From OP Re X-Mode

No, it's full-time AWD on all modern Subarus. I think the X-Mode is just something that rebalances the torque to each wheel more optimally.

Yousuf Khan

X-Mode with Hill Descent Control all new for 2014.

standard on 2.5i Limited and Touring, 2.0XT Premium and Touring (its not available on 2.5i or 2.5i Premium) X-mode has to be activated under 12mph, and cuts off over 25mph. X-mode is a low speed system activated by the driver. It's a computerized management system that controls the engine, CVT transmission, AWD system, brakes, and VDC to help maintain control on slippery surfaces or steep hills. Its combined with hill descent, and only works at low speeds. Hill descent control is activated with X-mode and uses VDC engine throttle management and brakes to help maintain vehicle speed when going downhill at low speed. When activated, the system will maintain the speed it was set at.

I think this has been covered previously in this thread.

Different Subaru models have had a variety of front to rear drive ratios over the years but they are all FULL-TIME All Wheel Drive vehicles; the F/R ratios have varied from 90/10 to 80/20 to 60/40 to

Basically, just buy a Subaru knowing it has All Wheel Drive and drive it. It is really a "no-brainer" unless you are concerned with high-performance vehicles like world-class rally cars.

All I know is that my WRX and my wife's Forester go very well in the snow -- and we had 13 inches here in Colorado earlier this week -- without pushing any buttons, pulling any levers or locking any axle hubs.

Yeah, I don't understand the backlash against X-Mode, either, now that it's been explained thoroughly. Sounds like it's taking the blame for an ordinary variation in the axle ratios.

Even my good ol' 1993 Legacy Wagon was a real trouper when a friend guided me into a wash in the Mojave Desert last week. I had mapped out routes that would go around them, but she saw one on the satellite photo and thought it was a road...I felt the car compensating a bit as it plowed through the sand, but we made it out just fine and I even came back the same way a while later.

Patty

Ben Jammin:

Bingo. It's amazing how people fuss over details that don't really matter in the every-day world and that they couldn't change if they did matter.

Yup, except there's a button in the cabin to control some aspect of it this time, whereas with all of these other systems, it was fully automated.

Yousuf Khan

MANY vehicles have had switchable and even multi-mode traction control.

on a side note, these things are a real PITA in the repair industry, IME. By the time they break, no one remembers how the computer self-test logic worked "that year", there's no good engineer-side documentation available, and none of the after-market scan tools can communicate with that module anyway. The trouble shooting tree usually ends with:

step 22: substitute a known good TCS module step 23: Is it fixed? No...GO-TO step 1

groan GW