2024 Subaru Crosstrek Premium interior and exterior walkaround review | Autoblog Garage

Road Test Editor Zac Palmer gives us a detailed walkaround of the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Premium.

Autoblog contributor Mark Takahashi wrote of the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Premium:

Subcompact SUVs are gaining in popularity and for good reason. They deliver the elevated ride height and cargo capacity that so many SUV drivers desire, along with the kind of maneuverability, fuel efficiency and lower price expected of smaller sedans or hatchbacks. These pint-sized utes are a great alternative to larger SUVs, but if you're also interested in straying off the pavement, one of the best choices has been the Subaru Crosstrek. Now there’s a new one.

To read more about the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Premium and other Subaru news click the links below:

https://www.autoblog.com/2023/03/13/2024-subaru-crosstrek-first-drive/

https://www.autoblog.com/buy/2024-Subaru-Crosstrek/?icid=post|topcomps

Video Transcript

ZAC PALMER: Zac Palmer here with Autoblog with the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek, the new third generation of Crosstrek right here. This is basically an all new but pretty heavily refreshed version of the old one that we're looking at right here.

So how about we dive in and start to look at some of the design changes they've done for the new generation. Right up front here, some of the big obvious ones-- a new front end. So you have a new grille. There's no frame on it anymore. It just sort of spreads from one end to the other. You have some new cladding design down here, some LED foglights, LED headlights that also now turn with the steering wheel. So that's pretty neat.

Moving along to the side, Subaru stressed that they have new aluminum fenders on this one. So that saves a little bit of weight. We have some 17-inch wheels on this guy. So this is the premium trim. The Base and Premium get 17's, whereas the Limited and Sport get 18-inch wheels. So these are the Base ones.

And then on this fender cladding here, Subaru made some new aero changes. So they put some intakes on either side that allow air to flow through better and make the car more stable on the highway. Pretty neat, small, little changes.

Moving further down the side here, you should look up because, yes, we have some big old roof rails up here. Yes, you can, of course, go roof top tenting in this Crosstrek. That's really cool. And I just love the design of them, too. They're really big and bold out there, really show that, yes, of course, you can use the roof on this little SUV, which is not super common in this class.

All the way back to the end here, we have Subaru's distinctive tail lights. I like this design. People know what it looks like. I think it looks pretty sharp. And then back here, I'll just really stress how high this thing is off the ground. This thing has 8.7 inches of ground clearance, front to rear. That's really, really good for this class of SUV that doesn't necessarily stress off-road performance. But this one does. And I can attest to that fact. It does really, really well off road-- of course, standard all-wheel drive. So this thing has a lot going for it. But we should probably hop to the inside, and I'll show you guys a lot of the bigger changes on the Crosstrek.

Welcome to the interior of the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek. Now, if you thought the outside looked fairly similar to the previous generation, well, the inside is going to show you that this is a rather new vehicle. Now, I will start off with probably the biggest change of all, which is this new 11.6-inch touchscreen right here. This is actually the upgrade touchscreen that comes on the Premium trim and above. The base model comes with a dual-screen setup. So you have one screen up top, separated, and then a bottom screen down there. I think that this looks a lot cleaner.

But if you're familiar with some other Subarus, this is a very similar screen as on those ones. It's vertically oriented. And I really love how Subaru includes a lot of physical buttons in addition to just the screen. So you can use the physical buttons to change your temperature control. You have a great big volume knob and a great big tune knob for some of those easy-to-access items. The touchscreen itself is rather slow. I don't necessarily love that. But it is big, clear, and easy to read. You won't get confused rolling through menus or anything like that.

Moving down into the center console, we have ourselves a pretty traditional PRNDL right here, just straight back into drive, straight on up into park. Subaru added an electronic parking brake for 2024. And I also love that they kept their physical switches for the heated seats, which are right here. Super satisfying to use, make a nice click. I really, really dig that.

As for some new technology, we have new ports down here. So we added a USB-C port, in addition to a USB-A. One funny item-- there's still an aux port. I don't know how many of you guys still have aux cords, but Subaru thinks we still need one.

Directly in front of me-- the gauge set. We have some analog gauges that is framing, a digital screen right in there that is customizable. It's not a lot you can do with it. But it is nice that you do have a digital screen on a base model here.

As far as trim goes, we have carbon fiber-ish look trim right there. It's also on the door. There's nothing too fancy. It feels pretty plasticky, doesn't exactly look all that expensive. But it is there. There is some trim. As far as the seats go, you have these interesting pattern cloth seats and have some sort of green weave to them. So it's kind of a green, gray, and black look. They're meant to be easily cleanable. They're meant to look off road, a little rugged. I kind of like it, but it also doesn't feel that premium.

Up above me, we have ourselves a moonroof as low as the premium trim, which is really great to see. I really dig that. But that's all we have for the front seats. We should probably hop in the back because there's a lot of room back there.

Welcome into the back seat of the Subaru Crosstrek. Now, this isn't a lot different than before, but it is still a great big high point for this car. So I'm 5' 10". I have the driver's seat set where I want it to be. And I am sitting back here in this subcompact crossover, and it is positively spacious. I can spread out. I can stick my feet underneath the seat. There's a ton of room. My head is not even coming close to the ceiling. This is rather comfortable back here for such a small car. You could go on a four-person road trip and be very, very comfortable.

Now, you also have a center armrest in here with some cup holders, which is great, and a couple USB ports for your passengers both a USB-C and a USB-A, which is pretty great on this cheap of a car. But let's go check out the trunk because that's sort of where Subaru left an Easter egg or two for us.

So welcome to the trunk of the Subaru Crosstrek. You can see manual release here. Pretty simple. No electronic release available for this car. But pretty spacious trunk back here. This is a hatchback, of course.

Now, a couple Easter eggs, though, that I think are really neat. So with the sort of leading edge of the trunk, you have a mountain range down here, which leads into the cargo mat, which sort of shows a flowing river away from the mountain range, because, of course, you're going to be taking your Crosstrek to national parks and doing outdoor stuff and whatnot. That's all great and all.

But what about your water when are you going on those hikes? Well, Subaru has specially designed some cupholders just to fit Nalgene bottles. They're specifically designed the shape, the width of them for a Nalgene bottle. You can fit two, one on either side of the cargo mat. That's really neat and really cool. Other OEMs don't do that.

And now we should probably put these back seats down so you guys can see the maximum cargo capacity because this thing is fairly spacious. You've got to bring a lot of stuff hiking when you go with you. So I'm going to go around and hit these seats.

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So there we have it, the full cargo capacity of the Subaru Crosstrek. There is a lot of space back here if it's only and one other person, which is the typical buyer, actually, for a Subaru Crosstrek-- just a couple, no kids, maybe a dog. But yeah, you can stick your dog, a whole bunch of camping gear for a weekend, maybe even a short week back here. This thing is very, very spacious.

But let's finish things up with a little powertrain talk, see what we have under the hood. So under the hood of the Subaru Crosstrek, this is the base model, the premium. That means that we have the base engine, which is a 2-liter flat 4. Makes 152 horsepower, 145 pound feet of torque. It is not fast. It is actually very, very slow-- 0 to 60 in about the 9 to 10-second range. But it does get good fuel economy, and there is an upgrade engine available. There's a 2.5 liter with 182 horsepower if you want it. It's a bit quicker. I definitely recommend it. But this is the cheap, fuel economy version of the Crosstrek that you get in the two base trims.

Every single version of the engine-- there are only two-- they're mated to a CVT transmission, continuously variable. Behaves like normal Subaru automatics. When you floor it, it goes up, car goes back and forth a little, acts like a regular automatic. You have some paddle shifters. But overall, just a very regular Subaru flat 4 with the CVT experience.

So that was the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek. Make sure you guys like, share, and subscribe. And go to the comments and tell us what you think about it below.

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