After about ten hours from Guangzhou, we finally arrived at the location of this test drive, Yichun City, Heilongjiang. Almost every time the ice and snow time has to go through more than half of China to achieve the wish, but this time spent ten hours, test driving the Subaru Foresters in the snow, the heart still feels straight.
The Foresters in this test drive are mid-range revamps, and the biggest change is the introduction of EyeSight 4.0, which has been upgraded to a wide-angle stereoscopic camera lens. In addition, the Driver Monitoring System intelligent driving driving monitoring system was added. In terms of shape, the front of the car has introduced more "BOLDER" design concepts, which has become a "hexagonal" grille that has become the symbol of the brand, not only changing the inner mesh to honeycomb shape and increasing the size, showing a more atmospheric posture. However, this time, our closed test drive is the focus.
In Snow Kasbaru, I personally feel that XV may be the best choice, but the foresters are not bad. It has a set of ACT4 full-time four-wheel drive system, the ground spacing cut to the benefit, the wheelbase is not long, the control performance in the same level belongs to the superior category. At the same time, for this activity, the manufacturer replaced the forest people with a full set of nail tires, and the driving experience on the ice and snow road will be relatively better. For this activity, the manufacturer launched an ice and snow track of more than 3 kilometers on an artificial lake, but it has been counted as the opening spring season, the track is basically ice, which increases the driving difficulty, and because the track design is not completely flat, with high and low undulating road conditions, it is relatively difficult to drive at a higher speed, or experience the fun of drifting. However, for the ice road conditions with weak grip, we can better experience the performance of the four-wheel drive system that the foresters bring.
To be honest, the ice path pushed out this time is not wide, and the adhesion of the road surface is too low, and the control ability of the foresters is not enough, so I am still relatively careful when driving. However, when encountering a straight road to increase the bend, it is still impossible to force the throttle to add, the direction to hit, and then combined with the four-wheel drive system and the X-MODE system to adjust to the SNOW DIRT mode, slightly let the rear of the car shake up when cornering. The whole process is in one word: stable!
The forester's rear flapping range is actually not large, a little control of the steering wheel, the front of the car can be attached to the edge of the inner track, pointing straight out of the corner. At this time, it can be felt that the grip of the tire is low, and the body sliding is more than expected, but the four-wheel drive system is sensitive to the power distribution of the wheel, and can quickly distribute the power to the wheel with strong grip in order to move more stable. It is worth mentioning that the intervention of this four-wheel drive system is relatively linear and not reckless, so the body dynamics of the car are quite smooth.
Of course, the forester we are driving is only equipped with a 154-horsepower 2.0L naturally aspirated 4-cylinder engine, which is really not strong in power, and playing on the ice and snow road will feel that the power connection is slightly weaker when exiting the corner, making the body look more dull and not refreshing when exiting the corner. However, the daily use is not a big problem, the engine with the help of CVT transmission, torque at a lower speed has a certain output, fast speed and linear comfort. And I like the sense of steering of the forester, it does not have the sense of virtual position of the same kind of four-wheel drive car, but more of a sense of precision, with the steering power of the cut to the benefit, driving the forester will have an inexplicable sense of security.
It has been a long time since subaru products have been tested, whether it is driving texture, or control performance, or interior design and function, compared with Subaru 5 or 6 years ago, in retaining some unique personality, foresters have become more men in suits, and even added a layer of home warm man feeling. Drifting in the snow is of course fun, but the forester adds a heavy sense of security to this fun, and this warm feeling makes me have another interpretation and cognition of the Subaru forester.