A late-arriving snow test drive gave us a deep taste of Subaru's strength in harsh environments, featuring a horizontally opposed engine and a symmetrical full-time all-wheel drive system.
With the convening of the Beijing Winter Olympics and paralympic Winter Olympics, the enthusiasm of the Chinese people for ice and snow sports is increasing, but unfortunately, in the days of "Seven Nine Rivers Open, Eight Nine Swallows Come", the places around Beijing that can play snow have been difficult to find, fortunately, our motherland is vast, and the Heilongjiang Before and after the sting is still covered with snow, so Subaru took us to Yichun City, known as "China's Forest Capital", and grabbed the winter tail with all three SUVs they are currently selling - XV, Forester and Auror Tiger.
Speaking of time points, I find "2" to be an interesting number. Not to mention the "most repetitive moments" on social media a while ago, in the automotive industry alone, there are many big events that happen in the year ending with 2, so there will be many (full tenth anniversary) commemorations in 2022: the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln brand, the 90th anniversary of Audi's use of the four-ring logo, the 150th anniversary of Pirelli, the 50th anniversary of the BMW M brand... And the protagonist of our event, Subaru, is also inseparable from this "2": in September 1972, Subaru released the first four-wheel drive economy passenger car, the Leone 4WD Estate Van (previously the four-wheel drive system was only used in off-road vehicles and a very small number of expensive limited edition models), which is equipped with a time-sharing four-wheel drive system, but laid the foundation for the left-right symmetrical full-time four-wheel drive system (SAWD) that is now one of Subaru's selling points. (Interestingly, Leone was released on the eve of the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo to highlight its durability in bad weather.) ）
Another selling point of Subaru is naturally the horizontal opposing engine known as the "boxer", with a low center of gravity, low vibration during operation, and distinctive sound characteristics... These advantages have long been well known to fans, but some people say that for so many years, Subaru is worthy of publicity has been just two points, some can not keep up with the pace of the times, but don't forget, a trick fresh, eat all over the sky, no one has what I have (Subaru is the only brand with a standard horizontal opposing engine plus SAWD) Why give up? In early December 2019, when we were doing a winter feature in the Great Lakes region of North America, Subaru models were everywhere – sales are the last word. Moreover, in recent years, Subaru has also made continuous progress in other aspects, including the SGP platform, the new infotainment system, the EyeSight driver assistance system, the SI-DRIVE intelligent driving improvement system, etc., so that this relatively niche brand has a wider charm.
Well, there's a lot of stuff said about feelings, and it's time to get in the car and go. The first thing that needs to be explained is that although SAWD is powerful, it is still tires that finally touch the road surface, and on the completely smooth ice surface, even the most powerful drive system is difficult to exert its power, so this test drive is all equipped with Nokia Hakkapeliitta 9 nail tires (here is another "2": Nokia's predecessor Finnish Rubber Factory was established in 1898, from 1932 to produce car tires), as a special tire for ice and snow, its only drawback is that the paved road is full of noise, But the subsequent driving experience showed that it was indeed a weapon for fighting ice and snow, especially ice fighting.
Subaru brought all three SUVs, but of course we have to focus on it, and the focus is naturally on the forester, the reason, on the one hand, it is the brand sales responsibility, on the other hand, it is the latest of the three cars, just listed at the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of last year, this is the first time we got the opportunity to test drive. Because it is a mid-term redesign, the overall outline of the new forester has not changed, but the front face is very different from the old model, the shape of the grille, the outer frame and trim, the headlights, the fog light area, all adopt a new design, without losing the toughness at the same time more delicate. The size changes are minimal, the length has increased by 15 mm, and the rest are the same as the old model. It is even more difficult to see the difference in the car, but the function behind the interface has been upgraded, which will be said later.
The ice and snow experience is divided into two links, the first is located in the More than 40 kilometers south of Yichun City, more than 10 kilometers of Xiling Forest Farm, covered with thick snow of the non-paved road, because located in the Xiaoxing'anling Mountains, the road is not only undulating, but also winding and winding, in this environment what is needed is not speed and passion, but careful, cautious, the test is the passability of the car, and we slow down another reason, there is a good natural ecology here, the forest is infested with roe deer and wild deer from time to time (it is said that there are wild boars, Fortunately, we did not encounter it), and we outsiders could not disturb the peaceful life of the "aborigines". Although it is still snowy, but the forest farm work car and our front car have rolled the road area snow out of a very tight rut, coupled with the full drive system unconsciously distributes the torque between the wheels, and then with the help of the nail tire, this road almost does not bring any obstacles to the foresters, we do not even use the X-MODE of deep snow mode, but we need to pay attention to a few points of ice and snow driving essentials, one is that the hands and feet can not be too intense, the second is because the soft snow surface adhesion is greater than the hard snow, once the wheel deviates from the rut, After gaining grip, it is easy to be further "sucked" off the road, so the eyes and hands should always pay attention to the direction of progress and pull back in time. There is a very steep downhill road ahead, and the coach suggests that it is best to use the steep slope slow down function in X-MODE, because if the force under the foot is not appropriate for human operation, either the speed will be too fast to cope with the bottom of the slope, or the wheel speed is too slow to cause the wheel to slide directly on the snow and it is not easy to control the direction. Listening to the advice, using it, the right foot left the pedal, and the forester slowly drove down on his own, very stable, his feet were much easier, and his heart was much more at ease.
The second link is on a glacial lake in the Meihuahe Mountain Villa, more than 20 kilometers northeast of the city. Ice lake? Practice drifting? It seems to be similar to ice driving with other brands, especially high-performance sports car brands. Not really. The terrain of this lake is relatively open, the wind in the early winter freeze process formed a lot of "ice waves", the test driving team did not level them, but launched a driving route with uphill, downhill, side slope, concentrated in various angles of the curve, so that driving is more difficult, because this time there is no snow, coupled with repeated driving, some sections of the road exposed the ice surface, the adhesion is very uneven, the result is that this length of more than 3 kilometers of "ice and snow track" is very similar to the ice and snow stage of the rally. This is a moderate amount of passion, but it is still necessary to pay attention to the key points of the ice and snow environment: the movement should not be too intense. This generation of foresters in the country only provides 2.0 liters of naturally aspirated engines, 113 kilowatts, 196 Nm (as before the modification, the light mixed version before the modification is not yet available for the time being), the value is indeed not strong in the same market, and many people say that the use of turbocharging technology is not enough to keep pace with the times, but in today's environment the advantages of naturally aspirated models are revealed: the power output is linear, even if the action is fierce when refueling, the torque will not suddenly change to cause a sudden change in the speed of the wheels and then cause slippage. Of course, with the blessing of SAWD and nail tires, overcoming the body deflection caused by this slip and uneven adhesion is not a problem, but the laws of physics are difficult to disobey, and the reaction of acceleration, braking and steering on the wet and slippery surface is slower than in a dry environment, so it is necessary to look farther away and the corresponding actions should be done in advance.
Subaru also opened up an off-road area on the ice lake, including a more angled side slope, cross axle, deep snow area, etc., the safe passage of foresters with a ground clearance of 220 mm is not a problem, but here reflects the progress of the X-MODE function: in the past, after turning on this function, the speed of more than 40 km / h it will automatically turn off, and now it enters the standby state, once the speed is less than 35 km / h, it will automatically open, Then every time you leave and come back, you don't always have to think about taking care of it manually again.
Finally, let's talk about XV and Auror. As with their positioning in the lineup, they show significant differences in both directions for the Foresters. The non-mild hybrid version of the XV has the same power unit as the forester, and the ground clearance is the same, but the car weighs nearly 100 kg, so although the wheelbase is only 5 mm shorter, it is still obviously much more dexterous, and it is easier to correct once out of control, so the coach encourages us to "do some action", that is, it is easy to drift through the right timing in a relatively gentle corner. On the contrary, although the power index of the 2.5-liter naturally aspirated engine, especially the torque, is much larger, but the weight of the car is more than 100 kg, and more importantly, the wheelbase is more than 75 mm, which makes it more "stable", can better hold the established line, but correspondingly once the "situation" is also more difficult to save back, so the management of the coach is more stringent, saying that the number of "deceleration" is obviously more than in the other two cars, after all, the snow wall on both sides of the track is not necessarily soft snow, as mentioned earlier , probably a hard wave of ice.
Finally, two more words about the Foresters. The redesigned model has also been upgraded in terms of intelligence, including the addition of air conditioning gesture control (the palm of the hand is heated up against the small screen above the central control screen, and the fist is cooled), the driver monitoring system and the facial recognition system, the EyeSight driver assistance system camera has a longer viewing range, and also adds emergency automatic steering assistance, lane centering and front car steering and other functions, as a price range of 223,800 to 265,800 yuan, the characteristics of the compact SUV, is still very attractive However, these aspects are not the focus of this experience, and we will bring you a more detailed introduction through in-depth test drive as soon as possible.
Text/Shang Hongxin Photo/Shang Hongxin, SUBARU