Subaru Outback 3.0R 2007 Review

Road (and beach!) Test

Hands up if you don't know somebody who owns and loves their Subaru Outback... One of the default choices for families and active singles since its introduction Down Under in the late 1990s, the high-riding Liberty-based wagon can be found in the carparks of 'outdoorsy' establishments from Cradle Mountain to Kakadu.

Indeed, if you could harness Google Earth in real time, I bet you you'd be hard pressed to find any National Park within a few hours drive of our capitals without an Outback strutting its stuff or at least parked by the end of a popular walking trail or scenic wonder. Just as you expect to see a 911 on the Nurburgring or a dumped Civic in Campbelltown, the Outback was made for the urban escapee.

The success of the Outback is that it straddles the realm of traditional four-wheel drive and family wagon. The fact Subaru has cemented itself as a 'near-premium' brand thanks to a blend of good build quality and solid engineering doesn't hurt either. This is one vehicle that doesn't define its owner as either profligate or penny-pinching.

Yet for all its sit-on-the-fence qualities, the Outback has escaped becoming a 'vanilla' vehicle. It has a dose of character -- Subarus are like that -- and talk to most owners and they'll tell you their next car's going to be... Another Outback.

When it comes to replacing the current model, Subaru will have some tough judges to convince -- most of them current owners.

The Carsales Network got a chance to sample the latest Outback 3.0R recently thanks to an event Subaru Australia staged in one of the 'must visit' destinations in southern Australia.

The Coorong National Park lies three to four hours drive south-east of Adelaide. Encompassing around 50,000 hectares (that's a shedload of acres!), it runs in a narrow strip from near the township of Kingston SE, northwest along the coast to the Murray River's mouth near Goolwa.

The Coorong comprises some of the most stunning and unique coastal dune and lagoon landscapes Down Under. And it's a magnet for surfers, surf fishers, bird watchers and those who just want to get away from it all. Unlike many parts of Australia it's also an area where the beaches and coastal tracks are open to vehicles. Hence Subaru's interest -- it's the perfect place to showcase the Outback.

Released in its latest form late last year, the current Outback represents the mid-life version of this model. We expect an all-new car in late 2008 or early 2009.

Changes over the preceding models were relatively minor -- fresh cosmetics and some equipment tweaks mainly. The Outback has retained its conventional wagon configuration and high level of finish and equipment. Under the skin, however, the model change (MY07 in Subaru speak) introduced the Subaru Intelligent Drive (SI-Drive) system to selected models including the six-cylinder Outbacks.

SI-Drive essentially allows the driver to choose from three engine/transmission management modes -- Intelligent, Sports and Sports # (Sports 'sharp') via a centre console-mounted rotary dial

According to Subaru, Intelligent mode helps the 3.0-litre six-cylinder Outback to achieve 2.0-litre like fuel economy. This is achieved by 'nobbling' engine output by 27 per cent (147kW/200Nm instead of 180kW/297Nm). At the other end of the performance spectrum Sports # liberates the full output, improves throttle response, gets the auto gearbox into action quicker and holds gears longer to get every inch out of the boxer six.

Sports? Well, sports is where this all started -- it comprises the 'settings' the car used before all this trickery was introduced.

On the sedate drive down to The Coorong we tried the Intelligent setting -- it softened the delivery of the vehicle but on the open road the end result was not overtly different underfoot. Once we got onto the sandy tracks and beaches of the national park itself, the car was dropped in Sport # and that's where it stayed.

Subaru's 3.0-litre six is not the torquiest engine on the planet. Discounting that torque even further for the sake of saving some fuel isn't our idea of a good time. And in sand, momentum is your friend -- and sometimes (most of the time) that means using as much power and torque as you've got.

Our base for our two-night stay in The Coorong was under canvas at 'Camp Subaru'. No, not an oversize blow-up pink Liberty but rather an amazing feat of logistics in the shape of a dozen or so small tents, hot and cold running water, a gourmet kitchen and a central marquee in blinding white dunes behind the beach halfway along the Younghusband Peninsula.

Just getting to camp required the Outbacks to perform across a range of conditions -- clambering over steep hard-packed coastal tracks, along the constantly changing beach itself and then in the super fine, super soft sand of the dunes themselves. Of course, Subaru spent a significant amount of time preparing the cars... They let the standard issue road-oriented tyres down!

Next time somebody tells you softroaders are for the softheaded remember what you read here. There are some basic rules you need to follow -- 4x4 Australia Magazine can help with information on offroad schools, many of which cater to 'softroaders'. Further, these vehicles are not the best choice if you're planning to tackle Cape York, the Simpson Desert or the Canning Stock Route. But if you want an all-rounder you can live with day-to-day, that will also take you to places you and your family deserve to experience, like The Coorong, then the world's your oyster. There's never been a better selection of softroaders on the market.

Back to the Outback -- Subaru, not Red Centre... With around 16psi left in the tyres, the Outback tackled most sand driving conditions. In the end it was typically ground clearance that stopped us. Here the golden rule of not going it alone meant there's somebody to help us when we got 'beached'.

When a member of the launch crew did strand an Outback it was inevitably because they were caught out by getting too close to the car in front. Keeping a good spacing, reading the beach and the sand ahead and remembering momentum is your friend, means we avoided most 'groundings'.

As noted above, this wasn't the time to employ the 3.0R's SI economy settings. In fact, much of the time the six-cylinder Outbacks were using plenty of throttle. Automatic transmissions (five-speeders in the 3.0Rs) make things easier, too -- in this sort of going the manual 2.5i four-cylinder Outbacks definitely made harder work of the driving.

Initially some of our number were caught out by the Outback's traction control too. Remember to turn it off in deep sand or snow or you won't get far.

The Coorong's 100km-long lagoon had shrunk as much as our southern capitals' water storages with the big dry, so there was very little of the park we couldn't explore in the Outbacks. In the end the main factors were time and the unusually high tides the area was experiencing. It seems time and tide wait for no car company either.

We used the Outbacks to check out the Granites -- an amazing rock formation that features giant 'pebbles' strung out from the high ground across the dunes and beach and, according to the local charts and anglers, continue at regular intervals right out to sea. We got up close and personal with a particularly grumpy detoured around Australian fur seal, explored the dunes and the imaginatively named 28 Mile, 32 Mile and 48 Mile Crossings -- somehow they've escaped the indignity of being re-dubbed the 45.061, 51.499 and 77.248 kilometre crossings. So far...

But in the end our time on the beach ran out all too quick and there followed a mad dash back to Adelaide.

Dispatched with ne'er a leg stretch or bathroom stop, the 300km or so sprint proved the Outback once again comfortable, quiet and quite some highway cruiser. Whether it is just an impression courtesy of its higher stance, the Outback seems to soak up road irregularities better than its bitumen-bound stablemate Liberty. There's a little given away in terms of outright cornering ability but only a little.

And at higher speeds, the Subaru six really comes into its own. It would be the ideal choice if the open road limit was 140km/h. In Oz at 100km/h we'd still swap some of its top end for a more muscular midrange.

Versatile, well built and well finished, the Outback deserves its 'favoured vehicle' status Down Under. Its replacement -- when it arrives -- has awfully big shoes to fill...

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