Subaru Forester test drive since 2008 SUV

Incorrect comparison of the quick crossovers of the BMW X3 and Subaru Forester S-Edition

The duel of the year. For the first time in the history of Russian auto-journalism: the fearless Japanese Subaru Forester S-EDITION threw a glove of the arrogant German BMW X3 ... Something incredible happened. I called Subaru, out of habit, asked how to do it? And I complained that the new Forester S-Edition really has nothing to compare with ...


Classmates in press parks cannot be found. Take from other classes, they told me. You yourself will be outraged if we start comparing Subaru with BMW, I objected. And you try. We are not afraid, came on that end of the tube. For the first time I heard something similar from the lips of the PR service of the automobile company. Usually they all shy away from each other. Some Asian stamps are trying by hook or by crook not to give a car for a test drive, if an audience is at least something stronger. Other European brands are permeated with pride and fundamentally refuse to participate in comparison with Asian ones. In general, to say that I was surprised very little. However, two unequal opponents really found themselves in our ring. In the left corner of the BMW X3 with a motor of 3.5 liters and a capacity of 307 horsepower for 2,130,000 rubles. In the right Subaru Forester S-EDITION with a 2.4-liter engine that issues 260 stallions, but at the same time equipped with a wild number of one hundred percent samurai boresiness, and at a price of 1,692,500 rubles. The difference in price is actually much larger, because the Japanese is completely packaged for this money, and the German is almost undressed.


No cross.
Outside the asphalt, the driver X3 should always remember about the bumper


Eagle with puddles
For crossovers, what is needed. Fun, but without consequences

Lazy show -offs
This time no one built any forecasts. We were not sure of anyone's victory. But it was clear: manufacturers initially laid a bomb in these cars. Of course, she will never explode, but her presence is obvious. A friend told me how in Soviet times he came to the basement of a food store to a familiar butcher: every time I see him, I think he can hit me with an ax and he sells meat, the narrator clearly experienced a dissonance in feelings. BMW and Subaru will make you feel similar. It is good to get off the chase on these machines or catch up with someone. To participate in street racing, rally, drag where gasoline boils, passions boil and issues of life and death are resolved. Instead, in dense daily traffic, they are lazily measured by shows, at the same time transporting their owners from computer to telly and vice versa.


Who quickly?
Subaru can easily keep up with BMW if there is a teenager behind the German car, and an experienced athlete in the Japanese

Hold on the denouement
Before pushing their foreheads, let's look at their owners. A person who bought a BMW X3 with such a motor obviously did this not with the last money. This is already a oburied type with the manners of pampered chair plankton. He went to this purchase for a long time. He climbed the career ladder. Locked the authorities, putting it away from self -esteem. It is possible that he really wanted to purchase X5, but did not dare, because such a car has his boss. And when he rides along the highway, a train of barren years stretches behind his crossover, and he has the same years of lost life ahead, filled with gray office everyday life and brightened only with the opportunity to have an overgrown at night on a steep venue of MKAD in a length of 100 meters.


Sea unhealthy.
Here the Japanese was very shook from side to side, and the steering wheel had to be pretty twisted


Think about the moments.
Snake. In this discipline, the German wins for almost a second. This is an eternity

The owner of Subaru is a ragged, gouging and half -margin. He never had money. He took them out (occupied, stole, found) only for the purchase of S-EDION. Most likely he has nothing more. Its car shines like a New Year's window, creating an aura of delight around, which can be felt in the first few meters after turning on the green traffic light. And so every day at every traffic light, while the brain, tired of fighting a skull box, will command him: enough! However, he will not hear this.


An attempt to catch up. With all their might, the designers tried to give the salon a sporting look: they came up with blue inserts on the seats, and pedal overlays ...


Bavarian wealth. Despite the abundance of style and gloss, ergonomics leaves much to be on the best

Who will win? Well, of course, one who is part of the system and experiences an orgasm on schedule. BMW tears from a place 5.7 seconds to hundreds. Its engine with direct injection produces 400 Nm from 1200 revolutions. Subaru rides in his tail with his acceleration to 100 km/h in 6.5 seconds. Because its engine is not so modern, the designers simply shod him like a ball with a turbine. He would not have lost anything BMW X3 with a 2.8-liter engine, but this is not in the press park. And what kind of victory is this, to win from an equal? This is not in Subarovsky!

To the finish line back
Let's look at them with a sober look. The BMW X3 looks like someone with a nose that was clenched in a fist and did not let go for a long time. The Subaru Forester S-EDITION from a successful angle resembles a creature twisted by excessive modesty, and from the rest does not cause emotions at all. In general, the designers of these machines should at least burn and dispel in the Himalayas. But it is better to send Pavlovsk bus to life practice. It can be seen: such cars are created exclusively for driving, and not for aesthetics. And how do they go? Subaru compared to BMW as a novice gap. It does not fall, but sways with a frightening amplitude. And when it is necessary to urgently slow down, it cuts all the fibers of his revelry soul and looks like a plane that makes an emergency landing in the bushes, losing the chassis, scraping the belly on the ground and approaching the finish line backwards. This is how the cats are inhibited, suddenly flying into the room with slippery parquet, trying to stay with claws. BMW against his background is a guest from the other world. After Subaru, you do not feel that BMW has inertia, weight and it is made of iron. Where the Japanese demands to twist the steering wheel, the German asks only to swing it. And so in everything brakes, handling, acceleration. Accustomed to BMW, you begin to believe in your omnipotence and go too quickly, which immediately showed our experiment with a snake.


- To be glasses. Extremely comfortable glass for glasses and ridiculous armrest
- An old -fashioned decision. The armrest is combined with the cup holders. Saved a place?

Lips of a woman
On the off -road this time we were not these cars were not created for Buraiks. But in the potential of their capabilities on off-road are obvious. In a critical situation, the German has more chances to get out of the mud by his electronics much more successfully monitors slipping. But who is interested in the limiting cross -country ability of such crossovers? Certainly not their potential buyers.

So we did not waste time and rolled at the training ground, detecting the time of the passage of the snake. Each time X3 showed the best than the S-EDITION, time, my heart was bleeding. The German overtook the Japanese for half a second. On a snake, this is an eternity. Only one fact reassured me: BMW shot down five cones, and there is only one Subaru. Despite its surgical accuracy, X3 ultimately provokes extremely sloppy maneuvers. This, however, is no longer a technique, but rather psychology, but in reality, both work.


All underground. The trunk volume is small, but there is a wheel for replacement. This is for Russia, especially for regions, more important


Without a wheel. The reserve is traditionally absent for BMW. Impractical, but there are more places

It's time to determine the winner. From the point of view of Sumo's fighters, Forester S-EDITION deserves victory, if only because with a weight of 1,500 kg, he was not afraid to go out against X3 in the 1800 kg weight category. But we will not be so frivolous in our judgments, we will better give the word to a woman. It was a wonderful blonde. She received a sea of \u200b\u200bimpressions from BMW. At first she liked him unconditionally, a few minutes later, and after half an hour she was already angry. Where does so much sharpness come from? I don't understand how to find contact with pedals. What about gas? What about the brake? This speedometer brought to the windshield is already infuriated. The turn signal is just wild. The box is idiotic! But she said nothing about Subaru at all. And she is right.


Caution, technical details
Subaru Forester S-EDITION is equipped with a VTD (Variable Torque Distribution) system with a constant all-wheel drive with an asymmetric center differential (45:55), blocking a hydromechanical coupling with electronic control. VTD Subaru attaches the VDC course stabilization system (Vehicle Dynamic Control), which successfully simulates the interference differential of wheel undercuting.

The BMW X3 in the basic configuration has a system of dynamic control of the course stability (DSC), which is closely related to the operation of the BMW XDRive all -wheel drive system. Thanks to a wide range of functions, including help in braking, braking control in turning and dynamic traction control (DTC), the DSC system guarantees the simplicity of control even in a difficult situation.

Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photo of Alexander Ortnova-Baranov

 

A source: Magazine 4x4 [January /2012]