After just a few years in the market, the Subaru Crosstrek already gets a couple of updates. It has made its debut in the US, adding a couple of trim and equipment changes along the way.
It doesn’t sound (or look) like a big facelift just yet. As far as we can tell, then the exterior looks largely the same save for US-exclusive variants. But the big news here is what’s now under the hood.
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But before we get to that, what minor changes does the Crosstrek get? As mentioned, there isn’t much in the way of exterior tweaks. Yes, there’s the off-road oriented Wilderness edition, but it’s largely down to new color choices for the rest of the range. It also adds more upholstery options depending on the variant selected.
Subaru did give the EyeSight system a new feature. On top of everything one expects from an advanced driver assist system, it now also comes with something called automatic emergency steering.
It was first found in the larger crossovers, namely the Ascent (known as the Evolves in Southeast Asia) and the Outback. It recently made its way to the Forester, but it’s now available in the Crosstrek. In essence, the car will do the steering in case of an extreme emergency, provided conditions are right.
So, what’s the big news under the hood? For the US market at least, most variants now come standard with a 2.5-liter, four-cylinder boxer engine. With that, power climbs to 182hp and 241Nm, a big jump from the 2.0-liter’s 152hp and 197Nm output. It still shifts with a Lineartronic CVT.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we’ll get that engine. However, there is another powertrain option that we’d like to see here someday. That would be the 1.8-liter turbo that’s offered in the Japanese market. It’s a downsized turbo engine that also makes far more power than the current 2.0-liter. It makes 175hp and 300Nm which should give it even better pulling power.
At the moment, it’s used in the Japanese-market Levorg, the outgoing Forester, and Outback. It hasn’t been installed in the Crosstrek just yet, but this compact turbo engine would be a welcome addition.
