My previous car was a 17 year old Outback H6. I loved it, but my wife never did.
Owner: Nigel Griffiths
- I find the seats very comfortable, but I particularly love its smooth 6-cylinder boxer engine.
- The tinny sounding Harmon Kardon sound system.
My previous car was a 17 year old Outback H6. I loved it, but my wife never did. Perhaps the final straw was when, although she had put it in reverse, it actually went forwards. This made her attempt to manoeuvre the car in a public car park both difficult and highly embarrassing. Very disturbing for her I suppose, but this never happened to me. It turns out that it had been running with an empty radiator for quite a long time and this was the only, if admittedly rather concerning, effect. Once fixed it was fine again, but she insisted that it had to go. I agreed to replace it but, to her horror, I got another Outback as a replacement.
I love the Outback’s smooth and powerful 6-cylinder boxer engine coupled with its CVT transmission. I don’t understand why people don’t like this kind of transmission. It’s far more efficient than traditional automatic transmission and there’s none of this droning noise that people complain about. It’s more comfortable than the old one for long journeys and much better equipped, with all the active cruise control and various warning beeps you get when, for example, you cross the old painted over white lines you find in Sydney (the only lines that show up at night when it’s raining).
It has several modes that allow you to drive it more sportily and it has paddles to control the transmission if you’re the type who likes to have a dog but bark yourself. I mostly ignore these unnecessary features. On the whole, it seem to be very practical and reliable, as I would expect from a Subaru. Even my wife likes it – especially the heated seats.
On the downside, the special Harman Kardon sound system fitted to the 3.6R actually sounds quite tinny. It has a large speaker in the centre of the dashboard that all the sound seems to come out of. Oddly, it still seems that way even after I removed the speaker, which seems a bit spooky. Not as spooky as the Alfa 164 I used to own which would turn its hazard warning lights on and off at random while driving. We knew the previous owner had died, but apparently he never left the car.
Another mild disappointment with the car is that, whereas I have seen reviews describing it as a very quiet car, at any speed over about 70km/h I don’t find it especially quiet. On rough roads the tyre noise seems quite loud and the plastic weather shields seem to amplify the wind noise.
Owner: Nigel Griffiths
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