30 pm

  I owned a subaru forester from 1999-2004...loved the car. Not the nicest looking car but I lived in Colorado at the time and it was the perfect car to commute with as well had drive to the mountains. Since then I moved back east and stuck with toyota/lexus. With the new hybrid crosstrek I thought I would give it another try. I bought the car as a demo model so I did get a great deal, but long story short I was very disappointed. I kept the car only a few months and traded it back in. What a piece of junk. First.. no where near the 29/33. I averaged 23 mpg. The interior of the car was like a toy car. Very low quality. Overall the car is a piece of junk. Beware.

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  Never Again - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By TD - February 11 - 9:43 pm

  First and last Subaru. Bought it because appearance of Japanese mid-size AWD alternatives were repugnant. Awful-sound system and navigation. Excessive cabin noise. Anemic power and poor gas mileage. Dashboard radiates too much heat which cooling system cannot overcome. External paint chips easily and is costly and difficult to repaint. Internal leather cheap and tears easily even with constant care. Repeated electrical problems with hybrid system, beginning at 47,000 miles.

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  Nice ride at expense of tire wear and Oil use - 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By Shelly Marshall - August 17 - 10:44 am

  I updated this review because Ive learned more about the Crosstrek that applied to me since I traded it in. (I feel sorry for the ones who bought it after me) My update will appear at the end of my original review which is here: I like the feel of driving this. Good points is the MPG (unless the wind blows against you then it drops by 10 MPG--that is not a joke! ANYTHING but during downhill and you lose the great mileage) I have a cage in back for little dogs--and I like the way that works. The storage is wonderful. easy to see out windows and easy to drive in traffic. Down side. Cloth seats stain when you sneeze! Horrible how bad the seats look in just a few years. I wish I had gotten leather. Very noisy on the road--good thing noise doesnt bother me too much but it drives others crazy. The worst thing about the vehicle is the tire wear. The vehicle is not worth it because it eats tires like crazy and the dealers and Customer Service for Subaru both handle this fact as if it is your fault. This is what dealers in Arizona, California, Utah, Montana, and Alaska have actually said to me: a) its your driving b) its out of alignment (fixed THREE times but never corrected tire wear) c) its because you carry an ice chest and food in the back when you travel d) its the 300 lb motorcycle trailer you pull e) its all the potholes you hit f) it must be heavy passengers that you carry in back g) its your toy Pomeranians that you carry in a cage in back h) its the tires you buy Its not any of those things. At 70,000 miles, I was on my 5th set of tires! The first set went out at 19,000! What is up with that? The last set of tires I bought were rated hard tires (602) with a 60,000-mile warranty and after only 25,000 miles Subaru in Fairbanks refused to rotate the tires because they say I need new ones, AGAIN! It was Anchorage Subaru who told me if I bought the hard tires and they wore out that fast, that the tire company would honor the warranty. I figured it was a good solution to badly wearing tires--problem was, when the tire company saw the tires, they blamed the Crosstrek and refused to honor the warranty. Incredible. I own a 2013 CrossTrek. Something is very wrong with the tire wear. Soft tires get 15,000 and hard rubber gets 25,000--that is not right. Buyers beware. (You will find more reviews like this about the tires on the Internet). There is either something wrong with the Subaru I bought or with he crosstalk in general. My second major complaint is the customer care department. The problem showed up at 19,000 when I almost killed myself on bald tires. That is when the excuses began. Even though I had a 60,000 mile or 3-year warranty, they strung me along until the warranty ran out--paid for one alignment and then kept telling me, "this time it will be different" . Once the warranty was out, I was out of luck even though there was something definitely wrong with the vehicle and I began the process at 19,000 miles. The only thing Subaru did for me besides string me along until the warranty ran out was align my vehicle, buy one set of tires and assure me they wanted to take care of the problem--which never happened. Hollow words, really. I will never buy another Subaru. Not because of the tire wear and something being wrong with my vehicle, things go wrong! I own a business and nothing is ever 100%. so I cut slack for businesses. The trouble is the warranty was not honored--not the one that came with the original purchase or their extended warranty. I expected better from Subaru because they have been good in the past-but this was ridiculous--to blame me (who has driven for 40 years) and make sure that they did not correct the problem and let both my warranties run out. I wasted a lot of time and money on this problem--and as far as Im concerned, Subaru owes me the money back from my extended warranty because they did not honor it. I have kept all my records and pictures and even a few tires--if someone does a class action, Im in. UPDATE 9.21.16 There is a class action--but not on the tire wear--on oil!!!! And that was one of the problems I had. The car went through LOTs of oil. I kept running out and I mentioned it several times. Once It was only 500 miles after an oil change. I called the dealer who changed my oil and they said they probably forgot one quart! I was so far away from that dealer that I didnt bother to take it back to them (they are in Ogden and I was in Arizona). The oil light came on a lot and I asked several Subaru dealers what was going on and they claimed there was nothing going on--acted as if I didnt understand cars. Now there is a class action suit about the oil--I probably put in an extra 5 quarts when I owned the vehicle so it isnt worth my time trying to find receipts to join the suit but I can take the time to warn others about the way Subaru strung me along on TWO issues and their warranty was worthless! I really believe they should refund me the money paid

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  Dont buy one - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By 923hon - March 26 - 3:32 am

  This car is crap... its so loud while driving, with the combonation of wind and road it literally sounds like you are sitting by the wing on a airplane, that i can barely hear bluetooth call even turned all the way up. have to have a/c full blast otherwise it barely blows. its guttless on freeway, good luck on on-ramps. gas mileage is worse than i was getting with my 94 pathfinder that was sent to scrapyard. there is no way in heck that ppl are getting anything close to 20 even. we get about 13mpg. it is the worst car ever. please do not buy one. its so awful and we are stuck with 380$ payments for the next 8yrs.

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  Dont Be Fooled by the Stylish Appearance - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By K White - December 27 - 11:30 pm

  I bought my 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek with 25k on it in January. At first, it was a great little car. For someone who lives in Vermont, a Subaru was almost a way of life, which is what drove me to purchase my Crosstrek. About two weeks after purchasing it was when I noticed my first problem with it, it shook so uncontrollably bad on the interstate that I had to pull over, turn the vehicle off and restart it. It was not long after that when all of the problems started to occur. My car now decides when the radio plays and when it does not, the automatic drivers window does not work anymore, the car skips and shakes when going down the road. Not to mention, how loud the motor is. Overall, my car sounds and feels like it is going to blow up when I drive down the road. I have not even had my car for a year and I am already ready to get something new due to how bad my car is. Unfortunately for me, I put $9500 down on it between my trade-in and down payment and to trade it in, would result in me "taking a bath" in my car. So it looks like I am stuck with it for another two or three years. This is not a vehicle I would recommend purchasing, dont be fooled by the stylish appearance.

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  Defective Steering/Chassis - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By nass2 - July 28 - 6:32 am

  We recently purchased a new 2014 XV Crosstek that we had to return to the Subarau dealership 2 days later for a full refund due to unrepairable steering and/or chassis problem. The car had strong steering pull to the RIGHT. The dealership attempted to fix the car, but was unable to do so. The service adviser and technician told us that they have been having steering problems with this car. They wanted to have a Subaru engineer come out, so I requested to the alignment specs. The alignment was intentionally set to cause the car to pull LEFT to "correct" the problem, but it still pulled RIGHT. The dealer offered us a different Crosstek, which had the same problem after test driving it.

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  55,000 Mile Review - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By TD - May 10 - 9:32 pm

  Anemic engine, poor gas mileage. Paint cracks and chips easily. Had hood repainted at less than one year, and two years later full of chips and cracks. Noisy interior, horrible acoustics. Navigation horrible. Speakers horrible. Leather is cheap and tears easily. Poor visibility due to high side door panels and hood. Dashboard acts as heat reflector, very uncomfortable in summer. No spare tire due to hybrid battery. At 47,000 miles, hybrid controller glitch activated multiple trouble lights. Took over a week to diagnose and flash update even though it was a recall issue. Auxiliary battery and ISG failed at 49,000 miles "while driving". Very dangerous. Both are part of hybrid system, and although warranty states hybrid system covered to 80,000 miles, was informed by dealer neither item covered. Contacted headquarters and got most of it covered. I baby my car. I maintain the exterior and interior by hand frequently . I installed bug deflector on hood. I drive conservatively, use 91 octane, and have it serviced every 5000 miles. BTW, must use synthetic oil that cost 3 times regular oil, but, unlike other vehicles on synthetic oil, still must replace at normal intervals, i.e., 5000 miles. Hybrid only 13 hp, mileage and power still poor, and is weak link in reliability and requires going only to a dealer for repair.

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  New buyers disappointing experience - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By badsubi - January 31 - 6:08 am

  After owning Toyotas for the last 28 years I decided to buy a 2014 Crosstrek. 3 months now and the Check Engine light is on !. Took the car to the dealer and the car needs an Oil Control Valve. Many cars have this but last at least 75k miles. My "New" Crosstrek in the the shop for days and I know this car will give problems in the future. I bought Subaru because of all the reliability hype. As I research the internet more and more, I find that they are not durable, unreliable past 50k miles. Mine broke at 7k miles, thats a smack in the face for Subaru. Dont buy it. Every make has its problems but you are better off with Toyota or Honda for reliability. Do your homework on the internet.

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  Subaru Bluetooth is garbage! - 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek
  By Larry Belcastro - November 20 - 11:49 pm

  When we upgraded our cell phone to a Samsung S6, we lost the ability to automatically reconnect each time we use the car. This is time consuming and has to be done BEFORE we move the car, delaying our travel. We cannot connect the bluetooth when driving, even though the driver is not pushing the buttons. Subaru Customer Support says that they cannot keep up with all the new cell phones and carriers, and have a list available with the ones that work. GET MORE HELP THEN! This is a poor excuse why they cannot get the autoconnect feature to work, but as a consumer its a good excuse to never buy another Subaru if they cannot keep current with technology.