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I Finally Got To Drive My Subaru Somewhere

For various reasons, not all of them pandemic-related, the 2018 Subaru Outback 3.6 Touring I purchased in January of 2018 never got further than

35 miles from home. Well, on Saturday I finally drove up north to take care of some serious family matters. After completing ~1125 miles I have a better feeling for the car. First off, the mileage while not stellar, was not horrible either at 26.8mpg overall with maybe 75% being at high speed on major highways but sometimes it degenerated to gravel roads (and badly-maintained county roads) in the SW PA 'gas patch.'

I have determined also that the built in navigation really sucks. It gives you three choices based apparently only on time and distance but never warns about the pitfalls of any of them. It gives 'accurate' directions but almost never 'good' directions and will gladly divert you to a gravel road from a county road if it will shave 5% off the distance and will put you on that crappy county road even if a perfectly good highway route was available that is only 5% longer. Up until now I had been unable to get Android Auto to work (reasons unknown) but in desperation I tried again on my way home and it worked perfectly and gave much better results even though I was using it blindly. I hereby apologize to all those who have posted that Android Auto is superior to the inbuilt. I was definitely wrong.

Oh, the seats are comfortably enough even for someone as old as me, visibility is good except when driving straight into the sun with bugs splattered on the windshield, handling and stability are excellent, the cruise control is exemplary, the lane keeping can get annoying, and the noise level is good. The newly-installed replacement Michelin 225/60R-18 Michelin CrossClimate2 SL tires were excellent even in some blinding downpours in West Virginia with never a trace of hydroplaning.

Reply to
John McGaw
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And just how is that even remotely related to your specific car model?

Visibility would suck in any vehicle under those conditions- including the goggles on a motorcycle rider or even on a jockey.Though at least jockeys' goggles have several layers of soft plastic tear-off lens covers to keep the mud off ;-)

Reply to
Wade Garrett

I thought it interesting to read and wonder what a lot of bugs might do to the eyesight system.

Reply to
invalid unparseable

My cars range from 1960 to 2002, so I can't directly compare. But all of the navigation systems I have used let me set priorities, like "shortest distance" or "fastest" for its route choosing. Is there a chance that's where things are going wrong? Bob W

Reply to
Bob Wilson

My Subaru in-dash system gives precisely three choices involving time/distance. It even shows a sorta-map for each as you select. The problem is that there is not enough detail to see exactly what any particular line segment is. Is that a nice four-lane or is it a gravel road leading past a gas-well drilling pad? That is what I meant 'accurate' vs. 'precise' -- any route shown will get you there but you cannot see what the real route is until you drive to a perceived junction and by then it is too late. There is no option to tell the nav to prefer paved roads over gravel or limited-access over country lane. In fact they do give you options to avoid highways but no way to ask to stick to the good roads. I'm pretty sure that the DeLorme software I used on my laptop with a GPS dongle decades back gave fine-grain control and would let you demand the minimum number of road changes be used so that one wouldn't be diverted off a 'good' road to save a few miles.

Anyway, now that Android Auto is working on my phone/car it is no big deal

-- AA provides real-time traffic re-routing and live warnings about construction and accidents and closures which the Subaru system doesn't even dream of. Yeah, maybe I'd use the the Subaru system if I was just going to the other side of the county and needed to find an address -- it is good at that -- but for long-distance travel, no way.

Reply to
John McGaw

"...remotely related to your specific car model?"

I believe it is a function of voodoo aerodynamics and special bug-attracting glass pioneered by Subaru in their secret labs under the volcano.

Reply to
John McGaw

Didn't affect Eyesight any so far as I could tell -- it always knew where the road edges were (if they were marked) and saw any vehicles in front for cruise control and screamed at me if there was a sudden stupid move by someone in front of me and even tapped the brakes a couple of times and warned me if the car in front moved as the light turned green. When things get screwed up with Eyesight, like ultra-downpours or heavy snow or fog, the system is not shy about popping up a big warning. Probably a lawyer-appeasing additional feature.

Reply to
John McGaw

McGaw, you were warned about disclosing Top Secret info when you were sworn in. Turn in your credentials and report to the Director's office first thing in the morning.

Reply to
Wade Garrett

That is good. I hear that if you have a cracked windshield and need replacement you probably need OEM for best optical clarity to Eyesight.

Reply to
invalid unparseable

On 2021-06-16 8:19 PM, John McGaw wrote: <snip>

On some systems I have used, you can set other parameters for navigation. For example, toll roads (yes/no), ferries (yes/no), major highways (yes/no), etc.

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any that have the option to avoid unpaved roads, or to *prefer* paved over unpaved roads, or to *prefer* secondary paved roads to interstates.

Reply to
Darryl Johnson

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