CVT and Off-road

jf1sf5 said:
I used to be a better off road driver taking better lines before I modded my Forester. I saw that last time I met Subforest72 and he drove my Forester, he's still picking the right lines....

I'm going back to stock !
Click to expand...

But why you need take better lines if its fine either way. With more capable car you can take lines that others cant. Isnt that exiting and fun ?
When i drove with local foresters they mostly habe sway bars and some no lift and they where strugle on some places where wheels hang in air where i just drove pass there with no wheel spin. I just picked best line for me.
Still i had lots fun there. Later some said: ohh it must be because he has legacy longer base ...
 
Thats right Scalman, its good fun to take lines others can't but then you rely on the vehicles capability and sometimes it doesn't work ! And then comes another car, less capable on paper, and it goes right over the obstacle because the driver picks the good line....
 
Yes. Just like this one. He's using a 4EAT, though.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi5kfsbpnAE"]Subaru Forester Off Road - YouTube[/ame]
 
Last edited:
And maybe that less capable car dont have furniture and kitchen in trunk so less weight as well haha. I duno you learn drive your car if its more capable so you learn by that . i dont care how less capable cars would drive where i go. I think how more capable 4wd would go there.
 
The directness of a manual gearbox is a different beast. It gives you total control.
 
Well mates, it seems Subaru has the answer to the part where power is not sent to wheels on some terrains. The Dual X-mode has a deep snow/mud setting where more power is sent to the wheels when toggled. It looks like this will solve a lot of powertrain issues when going up some two-wheeled sections like the one on Gold Mine Hill.

This video is from Engineering Explained and Jason is somewhat a fan of the brand as he has owned some for quite a while now.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAuIpOtkS1s"]How Subaru's Off-Road X-Mode Works - 2019 Subaru Forester - YouTube[/ame]
 
Gee, what an advance. The further you push on the accelerator the more power you get. Vindicates my decision 3 years ago to upgrade to cable throttle if they are only able to do this now. Still, with cable throttle being linear the boffins aren’t there yet. Seems to me they are making this car for people who couldn’t drive out of sight on a dark night.
 
Rally

My thoughts exactly.

I can't see that the new X Mode offers anything more than the 4 speed sports auto on my SH as long as the driver has a modicum of common sense and driving skill.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
True. I think that modern vehicles are just geared toward the modern mass majority. Put it in D and drive. If they have an off-road-marketed vehicle, they go off road at D and select some buttons. The system, as well as the X-mode, can only do so much.

I have been told that the CVTs perform very differently at locked virtual drives at 1 and 2 than just at D, somewhat similar to the 4EATs' 1 and 2. This would be with X-mode off, at least. Most people, though, would not use locked virtual gears. The people who use tiptronic, based on my experience, are those who had driven manual for quite a while before. Now we need the input of @temmah about the performance of the CVT vehicles in different scenarios!
 
From the 2019 Forester video, it looks like x-mode deep snow/mud is just turning the traction control system off (minute 6.24 in the video). I can do that by pressing my traction control off button.

I purchased the icar2 wifi odb2 reader today which works with the Active AWD app to read the torque split front to rear. I just went for a quick drive around the road to check it out.

I believe there is a myth somewhere that putting the CVT in manual 1st gear makes the front/rear split 50/50. That is just a myth from my initial findings in my car. It did send about 10% more torque to the rear on average but not 50/50.

Turning on x-mode seemed to make the active torque split more happy to send torque to the rear. Even on the road i managed to send 40% to the rear on a steep incline.

Anyway I will do more testing and put some data together. This is what interests me, working out what the AWD is doing in different conditions. (Nerd Alert).

I have some dash cam video's to upload from a few weeks ago when i week off road. Ill post them soon.
 
That's interesting. I was hoping my OBD2 reader would show me torque split too but unfortunately I haven't been able to get it to show me that information. I would love to know what the splits are on an SH auto.
 
This is good. Keep us updated. It used to be just FreeSSM (https://www.subaruoutback.org/forum...426-freessm-complete-access-your-ecm-tcu.html) only for our Subarus. I am considering setting installing one on Linux.

I found ActiveOBD for Subaru (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.activeobd.app&hl=en_US) only exists on Android. I haven't seen an iOS alternative yet.

It would be nice to get not just the torque split but also the amount of power that the wheels get, even though indirectly, because of the use of the brakes to control the spinning wheels.

EDIT: Well, technically we still should be able to see the power sent to the wheels even when the spinning wheels are controlled by the brakes. We should be able to see how much limiting the TCU/ECU does when the diagonal thing happens.
 
I just looked at the Active AWD app and it only works on 2012 or later vehicles. :(
 
Oh man! I still don't have time to fiddle with FreeSSM. I am only ORSing in between tasks.

Anyway, [MENTION=14807]temmah[/MENTION] will have some good info regarding CVT operations.
 
I just found this video from a Subaruer trying to replicate the tests with the CVT. I tend to agree with his insights.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbYvOiAiwSw"]Subaru AWD Redeemed?! X-Mode/VDC/CVT hill test! - YouTube[/ame]

Some of the commenters are avid Subaruers, as well, and I notice they have CVTs as their transmission.

I agree that all vehicles have their own limit and with this particular model, the TCU might just be limiting damage to the transmission itself. Imagine it's just a belt taking a huge amount of that torque! Subaru's belts are more like chains, though. Now, with the dual x-mode, there is a chance that Subaru might have listened to the complaints/comments of their customers as the Deep Snow/Mud setting allows for more torque to be transferred.
 
So you can spend over $40,000 on a new Subaru that still cannot get up a hill. What a joke. That’s embarrassing. You can get a Subaru that can easily get up there for a lot less than half of that
 
Last edited:
Interesting. My forester does not behave like this. From what I can see in the video. If i stay steady on the acelerator It keeps trying to find traction. It moves power to different wheels, if they slip, it applys brake to the wheel. Sometimes I need to apply more accelerator. Sometimes I don't make it up. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I change my line.

Granted I won't go up a hill like [MENTION=44]Rally[/MENTION] can. No [MENTION=44]Rally[/MENTION] I'm not going to buy your car. Well I wish I could. But no.
 
That SJ was behaving like the SH did in my video, with less wheelspin.

Go on, you know you want it. ��
 
Since the US market didn't have the dual range, maybe they just got used to using momentum when tackling such obstacles.

I am truly interested in the secrets here. Some are saying their vehicles perform better with more controlled throttle than at full but I cannot really think of it that much as I haven't driven any CVT car yet.
 
Back
Top