CVT and Off-road

Is there no one on here who doesn't want a challenge?
 
I'm interested in the challenge of how my Subaru performs on tracks where I have weighed up the risks etc. I'm not interested in a challenge or competition of who has the best off-road Subaru.
 
Thanks for your input temmah. Some mechanics here, Subaru-competent or not, like the idea that Subaru changed the style of the belts giving the drivers a more direct feel. I still am yet to try it as I am also intrigued.

Rally, I am too far away for that meetup :). There is an overlanding company in over there though that leases XVs which you can bring wherever. It's much more economical than bringing the SG over there.
 
Welp. I have just seen a follow-up video on the TFL test on the Outback up Gold Mine Hill (below). It made it, although it struggled, but it was with TC and X-mode off just like what we suspected. Since these transmissions are programmed, there should be a way to tweak the algorithms but it would be a dealer update. That's good enough, anyway. They are showing what cars in stock form can do.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ua51LAtgVM"]You Hated How The Subaru Outback Did Off-Road: So We Took Your Suggestions and Tried Again! - YouTube[/ame]
 
It took them that many attempts to find the right line? Sure, we make mistakes and we can take the wrong line, but to get it wrong so many times? Yes, the car got up and it struggled and was probably at it’s limit. I am concerned though at just where the engine power, limited by the ecu as it was, is going. Something must be wearing out, such as the gearbox, when you sit there for long periods of time going nowhere and without wheel spin or very little.
 
Yes. I find it kind of fishy. I would try all the options if I own the car. They tried one of the commenter's suggestion where X-mode and TC are turned off but should they have tried it beforehand? Based on their reactions in the video, they looked really reluctant in considering the comments/suggestions of their viewers.


I think this CVT still has the torque converter.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3PF4fPXe9U"]Subaru Lineartronic Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) - YouTube[/ame]



Could it be that the power is absorbed by the torque converter itself? It also seems that the system kind of trickles power to the wheels during the prolonged skit.
 
I would have liked to have seen them try the right line with Xmode on, but by the time they got up I think they had enough of testing. Looks like they just want to do what the every day driver would do, keep the car completely stock, don't go tinkering with fuses or anything, press the buttons that look offroady and don't put too much thought into anything.



When the cars feathering the wheel spin it looks like the electronics are still working it out. But when the cars sitting there at constant high rpm and no wheels turning it looks identical to older model auto Subaru's overheating the torque converter and reaching their limits. Sitting there with such a large difference in rpm on either end of the torque convert builds up heat fast. Not sure what it is that cooks in a CVT, but they must have been cooking something. Lower gearing would have helped greatly. It's hard to tell everything going on with out actually being there or getting them to try different things on the same lines, but that's what it looks like to me.
 
Rally said:
It took them that many attempts to find the right line? Sure, we make mistakes and we can take the wrong line, but to get it wrong so many times? Yes, the car got up and it struggled and was probably at it’s limit. I am concerned though at just where the engine power, limited by the ecu as it was, is going. Something must be wearing out, such as the gearbox, when you sit there for long periods of time going nowhere and without wheel spin or very little.
Click to expand...


I think so, too.

As for the video, ignore that guy. Not representative. You cannot drive an AWD like a Wrangler.

I am not saying that H4 CVTs are offroad beasts, but that is ridiculous. I have seen an H4 CVT struggle at 12,000 ft, but it still made it up a sequence of 3 passes, Corkscrew, Hurricane, and California, and I know a magazine took an XV up another one in the neighborhood, Engineer. Most stock 4Runners and Jeeps don't go there (though they easily could, but that's another matter).
 
What I am seeing is a whole bunch of poorly executed marketing fads by Subaru.....

X-Mode, VDC and TC all sound great on paper but Subaru haven't calibrated them very well. The computers are too slow to work out what the hell is going on and all this engine power is going nowhere (well most likely being converted to heat somewhere in the CVT).

Land Rover's soft roader, the Freelander 2 simply has a terrain control - they probably reasoned that there's no point confusing buyers with silly buttons labelled with acronyms.

Look at how quickly the Freelander's electronics detect slippage and perform individual wheel braking ->
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2EDn-5aEBE"]2013 Land Rover Freelander 2 - OFFROAD - YouTube[/ame]

It just goes over stuff - you don't need to frick around with VDC, TC on, TC off, Xmode on or off - fuse out, engine cutting power - blah blah.....

Electronics are great when they work but they need to be well programmed. If they can't talk the talk with electronics then Subaru are better off sticking to traditional mechanical traction aids - like LSDs, DR boxes and now that we've seen how relatively easy it is to fit a diff locker - they should do a factory one....

No doubt about it. I could not (and would not) take a modern Subaru to places where I can regularly take my 2 decade old Subie.
 
I didn't see that the Freelander in that video performed any better than an SH Forester or an SJ for that matter. It didn't attempt anything like the pinch on Gold Mine Hill. I would agree that the Discovery's computers are much better tuned than any Subaru but there is a cost to that technology.

I don't have lots of confusing buttons and dials, simply TC off for off road. Everything else is automatic. I'm not impressed with X Mode except for hill descent control but that's not a big deal when you have ABS. (and I have driven an SJ with X Mode and a variable transmission and decided I wouldn't own one). I would love to have a smarter response from the VDC on steep slippery ascents but it's still better than open diffs and not significantly different to the Freelander.

Every off-road comparison I've seen of a Forester with a competitor SUV, including Freelander shows the Forester to be superior if it's driven in the manner recommended by Subaru. In comparison with a dedicated 4X4, including small ones like the Lada Niva show the Foz to be less convincing but would you like to drive any of those on a run over 100Km of corrugated dirt road?

Subaru makes vehicles that are a compromise between comfortable transport and off-road capability. In response to consumer demand, Subies are becoming more attuned to comfortable transport in climates where winter traction is an important factor for buyers. Other manufacturers are catching up in the comfort department but perhaps not in the reliability department, especially in the case of Jeep and Land Rover.

Those of us who appreciate Subaru reliability, resale value and comfort but like to push the boundaries by testing the off-road capabilities of our respective rides will always have to come up with our own modifications to increase those capabilities because of Subaru's drift towards the luxury/safety end of the AWD market. The fact that Subaru doesn't even make an OEM nudge bar is an indication of their priorities.


Anyway what would you do with your spare time or money if you didn't need to go down to the shed to build a bull bar or fit a lift kit or a lower set of gears? Isn't that half the fun of owning a vehicle that has the capacity to respond so well to simple modifications?
 
there are reasons why we dont see those freelanders do any off road there. range rovers sure but not those newer ones that made for city driving. and they not so much reliable. thats reason they not used at all by overlanders that need to go large distances .
land rovers 4wd system is ok sure. its very cleveer to put video of car doing just something that i can do so it would look like its so great in all when its not. its just do some things ok sure. like shows in this or hundred other videos.
 
I'm not saying I want a Freelander, I was just showing an example of the computers doing the right stuff. They are so unreliable I'd be nervous taking a holiday somewhere remote in one.

I think my main beef is with CVT. As for the other stuff I am sure that in time Subaru will sort the TC and VDC software out to react a bit faster and provide us with different modes for on-road driving, sand, mud etc....but if one waits for these improvements, then I fear that we'll be stuck with CVTs if they completely eliminate manuals (which I think they have done). X-Mode seems still "under development".

The newest Forester I could consider is an SH because they have manuals and conventional autos (and even the STi 5 speed auto with VTD in the S-Edition). But the SJ and SK are getting too soft for me now. Incidentally, I wonder how a lifted S-Edition would go off road?? I could definitely go for a mild offroad build of one of them.
 
Yes, MAS, the first videos, as well as the last one, just popped up in my feed. I used to watch their truck segment but stopped when I had outgrown their format.

When they said they kept their foot planted on the accelerator after the 11th minute, the Outback seemed to have been applying incremental torque on the next few tyre movements. Just before the car got over, the car seemed to have applied the proper torque as the last one looked much more smoothly than the previous attempts. This is somewhat similar to what was told about keeping a steady throttle and getting the vehicle to learn the habits. I am curious now on how the car would fare once they try it again. Will the clearing be much more smooth if it is placed on a very similar situation? I agree with everyone about the worry about where the wasted power is placed. I read the US manual and it said that in order to prevent wear, the system will limit engine speed but when the car stalls in the video which components actually wear? Does it just keep the torque converter slipping until the system figures out the right amount of torque for that situation? I am getting more and more curious.

I am just thinking, if the car is in D and it is a CVT, it will continuously hunt for the correct ratio. If it is in M mode, it will have specifically selected ratios to emulate a manual gearbox, therefore preventing the system to do the hunting. According to reviewers, the X-mode is a simulated low-range. If it is in X-mode and in M as well in the gear selector, will it lock to a lower range and climb better? Has anyone with a CVT tried this before? We need a better owner's manual on these systems but I agree with Beachworm, the target markets for the modern cars have somewhat changed to the efficiency and luxury crowd, rendering a more comprehensive owner's manual useless. An extra technical off road driving section will not hurt except for the cost of printing a few pages.
 
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ABFoz said:
According to reviewers, the X-mode is a simulated low-range. .
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Absolutely NOT.

X-mode is a more aggressive VDC setting. It DOES brake spinning wheels faster. But there is absolutely no low-range component to it.

The problems with those videos are ultra basic:

1. A Subaru MUST carry some speed. Cannot crawl up loose terrain. Doesn't mean you cannot get up loose terrain.

2. AT tires or at least lower pressures are a must. Unless you are Rally and use rally tires. And locking diffs:lol:

3. TC off is a huge deal but only if there is any depth to whatever you are driving on. If the looseness comes from just the very top stratum, then TC won't make a difference.

Remember that most youtube videos that get lots of clicks are made by folks who went ONCE somewhere and think they have discovered anything but their own lack of understanding. Some are also obviously biased, some not so obviously, some are just ignorant.

And honestly, there is a lot of similar stuff going on with Toyotas, but on a different level, they make it through but get damage and/or use excessive mods. Lots of poor driving and by that I mean the very basics: failure to understand the vehicle's systems, right foot that is too happy or too lazy, etc, etc.

Driving offroad is not hard but some people surely have a knack for making it seem so. People on this forum actually know what they are doing and our combined wisdom, such as it is, is light years ahead of all the youtube stuff.

The Jeeps here in the US are different. There are some Jeep channels whose owners are truly on top of their game.
 
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think many questions could be answered if we could get an SJ to join us on that track I know south of Sydney which seems to be an ideal track for testing a cars off road ability. A standard SF or SG would be the baseline so we would need one of them as well. There would be a designated line each car would have to take. My car would be the benchmark so we can compare the ease or otherwise for each car attempting the climb. Additional cars with various modifications could also be used for comparison. We could test things such as disconnecting sway bars, or anything else really and make our own video. Do we have people living near Sydney wanting to take part?
 
MiddleAgeSubie said:
1. A Subaru MUST carry some speed. Cannot crawl up loose terrain. Doesn't mean you cannot get up loose terrain.

2. AT tires or at least lower pressures are a must. Unless you are Rally and use rally tires. And locking diffs:lol:
.
Click to expand...

There is a limit to how much you can crawl with the available gearing. On my last climb up that hill where we did the comparison with the SH, which wasn’t videoed, I tried crawling up really slowly and nearly stalled. I think I could have gone slower though on the run in the video I posted. And for those that are wondering, I don’t really use rally tyres, I use road tyres lowered to 25 psi.
 
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 !
 
Haha, true that.


But, again, line picking actually requires some "talent" and/or serious experience, etc.

I am talking about many youtube videos where people display lack of basic command of their vehicle. This year, moving to the 4R, I had a number of silly moments where the vehicle was not fully stopped in low range. Maybe I was too light on the brake and 1LO just outdid the brake. Took me a while to get used. Turning radius is way worse than the OB in real life though not on paper. Took me a few switchbacks to adjust.

Point is, you cannot just buy a vehicle you have not driven before, go out there, and make definitive statements about the vehicle to the entire world.
 
Rally said:
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think many questions could be answered if we could get an SJ to join us on that track I know south of Sydney which seems to be an ideal track for testing a cars off road ability. A standard SF or SG would be the baseline so we would need one of them as well. There would be a designated line each car would have to take. My car would be the benchmark so we can compare the ease or otherwise for each car attempting the climb. Additional cars with various modifications could also be used for comparison. We could test things such as disconnecting sway bars, or anything else really and make our own video. Do we have people living near Sydney wanting to take part?
Click to expand...

Now that would be worth seeing. Pity Brisbane is a bit out of range.
 
Thanks for clarifying, MAS. I agree with you about people driving a vehicle for a few hours and make judgements based on their short experience. I think that's the Achilles heel of most of these car review channels. I am sticking with the channels of ASPW and Ronny for overlanding.

Yes, Rally, we need a proper test. I am properly curious about the new tech, especially how the vehicles will fare when M is selected.


About being stock, I think that's the fun with not having that much ground clearance. We get to pick crucial lines. Mine is still relatively stock with some underbody protection and slightly larger tires. I am not sure, though, if I remain with non-ATs as our terrains here can get pretty lively every time it rains. Because of the videos, I am now keen to know on how the stock ones fare with different terrains.
 
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