Canadian Subaru Outback Wilderness Gets A Key Feature - U.S. Is Left Out

When no part of your country is north of the Arctic Circle, it's not needed ;-)

"Customers in the U.S. will have to wear gloves when the temperature drops below freezing in the Northeast, Rocky Mountains, and the Northwest."

Um, who the hell goes outside when it is so cold outside without gloves? Freezing is hardly so cold to need gloves, or a heated steering wheel. If it's sub-zero, you'll have on gloves before you even reach your car, like donning them when inside just before going outside. You'll already have your gloves on when you get into your car. Oh my God, those will interfere with using all those gimmicks inside the car. Yeah, we certainly need to maintain the loss of focus on using the gimmicks instead of having drivers perform their main function: drive the car.

I suppose you don't like the heated seats or heated mirrors either?

I have an Outback with heated seats. Not because I wanted them, but because the model they had available had them. I forget about the feature; i.e., I rarely turn it on. Mostly when it's elderly family members getting into the car when I use them, especially Grandma who like to kid "Where's the heat?" as soon as she gets in. For me, and since the heated seats do not turn on when I start the car, I forget all about that feature. Just something more to break.

Heated mirrors is a safety feature, not a comfort feature, so including them in your argument is irrelevant. I'm not sitting, holding, or otherwise touching the side mirrors. The heated mirrors come on when turning on the rear window defroster, so it's coincidental (not deliberate) that the heated mirrors activate when I want rear window visibility. However, I certainly wouldn't rely on heated mirrors to see when backing up after starting the car. I'd have to wait around too long for the mirrors to clear. Instead I scrape the side mirrors, get in, and back up. I'm not waiting around in the cold for convenience. Get in your car, mirrors are iced over, start from cold, and sit around waiting for the mirrors to thaw? No thanks. If the mirrors thawed in

10-20 seconds, the glass would crack from the fast temperature change. Another thing to break. Scraping has worked for decades. Since I'll be scraping all the other windows before driving off, adding the mirrors is an obvious included chore. I also don't start the car, lock and leave it, and come back 20 minutes after all the windows have thawed.

On 4/23/2021 2:59 PM, VanguardLH wrote:> I have an Outback with heated seats. Not because I wanted them, but > because the model they had available had them. I forget about the > feature; i.e., I rarely turn it on. Mostly when it's elderly family > members getting into the car when I use them, especially Grandma who > like to kid "Where's the heat?" as soon as she gets in. For me, and > since the heated seats do not turn on when I start the car, I forget all > about that feature. Just something more to break. It's more of a necessity when you have leather seats more than cloth seats, but they're still quite useful with cloth seats. 4-cyl models take forever to warm up inside, compared to 6-cylinder ones, and the seat warmers are pretty much your only source of heat for the first 5 minutes after starting off. 5 minutes is murder without heating on certain days. And of course with leather seats, they are always too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. I have no idea why anyone gets leather seats.

Yousuf Khan

Actually I'll admit, I've never had it so cold that I can't hang onto the steering wheel. However, I have had it where it's so hot for being in the Sun all day that I can't hold it. So if that's possible, I'm willing to bet having it so cold that I can't hold on to it is also possible in some environment somewhere. And steering with gloves on is sometimes terrible too, because they might be slippery on the steering wheel, depending on the type of glove worn.

Yousuf Khan

Yeah, hot and sticky in summer, stiff and cold in winter. I've never bought a car with leather/vinyl seats. Hate them. I always get cloth seats. For me, I don't even think leather/vinyl seats are stylish. Even my 20-year old Legacy's cloth seats are in great condition. Maybe an owner with kids likes them for easy cleanup, but I use my carpet washer with hose attachment for major spills along with spraying the seats and carpet with 303 Fabric Guard every few years. If I somehow got stuck with a car with leather/vinyl seats, I'd get an anti-slip padded seat cover similar to using a padded steering wheel cover. A lot cheaper to replace than a car seat or a steering wheel. The padding is sufficient for me even in sub-zero temperatures. Acclimation probably accounts for why some folks feel much colder in winter than others. When I go to Florida on winter vacation, I'm dressing in T-shirts while the residents are wearing layers and Walmart is selling winter coats down there.

We don't often get winters that dip below 0F (or -18C), but even then I'd just use padding instead of electrics. Even when we hit -20F, I didn't use the heated seats for myself. In that weather, it would be stupid not to dress to be outside for an extended time, like when the car breaks down, after an accident (yeah, those never happen, uh huh), or a long walk from car to building. I'd be dressing the same as when I go out to use the snowblower. At -20F, I'll be wearing thermal underwear, heavy or insulated jeans depending on the wind speed, a good winter coat with neck cover, face cover, insulated hat, and very good gloves or mitts. I dress for outside, not for inside a car. The young and stupid dress for style in winter. I dress for outside, and can peel layers or open zippers when the car's inside warms up.

It can be so cold here that you have to leave the windows open a crack for airflow inside the car when first starting out, because your breath will frost the inside of the windows. The thermostat stays closed to let the engine warm up first, and then you'll get heat at the defroster outlet for the windshield and at the side vents for the windows. If I were to dress inappropriately, I'd be too frigid everywhere else to worry about my butt.

If heated seats were so critically important for extremely severe winter, why aren't you wearing electrically heated snowmobile apparel to keep more than your butt warmed? If you lived in Greenland, it'd be very stupid to dress for inside a car.

Why I use a /padded/ steering wheel. Hard to slip when your grip is indented into the padding. The padding is for both thermal insulation and for grip. In fact, the padded steering wheel cover gives me more grip than the stock steering wheel. However, it's not for the type of driver that likes to run their finger inside the steering wheel when turning since that's where are the edges of the wrap-over cover.

Ever hear of Alaska?