2018 Subaru Legacy Premium Review and Price

After my wife got in an accident (luckily with minor bruises) and totaled our last car (1998 Honda Civic), we wanted to get a replacement where safety was a number 1 priority.

 

We were attracted to the standard AWD and we bought a 2018 Subaru Legacy 2.5i Limited with Eyesight, with all the bells and whistles. I should note that I’m not a “car guy” and don’t care much about performance. Here are the things that stand out to me about this car:

PROs:
-Android Auto / Apple Car Play. I will never get another car without this feature (I’m looking at you Toyota). This, combined with Spotify Premium makes driving incredibly enjoyable. Use a button the steering wheel to say things like “Play Eminem’s latest single” or “Navigate to Mall of America” make driving fun and easy.

-Adaptive cruise. I initially found this extremely annoying, because the default setting signals a beep EVERY time a car gets in front of you. Disable the beep through the settings on the dashboard, and it’s very nice to not have to adjust the cruise manually.
-Adaptive high-beam headlights. Very useful when driving at night on roads without street lamps. Using Eyesight, high-beams can automatically turn on as needed, and will turn off when it detects cars in front of you, or cars coming from the opposite direction.
-Infotainment is hit or miss. On the plus side, the heating / AC is very easy to use and I like how the temperature is displayed in the heating knobs / dials. It is also nice to have an 8 inch touch screen. I test drove a $50,000 Audi that didn’t even have a touch screen (it used a pong-styled dial instead).

-This is my first car with a push-button start. This, combined with the seat memory, is cool when you have multiple drivers. What they don’t advertise is you can have your seats automatically adjust (without pushing the seat button) based on the key fab that it’s programmed to. So, when you unlock the car with your fab, the seats will adjust to you (versus unlocking the car with your spouse’s fab).

CONs:
There are a few bugs / quirks in the infotainment system that are very distracting and annoying.
-The radio always turns on when you turn the car off (and before you open the door) and when you turn the car on. Why? This is incredibly annoying.
-“Advisory Message – No Signal”. You’ll randomly get a pop-up message stating “no signal” in which you’ll have to close the message my clicking the X. The dealership told me this is from Sirius, something I don’t even use or want (Spotify + Android Auto is 10 times better). This is SUPER distracting.

-Bloatware. Subaru won’t let you rearrange or uninstall their “Apps”. If I could uninstall Sirius, I would, especially because of the pop-up message. They also force you to see useless apps like Subaru Link (just check out the low ratings in the App store), Aha, and Pandora.
-I had a lot of false alerts with the “lane departure”, so I ended up turning it off. However, when it’s off, there is a permanent yellow icon on the dashboard. Again, this is very distracting because it looks like a “check engine” light. Why not just keep the icon on for 5 seconds when you start the car?

-Similarly, there is a yellow “snow flake” icon on the dashboard every time it is below 30 degrees, even if there is no ice or snow on the road. Why distract me with more clutter on the dashboard? I know what what ice looks like and being from Minnesota, I know how to drive in snow.
-“Lane assist” is somewhat of a gimmick. It often can’t detect the lane, so may give you a false sense of security.
-No heated steering wheel option.

 

EPA Classification  Mid-Size Cars
MPG/MPGe  34 Highway / 25 City
Engine  Regular Unleaded H-4 2.5L/152 cu in
Transmission  CVT w/OD
Drive Train  All Wheel Drive
Seating  5
Horsepower  175
Overall Crash Safety Rating  5 / 5 Stars

 

Starting MSRP 
$24,295.00
Destination Charge 
$860.00
Dealer Suggested Retail 
$25,955.00

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