Car Shopping with t0ast, Round 3: Subaru WRX Turo Rental Review

"t0ast" (t0ast217) 04/12/2019 at 09:35 • Filed to: None

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I think this is my new favorite way to do a test drive.

As written !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the WRX was still in the running for my next car purchase. There’s a lot of appeal in something that can seat four adults, provide a potent AWD drivetrain, and land under $33k with my desired trim and options (Premium w/ Recaros). On the other hand, I’d much prefer a hatchback body style, which this fails to provide. To see if the driving experience could help make up for that shortfall, I needed to get behind the wheel.

Thankfully, a semi-impromptu trip to Seattle and access to it’s (waaaaay better than KC area) Turo listings provided a great opportunity to do just that. The specific car I booked was a 2017 base model WRX with a manual transmission and about 20k miles on the odometer. Four days later, I had managed to add about 400 miles from traveling through a variety of environments including busy downtown streets to long highway jaunts to winding scenic drives.

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I already had a chance to poke around the inside of a WRX at last month’s KC Auto Show, so I spent most of my time focusing on how it all translated into general comfort on longer drives.

The cloth seats had a pleasant amount of give to them and remained comfortable for 2+ hour long drives. Their grippy texture and moderate bolstering also did a decent job at holding me in place during more spirited driving activities. They’re good, but not good enough to stop me from wanting the optional Recaros.

In terms of NVH, things were slightly better than expected overall. The suspension tuning is a little more towards the sporty side of things, but with enough compliance to remain comfortable over all but the worst of road surface flaws. Wind noise was minor, but road noise, on the other hand, got really bad at times depending on surface and speed.

HVAC, infotainment, and vehicle information displays were all well-laid out and easy to use. I especially liked that the HVAC display was present next to the screen on top of the dashboard, unlike many other cars which stick it next to the knobs much further down the center stack. The only noteworthy issue I could come up with was the lack of a dedicated hill hold toggle button. It can be disabled, but !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

I know 20k miles doesn’t translate into a lot of wear and tear, but for what it was worth, everything still looked and felt like new, with no creaks, rattles, or loose switchgear.

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I’m not too picky when it comes to looks, but I do think this one is a little hit and miss with its sporty-looking front and rear affixed to a mid-section that can’t quite make up its mind on what to do with the body lines coming from each end. With that out of the way, I’ll try to focus on some of the more practical aspects here.

I have to applaud Subaru for continuing to maintain a healthy greenhouse on these cars. I hadn’t driven a sedan in a while, so being able to see clearly while acclimating to its size was very helpful. I didn’t find myself leaning around the A-pillar or having any trouble spotting traffic around me at all.

The trunk opening and size didn’t look particularly large, but it still had enough room for two medium-large duffel bags and two medium-large backpacks with a fair amount room to spare. Do I still want a hatchback? Of course, but this would realistically have me covered 99% of the time.

I did find a small amount of annoyance coming from the side skirts of all places. They’re more aggressive than they look and extend the bottom of the door sills quite a bit. It took a lot more effort than I expected to not step on them while entering and exiting the car.

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One of the first things to stand out behind the wheel was the power delivery. After spending years with a laggy Outback XT and high-strung FR-S, this felt like straight-up cheating. I knew turbo 4s had come a long way in the last decade, but that didn’t make the gobs of torque available below 3k RPM any less entertaining. My husband initially admonished me for short-shifting all over the place, so I tossed him the keys after our next stop. One brief pull out of a slow roll later and it was “HOW?! This just isn’t fair.”

Unfortunately that honeymoon period was cut short once I found an opportunity to wind out first and second gear. I already knew to expect the power to fall off near the top, which it did to some extent, but the rev hang was the real buzzkill here. I could seriously fit in a full 3-Mississippi while waiting for the revs to fall. I eventually learned to work around it, but it still bothered me by the end of the trip. I know it can be tuned out, but I’d be really reluctant to put the warranty at risk.

Steering effort and feedback landed squarely between sportiness and comfort. Compared to the FR-S, there’s less heft and the amount of feedback is a bit more restrained. This helped make longer drives a little less fatiguing, but slowed the build-up of my confidence in its handling abilities. I did eventually get comfortable though and was able to get the most out of some travels through places like Whidbey Island and Chuckanut Drive.

I got along well with the transmission throughout the trip. The shifter, while not the most mechanical-feeling thing, moved with enough accuracy and feedback to keep me happy. The clutch was a little heavier than expected and was blunted by some manner of delay or damping mechanism, but had a relatively wide and easy to modulate range of engagement to help make up for it. It isn’t a super rewarding box to drive, especially when coupled with the aforementioned rev hang, but it does at least make it easy to drive smoothly.

This WRX rental also marked my first encounter with hill hold. Even though this particular implementation was a little generous in what it counted as a “hill” at times, the communicative clutch did a great job of helping me quickly figure out when and how much the “hold” was engaged. I definitely appreciated it early on in my trip, but could see myself eventually turning it off unless I had plans to travel somewhere with some really crazy hills.

Fuel economy at the end of the trip landed around 29-30 MPG as calculated at the pump (since the car was about 10% optimistic). This was with a city/highway mixture similar to my home environment with some more spirited driving sprinkled on top, so I could see the WRX hitting 30+ on a regular basis if I were to get one.

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Pardon the weird colors. Google tried to “enhance” this one for me and I accidentally deleted the original :-(

Similar to how this car started out on paper for me, the driving experience was very positive overall with only a few noteworthy drawbacks. I could see most of the things I complained about fading quickly into begrudging acceptance over time with possibly the exception of the rev hang. It sure was annoying, but I’d hesitate to call it a show-stopper considering how good the rest of the car is. It also might just be the nature of these sorts of engines now, given how often I hear complaints about it in reviews of other cars.

Could I see myself owning one? I think so, yes. It ticks most of my boxes and strikes a healthy balance between being fun and reasonable. There are a few flaws and compromises that keep me from falling entirely in love with it, but it’s still the first of a handful of cars on my test drive to-do list. I’m also working within a relatively narrow range of options here, so there may just need to be certain things I’ll have to accept.

Now to go try and convince some dealerships to toss me the the keys to their Golf Rs, STIs, and so on. That’ll be fun, I’m sure.

E90M3 > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 09:48

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I still can’t believe people will rent our their own manual car.

Jayhawk Jake > E90M3 04/12/2019 at 09:55

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I feel like panic over clutches is overblown. If someone knows how to drive manual, they aren’t going to hurt your car. The only real risk renting one is that the renter truly doesn’t know how to drive stick and rides the clutch the whole time.

I have never hesitated to teach people to drive stick in my cars, or throw someone who I know has driven stick the keys. 

vondon302 > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 09:57

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Chuckanut drive. Giggles

That rev hang bothered me too.

Not a Sunburst Miata > vondon302 04/12/2019 at 10:00

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the rev hang is the most infuriating part of my BRZ

t0ast > E90M3 04/12/2019 at 10:01

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You and me both. Even with some people making a business of sorts out of these rentals by maintaining a small fleet and the service agreements making it possible (in theory) to hold renters accountable for mechanical damage they might cause , it still seems like a substantial risk. I’d be curious to know how often those sorts of issues actually arise for this particular niche.

vondon302 > Not a Sunburst Miata 04/12/2019 at 10:04

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Damn haven't driven one of those. Now I'm not so eager to.

KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 10:06

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If you hate the rev hang you can always go for the CVT option you know...

t0ast > Not a Sunburst Miata 04/12/2019 at 10:09

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It can certainly be a bit of a hassle in the twins, but this was even worse. I magine another 0.5 to 1 second of the revs just chilling out where you last left them before they decide to start making their way back down.

412GTI > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 10:10

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Nice review. Pretty much sums up how I felt about the WRX when I drove one last year. More comfortable than I though, but the road noise did annoy me compared to the VW’s. The Civic might be a smidge better in NVH, too, but they seem pretty similar.

The Rev hang was bad, but you’re correct in saying that seems to be the way manual cars are now. The Civic Si was the same way. I believe it has something to do with emissions. Driving an older Miata last weekend was so odd since it doesn’t have rev hang like new cars.

Also, if you want to try a Type-R, we’ve got a guy in my area renting on turo for $600/day lol. Unsurprisingly no trips have been booked. 

MUSASHI66 > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 10:27

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My wife and I lease two of the 2017 base models. I’m at 16-ish and she is at 19-ish thousand miles.

So far, I had a bad gas cap at 1000 miles, and bad throw out bearings at 12k miles.

Wife had a bad throw out bearings at 12k miles as well, and at 18k or so had to go to the shop because of a check engine light. They replaced the camshafts position sensor, camshaft sprockets, oil control valve and ECM before the car was back on the road. 2+ weeks at the shop.

Neither of these issues are uncommon. Apparently there is a new upgraded throw out bearing and once replaced it should last a while.

That’s it for the bad stuff. Other than that, we both get around 23-24mpg mixed. Only time I saw over 30 was from New Mexico to Colorado on long flat highways.

I was never aware of a rev hang and I’ll have to look for it now, but I never had issues driving it.

Regular seats are aggressive enough - my left fat roll is squeezed daily by the bolster can’t even imagine how Recaro a would be.

Noise is bad - Nameless muffler delete helps a bit and it doesn’t drone and it’ll provide some nice noise. Coming from an Abarth 500, it sounds pathetic.

Summer tires come stock and you’ll have to buy a spare set if you live anywhere where it dips low.

Entertainment system has it’s issues and it could be way way better but if you just let your music play on a phone and use Bluetooth it’s mostly ok.

Brakes sucked at track. They got hot quickly. New pads, fluid and probably braided lines would be a must for any track duty. 

That said, I still think that the WRX is the cheapest entry into decent speed and decent awd. At $25k for base at Heuberger it’s an amazing deal. $33k.... that’s very close to STi and it’s worth jumping there just for the burble.

DAWRX - The Herb Strikes Back > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 11:02

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A couple of notes on your review:

I have never ever heard anyone describe this clutch as “communicative”. But uh...I’m glad you thought so.

A lot of the road nose is the tires. If it was still on the stock Dunlop’s then that was probably the culprit. When I wore those out and switched to the continental extremecontact sports it was almost night and day.

Another note on tires actually. I wore out the stock Dunlop’s after just over 30k miles and now I’m approaching 30k miles on the contis and they’re down to the wear bars as well. Evenly worn. Rotated every 6k with the oil change.

I’ve only ever got into the 30s mpg wise when I burned through a whole tank nonstop on the highway. I usually sit between 22.5 and 25 mpg depending on how much highway driving I did. If your commute has any stops in it or if you drive faster than 70mph I wouldn’t expect to see higher than 26 or 27 on average.

You do not get used to the ride quality. You can live with it but when you get into any other car you feel like you’re riding on clouds. I really feel like Subaru could have done a better job balancing a sporty ride with better suspension dynamics.  

Maintenance can be pricey. My 60k mile service was $700, and you probably won’t find it cheaper a t an Indy shop (my mechanic matched the dealer price after his initial quote for doing everything the dealer said they’d do was $1k) , so if you did I wouldn’t trust it.

Spend enough time in the car and you can definitely see all the places Subaru is cutting corners. The build quality isn’t bad but it’s not fantastic. I have a c reak somewhere in the rear that I can’t diagnose, I had some issues recently with the power steering slipping in the cold first thing in the morning. The clear coa t is thin so keeping your paint looking nice will be an uphill battle.

In the end I can’t recommend it to anyone unless they love the car and are willing to put up with its quirks  because they can’t see themselves driving anything else. 

E90M3 > Jayhawk Jake 04/12/2019 at 11:03

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Only reason I’d rent it is to let someone learn manual. 

Snailkite > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 11:13

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You hit a lot of the reasons why I got rid of my 2016 WRX. Road noise, rev hang, not a hatch. Add in premium fuel with mediocre mileage, driver’s seat that consistently made my right leg fall asleep on trips, and a lumpy, inconsistent throttle in traffic.

It was otherwise a great car, but I ultimately couldn’t use all of its potential in Atlanta and all of those things wore on me. Got a manual Golf Sportwagen TDI, and I’m honestly enjoying it more.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > DAWRX - The Herb Strikes Back 04/12/2019 at 11:17

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Same deal in my Hawkeye with the tire noise. It VASTLY changes depending on the tire. The Falken 615 k+ I had on the car were great tires but noisy as all hell, especially as they wore down. They did return me better gas mileage than the Nokians I have on there now though. The Nokians are nice and soft and quiet. Terrible on really tight canyon roads but compliant and they work well in the snow.

Your gas mileage sounds more expected. I was impressed to hear 30, even though this is the newer motor in the WRX versus my ancient STi. I can crack 24 when hypermiling so hearing 30 without really trying sounded wild to me.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > 412GTI 04/12/2019 at 11:18

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Theres a couple of Type-R in Los Angeles on Turo for around $100 a day. Only includes 100 miles per day but the price is pretty good nonetheless. I’ve thought about renting one but the low mileage really poo poos the idea for me. I’d use that up in like 2 hours lol. 

nermal > E90M3 04/12/2019 at 11:35

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Especially one that rewards dumping the clutch at 5k rpm from a stop.

t0ast > MUSASHI66 04/12/2019 at 11:43

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Huh, good to know about those issues. My hope would be that most of those are ironed out by now given how far along in its generation the car is at this point.

Rev hang could likely be better or worse depending on driving habits, shifting rhythm, etc. I found it to be at its worst after running out first or second with a lot of throttle then lifting off and clutching quickly. Unless I was willing to let the clutch take the brunt of that RPM difference between gears, I was stuck waiting a while for them to get more closely in line. The brief pause before the fall just felt egregious after so many years of N/A and older turbo cars.

I can understand some disappointment in the sound. There’s some character lurking in that engine but Subaru seems to have gone out of their way to mute most of it down. I’d be on the fence about trying to turn things back up a bit since the Exocet is plenty noisy.

I favor the Recaros just because I’m skinny and tend to move around a lot without good bolstering. Also one plus about that package now is that it comes with some better brake pads, which hopefully helps out on that front . Price-wise, I’m just going off of MSRP for now, so in the real world I could see that ~$33k potentiailly negotiating down to be a lot closer to $30k.

At the end of the trip with this one, I’ll admit it did have me much more curious about how the STi is to drive. I like the thought of having real diffs, more power, less rev hang, etc., but with daily driving being the main use case here, I’d have to be weighing that against the poor fuel economy, (possibly?) harsher ride, and increased cost.

DAWRX - The Herb Strikes Back > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 04/12/2019 at 12:02

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Yeah my contis are pretty worn now so they’re pretty loud but they’re still nowhere near as loud as those stupid Dunlops. It is kind of amazing to me how Subaru has managed to figure out how to pipe in ALL the road noise.

It’s definitely possible to crack 30, but I’m only able to do it on road trips  with the cruise set at the speed limit. Even when I have a tank of mostly highway miles around the city I’m lucky to get over 26. 

MUSASHI66 > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 12:24

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I judge all my Subaru prices against Heuberger Subaru. Check their online price and if you like it send them an email for a quote. You’ll get approximately another $1000 discount on top of whatever they have listed on the website.

As for STi, comfort wasn’t that much different than the WRX. I feel that WRX is a great deal at 25k, not too shabby at 30k, but once it is only $3000-5000 away from the STi, I’d probably save up. 

t0ast > DAWRX - The Herb Strikes Back 04/12/2019 at 15:27

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In retrospect, communicative probably wasn’t the best word there. I didn’t get much feel directly from the pedal itself, but the long(ish) and linear engagement it provided made for some really easy adjustments based on how the rest of the car was reacting. If nothing else, I liked it better than the Outback XT (numb and occasionally deceptive) and FR-S (weird and non-linear) currently in my driveway.

I have no doubt that different tires would help cut down on the road noise, I was just a bit surprised by it being no better than 10+ year old cars I’ve had with other notoriously noisy tires. A 30k tire lifespan sounds pretty fair, though autocross has likely ruined me on what constitutes normal here...

Mileage-wise, I’m pretty confident in being able to see 30+ with this since my commute loop is about as low-stress as it gets. I basically do 15 miles of 65-70 (actual) MPH highway to work and 15 miles of 35-55 MPH back roads to home with rarely any slowdown from traffic signals or congestion on either end. Meeting or beating EPA estimates is a regular occurrence here.

I’ve more or less resigned myself to above average maintenance costs and reliability foibles given that I’m cross-shopping this with VW offerings. That said, I’m half expecting VW to blow this out of the water on overall refinement and comfort to help make up for it . I haven’t exactly set a high bar for myself on those fronts (especially after my NC with its hard plastics and unforgiving coilovers), but I do feel that another step forward from what I saw from the WRX wouldn’t be lost on me either. It’ll be interesting to find out either way.

t0ast > MUSASHI66 04/12/2019 at 15:39

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Oh, nice. I’m seeing my desired combo for there $30.8k, so (hopefully) around 30k flat when all is said and done, and I’m no stranger to driving to Colorado for a car if need be . The STi appears to land about 7-8k ahead of that ($38.4k for base w/ recaros), which is still well within budget (<= $40k) but too tough to call without some seat time first.

MUSASHI66 > t0ast 04/12/2019 at 16:07

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They also deliver for $500. Getting seat time in an STi will be tough in a dealership. But Tur o might be the solution.