Subaru Forester tS 2016 Review

Adding a turbo to a Forester does not a STi make — as we’ve seen with the Forester XT — but the limited-run Forester tS has been infused with STi goodness to make it a better cornering tool. The Forester tS is priced from $54,990 (plus on-road costs).

Most people like to have a car that’s a bit different, and the car industry is happy to accommodate with the ‘limited edition’.

That’s usually industry code for ‘This car isn’t selling, so let’s throw in some monogrammed carpets mats and slap on fancy limited edition stickers and watch them rush out the door’.

The Subaru Forester tS is a bona fide limited edition, with just 300 built for Australia. Maybe the Forester isn’t selling as well as Subaru might hope, but this isn’t just a carpet mat and stickers special.

STi gets a Forester XT freshly baked from Subaru’s Gunma factory and installs their own inverted front struts, (15mm lower) front and rear springs, flexible strut tower brace, front sway bar bushes, rear subframe support, rear subframe bushes and flexible draw stiffeners front and rear.

Then Brembo brakes (four-piston at the front, two-piston at the rear) are attached and 19-inch Enkei alloys are bolted on.

Of course no car manufacturer in their right mind is going to make a limited edition like this without a bit of carpet mat and sticker action. So Subaru grabbed a shopping trolley and went down the aisles at STi. Items they picked included a black grille with STi badge fitted, a black rear spoiler and mirror shells, Cherry Red STi stripes on the grille and rear bumper, leather/suede trim with red stitching and STi logos on the engine start switch, gearknob, instrument facing, steering wheel and seats.

After Subaru finished its retail therapy at STi, there were 30 items in the trolley for STi to add to the XTs awaiting the tS treatment. When the register rang up the total, it’s you that might get a bit of shock.

That’s because the tS additions cost $7000 more than the XT. If you’re a Subaru tragic though, and as adroit as I am in justifying car expenditure (with three cars and a motorcycle I have to be), you’ll realise that each change is costing you a mere $233.33. Bargain!

The cabin is the familiar Forester XT layout, albeit smartened up with the limited-edition gear.

The front seats could do with more side bolstering, given the STi sporting pretensions, but getting comfortable in the tS is not hard.

I find some of the Forester’s instruments a bit frustrating. There are three screens on the dash; a 3.5-inch centre cluster screen, a 4.3-inch dash top screen, and the 7.0-inch centre screen. It seems to me that Subaru could lose the dash top screen and incorporate the information (such as turbo boost level and fuel consumption) to the other screens. The centre screen and climate controls lack cohesiveness too, and the climate control temperature adjustment was slow to respond.

Subaru’s EyeSight collision warning system ‘sees’ obstacles that are not there, such as concrete lane dividers on corners. It’s also like having a nervous passenger when approaching cars ahead, sounding off a warning of an impending collision when really there’s no chance of one.

The tS’s lane-departure warning is also on the sensitive side. It can’t distinguish between lane markings and the line between a slab of new tarmac and old.

The tS has a fussy ride around town — it jiggles over most road surfaces, shaking your wobbly bits, but it gets better the faster you go. It isn’t exactly lush-riding over potholes and lumpy tarmac, but it absorbs these nasty bits with a level of compliance you don’t expect from a sports suspension.

It gets better in the corners, where the tS can boogey though quickly and in a more controlled fashion than the Forester XT, especially when you hit mid-corner bumps. Yet it’s still a tall vehicle and feels it as you hustle though a bunch of corners. While understeer is still the order of the day, the 245/45-series Bridgestone Turanzas are grippier than the Bridgestone Duelers on the XT. You don’t get much feel or feedback from the steering though, but at least it’s pretty direct.

The 2.0-litre boxer turbo gives the tS a fair whack of power and torque, but the chassis feels like it could handle more (and Subaru clearly thinks so too, with the Japanese-spec tS getting 206kW). Even the 2011 Forester S-Edition had a 193kW WRX engine, so it’s a shame Subaru didn’t grab the Japanese-spec tS engine for Oz.

The CVT doesn’t help. On a full throttle launch the engine quickly spins up to around 3000rpm and holds there for a couple seconds before lunging for the redline. It’s best in the mid-range, and while Si mode helps sharpen response, you can’t help but feel that this car would be transformed with a manual transmission or a conventional auto.

The tS’s fuel consumption averaged 11.2L/100km over a week, with mostly urban driving.

The tS’s Brembo brakes have a progressive pedal feel and wash off speed really well after repeated use.

The Forester tS adds handling and braking finesse and subtle cosmetic improvements over the Forester XT, but is it worth an extra $7000? On the face of it no. Yet given this is a heart over head SUV purchase, I’d be surprised if all of the 300 examples imported don’t soon find a home.

2016 Subaru Forester tS pricing and specifications:
Price: $54,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 177kW/350Nm
Transmission: Continuously variable
Fuel: 8.5L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 197g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP

Also consider:
>> Hyundai Tucson (from $45,450 plus ORCs)
>> Mazda CX-5 (from $47,410 plus ORCs)
>> Volkswagen Tiguan (from $49,990 plus ORCs)