A very successful mission and many thanks to F. Off. Simpleton.
Diesel rollout will be considered for operational use in the near future. Wgn Sqn official arm name… Green Sector R&D Flight.
So… Subaru + Impreza + Diesel + Economy… words that are not normally put together.
It’s justifiable to say the new Impreza is not everyone’s cup of tea (including mine up to today) but Subaru have put together a package in the 2.0D that is pretty damn close to what a ‘Scoob’ is all about. You get great handling, a high level of equipment and performance of…
147bhp/258lbft (at 1800 to 2400!)
155co2 (£145 tax)
47mpg combined (40mpg urban)
…in fact you get everything you could probably want except madness power.
The test drive…
The cabin is full of toys and far exceeds what my MY04 had when new. The model I took out was the 2.0D RX. Comes with leather, electric seats, push button engine start, keyless entry etc etc.
On start up you can hear it’s a Diesel, but it’s not loud and would be disguised with a decent performance exhaust
In the cabin you would never know you’re in a Diesel.
Pulling away you know you’re in a Impreza as the ride was reasonably hard and there’s still that boxer sound. Steering is positive and due to electric motors where the power steering pump used to be is a little over sensitive. Caused me to over steer a couple of times when pulling out of junctions.
Please be aware!!!
1) This is no fire breathing monster of an Impreza
2) It will not blow your socks off
3) You cannot drive this car like you would a petrol Impreza
It’s definitely not slow and 2nd gear will give you the ‘whiplash’ feeling, but you do run out of puff quickly. Change up faster and then enjoy a torque curve in 3rd that is fantastic. The power delivery is so smooth and keeps going and going and going. Due to the smoothness it’s easy to forget what speed you’re going unless you watch the speedo constantly! I was in 4th gear at 45-50mph and then started to accelerate without looking at the speedo. I then guessed I was at 70mph… when I was actually over 80mph. It just did not feel like I was going that quickly.
Handling is probably the best feature. 2nd gear into a roundabout with your foot down and it just sticks to the road. We had 4 adults in the car and it felt like I could turn in tighter and tighter with no sign of the car breaking away or getting fidgety. I’d describe the over handling as point and click. Point it where you want to go and it does.
In summary…
This car is not going to suit everyone. Most ‘hardcore’ Impreza drivers are going to be saying “Diesel ! how could they?”, but this car gives good economy, some reasonable performance and (by what I’ve heard today) can be tweaked. Prodrive are working on a pack, so I suspect we’ll see 180bhp/290lbft from this unit in the future.
The word on the street is… when testing the engine in Japan it was putting out 210bhp, but has been strangled for the EU market due to regulations
Would I have one? Yup I think so… just got to get the Credit Crunch out the way first and get Subaru to drop the price