Subaruable

Keel Elanwrote:

Slight topic drift, but how essential is AWD for taking a Subaru down these "subaruable" roads? Are moderate clearance (8") vehicles with FWD generally good enough for subaru-ing?

Reason for asking is that I'm in the market for a new vehicle and something like the Ford Maverick Hybrid has moderate clearance and great gas mileage, but is FWD only. And I'm basically trying to find a unicorn that I can subaru to the crag while contributing as little as possible to carbon emissions.

Subaru AWD is really only useful in the winter, ground clearance is what matters. Keep in mind though that what the low points ground clearance is actually measured from matter more than the exact number. Subaru’s are pretty good for unibody vehicles in terms of keeping all the vital bits tucked up high— 8.7” is the clearance for subframe, exhaust, and suspension, but the vital bits are all at least 9.5” on my Outback and Subaru has factory mounting points for skid plates. If you’re in the market for a maverick, take a peek underneath with a tape measure and see what looks vulnerable.

Body on frame vehicles with simular on paper ground clearance are much better in practice.

FWIW the gnarliest roads I’ve been on were in a 3 cylinder FWD tata taxi n Nepal — driver asked for an extra $10 for the rough road and proceeded basically drag the floor pan up a 30° slab.

I think the AWD is being a little undersold here, or maybe I’m underselling the capability of f/rwd… 

but I took my outback up and down metal masher trail (down into bull canyon, not the super gnarly parts you see on Google image) in utah, and I can’t see myself as having done that without awd. Lots of mild rock crawling, uneven terrain, and big boulder.

But again, seeing as this is MP, I should add that no crag has ever required me to drive on a road like that. Except jack squirrel peak approaching from the south, actually.

^ I very much agree about the usefulness of Subaru AWD on uneven rough terrain.

There has been a few great decisions I have made that have impacted my climbing over the years.   Owning a high clearance 4x4 is one of them.    It has opened up so many more opportunity to find new crags.  Sure you could hike in but what a waste of time and effort when you can take an old mining road or some old drag road.    

Extremely capable with a little 2" lift and bigger tires.I show up many a place and surprise the heck out of some truck folk.
Love it, but it is not like my tundra with 3" lift on 35's. That being said, I think for most people a lightly lifted Subi you can get way out there. Now, if you add a rear locker, winch and a full size matching spare your going to get even further.

Love the idea of roads being subaruable. I very much use it as a referencer point already in my personal life since I am fortunate enough to have 2 rad vehicles. I support this movement.

Mr Rogerswrote:

Extremely capable with a little 2" lift and bigger tires.I show up many a place and surprise the heck out of some truck folk.
Love it, but it is not like my tundra with 3" lift on 35's. That being said, I think for most people a lightly lifted Subi you can get way out there. Now, if you add a rear locker, winch and a full size matching spare your going to get even further.

Love the idea of roads being subaruable. I very much use it as a referencer point already in my personal life since I am fortunate enough to have 2 rad vehicles. I support this movement.

I’ve been considering a rear locker; starting to get annoyed with the roof box partly because laziness and partly because mileage.

what do you use? Do you feel like it affects your off-roading (I.e. grounding out in sharp dips)

Lifting  and over size tires is rough on the drive train. In telluride we got my stock 4x4 Astro up a mining rd to a lake for camping that ended up being the turn around for the 4x4 tours... Been plenty of sketchy places with my stock GMC SIERRA. It's better to have skills than to mess with a stock rig unless you plan on running it into the ground. 

It does seem a little weird when I see a newer Subaru that's clearly had a lot of money put into making it more capable. Like Nick said, Lifting and putting bigger tires on isn't what they're designed for, and if you change drive line angles and upgrade suspension you might as well put that money into an old truck that's built to withstand a bit more abuse. In my experience Subarus are pretty underwhelming in the MPG and power categories, so it's not like you're saving much there. Unless you just really like Subarus for some reason, it's probably best to get a truck where you know you're not maxing out on rough high clearance roads.

For the record, I had a 99 Tacoma that got around 25MPG in the summer, had incredible clearance, tons of space in the bed, and great low end torque for when things got steep or slow. My girlfriend's Crosstrek gets 31MPG but has about half the clearance of my Tacoma, room for a few bags in the back, and I wouldn't feel good about taking its suspension on too rough a road.

Front wheel drive vehicles are quite capable, even more so now with electronic traction control. That being said, in no way is FWD “almost as good as” AWD/4WD.

AWD/4WD doubles the number of wheels trying to push you forward. Period. This is a significant and meaningful improvement. 

FWD= if one front wheel loses traction you’re stuck.

AWD/4WD=  both a front wheel and a rear wheel have to lose traction to be stuck.

Electronic traction control improves both systems equally. It uses the brakes to trick the differential into thinking both wheels have traction meaning both wheels get power instead of the one without traction slipping. It doesn’t make FWD almost as good as AWD/4WD, it just makes both systems better.

ETC systems vary in how effective they are. There are also limited slip differentials, and locking differentials but I don’t want to get too far into the weeds.

TLDR- Trying to “round up” FWD into almost as good as AWD/4WD is fundamentally flawed. However, good ground clearance, FWD (or RWD for that matter) and electronic traction control can get you into most places.  It just won’t deal with slippery conditions(snow, mud, ice) nearly as well as an AWD/4WD system.

Also, just for the sake of thread drift…

Two inch lift at the strut tops, stock tire size, two full size spares, locking rear differential (A locking rear differential on an AWD/4WD means you have a guaranteed 3 go-forward wheels all the time!)

Unfortunately it’s a 5-speed, which is great for the ego, but not actually ideal for crawling slowly through tough terrain… wish I had one of the Aussie ones with low range…

Edit, forgot to mention the skid plate mounted to the factory mount points, gotta protect that low hanging oil pan.

For what it’s worth, this ‘06 Forester is just a toy for playing, not my daily driver. The rear sway bars aren’t even hooked up and it’s pretty squirrely above 50mph.

Entirely irrelevant, but every time I’m tickled by the fact that Subaru backwards is ur a bus 

This was Subaruable for the Outback that drove across it successfully right before us ... (January 2016)

F r i t zwrote:

This was Subaruable for the Outback that drove across it successfully right before us ... (January 2016)

The weight of their balls held their subaru down and gave them a traction advantage.

I’ve been known to refer to roads as “Priusable”. If I can do it in my shitty Prius C, anyone can do it! (Yes, that’s me you saw at a trailhead I most certainly didn’t belong at, along with a bunch of Jeeps and a Toyota Camry.)