2017 Subaru Outback Research & Reviews

Overview & Reviews

Average Score

4.58/5 Average
142 Total Reviews

User Reviews:

Showing 11 through 20 of 142.00
  • Moms New Car - 2017 Subaru Outback
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  • My choice but not my wifes! - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    Great vehicle but my wife wants a larger upscale sedan! Still searching for the one that pleases her! She drives no more than 2,000 per year, and I drive 20,000 to 25,000 a year. She even has the nerve of picking the colors. See what 51 years of marriage can do for you!

  • Saved Our Lives - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    In December of 2015, we leased a 2016 Outback. In eight months, from December 2015 through August 2016, we drove the car just over 19,000 miles of Idaho and Nevada roads. On a late August night, just before midnight, driving through central Idaho at at 65 miles per hour, we hit a 500 pound Elk. The Subaru was totaled. The front end was completely demolished. The total damage was in excess of $25,000.00. The passenger cabin was untouched. My wife and I walked away from the wreck with nothing other than sore muscles. Two days later, we drove out of the Subaru dealer with our newly purchased 2017 Subaru Outback. Our Subaru Outback is the best car we have ever owned.

  • Nothing beats it for features and value - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    I am 66" and I fit extremely well in the Outback. It is roomy inside, and it can haul a ton of stuff inside with the second row of seats (easily) folded. The roof racks are great; I like the way they fold away when not in use. The visibility is outstanding. I take it on long trips to our vacation home in Maine and it is a pleasure to drive. Great gas mileage as well! Price shop this against the Volvo wagon or the Audi Allroad for cost and features, and you will find that the Outback is a greater value for your money.

  • Happy owner so far - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    Acceleration feels a little sluggish, but it is enough, if you press the pedal like you mean it. The car is very comfortable and fun to drive because of the great handling. Fuel economy is excellent for the size of the car. I dont like the exterior look too much, especially the roof rack rails, but thats not a surprise. Interior is great. One (small) disappointment is that the USB charging ports delivers very little current, probably under 1A, which is too little for the latest smartphones.

  • 2017 2.5i Outback - Terrible Car! - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    I purchased this car in September 2016 and totally regret not looking at other cars before purchasing. This car only has 175hp and it is severely lacking in a car this size/weight (and forget it if you have it loaded up!). To compound it Subaru uses a CVT transmission which again is very lacking. Subaru gets great gas mileage because of it but for performance of any kind, look elsewhere (Im surprised their logo isnt a snail). It takes forever to accelerate to freeway speeds and forget about "speeding" up or trying to get ahead of the next guy because this car has ZERO performance for even routine acceleration/maneuvers. Fit and finish is acceptable and while I have the leather seating for some reason there is an issue with the driver seat - it kills my lower back no matter how the seat is adjusted (Im of average height/weight) and it is thought the heated seat elements might be to blame. Bought a cushion and that helps but now my head hits the ceiling, so not much of a great improvement. The following deficiencies are pretty petty, but they are issues. 1) door locks are fresh from 1970. Not programmable in any manner and you either drive with the door locked by manually locking them or they stay unlocked which is most of the time. Personally I think this is a huge safety issue. Also the passenger side door lock button is not illuminated at night (the window switch is), and so it is that much harder to lock the doors in the dark with black buttons. 2) the child lockout button works great except it also locks out the driver! When activated, no switch, not even the driver switches work - on other cars the driver switches still work, so this is really frustrating as well. 3) you cant globally turn on the interior lights using any interior switch. If you want all the lights on in the car, you have to open a door! Again this is very frustrating when you have kids and you need the lights on. 4) Now that its winter I notice that the interior windows fog up constantly (and I live in a very dry climate), so you have to leave the defroster on all the time and I think the climate system doesnt work right, but wont really know until the summer time for complete testing. 5) For a car that is as electronically advanced as this one with the EyeSight and keyless entry youd think that it would have auto start. Nope! Not even an option which is just crazy for a car in 2017. 6) The Subaru Starlink touch screen and "apps" are very confusing and very convoluted. Ive had other cars with similar issues, but the Subaru takes the cake in touchscreen madness. The other safety issue I have with this car is that it wont stay put in its lane. It has a lane assist feature in which you can make it automatically stay in the lane but it is clunky and makes you look like you are driving drunk if you actually use it. When it is off, the car drifts constantly and you need to keep turning the wheel to stay in the lane. I believe it is an issue with the lane assist and EyeSight system, but Subaru will never admit it. This car has many annoyance reminder/alarms, especially if you have the EysSight system. You constantly get lane departure warnings, and on curves the accident avoidance warning goes off if it sees another car in a different lane and the lane assist alarm goes off telling you to put your hands on the wheel when they are already there. Over all for the cost of this car and the feature set, you could do much better with a different manufacturer. As soon as I can Im getting rid of this car because honestly any car with all wheel drive is just as superior and what was once Subarus niche, pretty much everyone else does now anyway - without the annoyance factor. Id totally pass on this car and if you can, take it for a LONG test drive before you buy and test all this stuff out because Im totally sorry I didnt!

  • Great basiic transportation - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    I got the basic base model, I dont fall for a lot of gadgets, so this is perfect. If this type of vehicle (its niche) is what your are looking for , pull the trigger. In a review I always look for something negative to say and its the drivers seat could be more supportive. I have sciatica and the drivers seat bothers me. That little engine has enough power for me. I love having an easy access full size spare tire. I love having no blind spots.

  • A great vehicle but a hacker is needed to improve - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    Whenever the car is started the display immediately shows the "lawyer screen" dealing with safety. That is a fixed feature which cannot be changed. OK, I reluctantlyunderstand the manufacturers defensive choice there, and the screen disappears in a few seconds. A regrettable fact but acceptable. Its what happens next that is really dumb, and arrogant, forcing presentation of a screen which many drivers would not want. That screen is for audio. It is not the menu screen. The menu screen logically should be presented immediately after the "lawyer" screen because it allows touch selection of screens which more likely would be of interest than the audio screen. OK, Ill admit that this complaint is subjective and the problem is not major, and Ill reiterate that the vehicle otherwise is great. But why would Subaru designers do such an unnecessarily dumb thing?

  • Outback does everything - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    This vehicle rides smooth and solid. Plenty of space and places for my cups and phone.

  • Our First Subaru! - 2017 Subaru Outback
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    Well, after one month and 1,100 miles on our 2017 Outback 3.6R Touring, I cant say enough great things about this wagon (I know some think its an SUV, but its not). No regrets moving from the American Blue Oval (Ford) to the Japanese Blue Oval (our car was made in Lafayette, IN, incidentally - I think all U.S. market Subarus are; I could be wrong). Ford just didnt have what I liked or needed this time around (a Fusion (my previous car) wagon would have gotten my attention if they made one - I liked my 07 Fusion a lot), so for the last year, weve been doing the on-line research and always came back to the Outback 3.6R as the prime choice. At the Chicago Auto Show, we got to test drive one for the first time. We also test drove something we hadnt considered previously and that was the Kia Sorento which is more crossover than wagon, but it had us thinking. In the end, it was the Outback itself as well as Subaru dealers (and the one we bought from in particular) over the Kia dealers that sold us (we didnt get much meaningful response from the Kia dealers (on the phone or internet) - maybe they didnt take us seriously; at least not until after wed had our Outback for a few weeks!). So anyway, the Outback has been a dream to drive! After less than a week of ownership, we needed to make a 250 mile round trip trek through northern Illinois with a good mix of country road and interstate driving. On the interstate, I got to experience the adaptive cruise control - a gem of a feature in that the car adapts to the distance of the car in front of you; very handy when you get cut off by a slow-poke - no need to hit the brake, the car slows down for you. And when slow-poke moves over out of your way, the Outback smoothly moves back up to your preset speed (or to a safe distance from the next car in front of you). The other feature I experienced with great joy was the blind spot indicators - wow, this is great! On the interstate, it always seems like theres a car driving in my blind spot! Now I dont have to take my eyes off the road ahead to know theres a car invisible to me on my left or right. Out in the country, the Outback is in its element; not that weve tested it much yet, but we did have some soft, mushy areas to drive through that would have been a challenge to a vehicle without AWD and the ground clearance of the Outback. Other things Ive come to appreciate over the last month with the Outback is the CVT - Continuously Variable Transmission. I know its been around on several cars for years, but its new to me - and I actually prefer it to the step shifting of the traditional 6 speed I had in my Fusion. Ive read lots of car enthusiasts opinions who wont go near a CVT (favoring a manual transmission), but I think for me (and a lot of people like me) its a welcome change - though I do have to watch our for speeding since I dont have that step sensation through the gears on a rather powerful 3.6 liter six! Which brings me to another primary reason for going with the six; towing capacity through, potentially, mountains. Havent tried it yet, but I just couldnt see winding up the 2.5 liter four with 1 1/2 tons of stuff through the Rockies. I know Im not alone on that assessment either, having read concurring remarks in professional reviews. I have no fears whatsoever with the six. Its a powerful and peppy power plant! The ride of the Outback is smooth and comfortable. The suspension smooths out some of the worst washboards I drive on better than any car Ive had before. And because we opted for the Touring sub-model, comfort is better than anything Ive owned before (this is the first car Ive had with heated leather seats (though my wife had them in a Buick LeSabre Limited more than a dozen years ago) AND a heated steering wheel!). Im still learning all the electronics - right now Im happy with just figuring out the radio and how to play my iPod Nano (3rd gen). I was a tiny bit disappointed that my Nano doesnt play well through the iPod function (which displays the information from your iPod on the infotainment screen); it will play a couple songs and then blank out; Ive read where this has been happening to many people with even newer iPod equipment than my 10 year-old Nano. So all I do is run it through the Aux function and things are as good as in my previous cars - except for the sound system which is a spectacular Harmon-Kardon layout! I LOVE the sound! The navigation system is super spectacular for me, having come from a 4" screen on a Garmin pasted to the windshield. Its a nice big, 7" display that is very intuitive. Well, I was going to write more, but I guess theres a character limit. Suffice it to say, I love our New Subaru Outback!

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