2026 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness: Worth the Extra Cost?

0:00 If you're Talking Cars fan want to see the Consumer Reports test track in person? Here's your chance. On October 17th, Consumer Reports is hosting a 5K run and walk fundraiser here at our auto test center in Colchester, Connecticut. It's a fun way to get outside, see the cars we talk about every week, and support our mission all at once.

0:18 And if you can't join us in person, there's a virtual option to go to CR.org/5K to learn more and register. Hi everyone, and welcome back. I'm Jon Linkov. I'm Avri Wyshogrod, and I'm Maddie McCarty. And today we're going to be talking about the Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness trim. It's a soft roader. And we've been kind of breaking into evaluating soft roaders.

0:51 We did. We've got some videos out there. We've got some stories on Consumer Reports that don't work, but we're also purchasing a number of them. And like I said, the Crosstrek Wilderness is one of them. Three things you want to know. It actually is not just a badge. You know, a lot of cars are like, oh, it's a super, super edition.

1:06 And it's the same, just cost more with a badge. Nope. It's got aggressive tires. It has more ground clearance. You may say, wasn't the Crosstrek initially the rugged version of the Subaru Impreza wagon? And you would be correct. Is this really rugged? We're going to answer that question. It has an actual mechanical advantage over the regular Crosstrek.

1:25 And there are 9.3in of ground clearance, which is a small increase over the regular Crosstrek. But these aren't Wranglers. These aren't range Rovers. We are going to be looking at things like the Toyota Rav4, woodland and the other XSE road, Badlands Trail sport models, but every give us a star. Like what are some of the differences that you get with the wilderness versus a regular Crosstrek? Yeah.

1:48 So Subaru takes a somewhat different approach to their soft roaders, because their vehicles are already pretty capable off road. So where, like you mentioned, some automakers will just slap on some All-Terrain tires and some badges and call it a day in orange trim. It's got to be orange. Gives me orange. All right.

2:05 So Subaru actually does a little bit more so in the Crosstrek Wilderness. You do get lifted suspension with, longer springs and dampers. You have the All-Terrain tires, but the tires are not what's giving you the ground clearance. It's actually the suspension differences. There's some differences to the final drive ratio.

2:23 And the CVT transmission. And then there's some tuning differences, with, the, suspension again. Now the tires, they obviously have an impact on, you know, ride and handling a little bit. But more broadly speaking, like the additional ground clearance, does give you some off road capability that you don't necessarily get in some of these other softer because the all terrain tires are going to be a little, little softer, the grip differently.

2:54 Yeah. But also the taller sidewalls, this wilderness trim comes with 17 inch wheels. The last Crosstrek that we tested came with 18 inch wheels. So the sidewalls are a little bit taller here. But the tires overall diameter is actually the same. But yeah, it is a little bit squishier because of that bigger sidewall.

3:12 And that's going to give you, you know, a little bit better bump absorption, a little softer ride. And, you know, a slight hit to handling. Okay. We did find, though, that the tires, you can tell they're a little bit noisier on the road at high speeds. Yeah. You get like, a kind of like a louder, low pitched whine, you could say.

3:32 And a lot of tire slaps are going over a lot of small bumps or ridges. You really hear the tires hitting those and that can kind of detract a little bit. Both the sport that we tested beforehand and the wilderness, they're both quite loud, though, at highway speeds, like we're going about 70 miles an hour and you just hear all of this wind rushing over the a-pillars.

3:52 It's and the engine itself. Yeah, they're using basically the same powertrain. So you get a lot of the same noises and it's a lot of like sound coming through the cabin. So you might not really notice a huge difference, but you can tell based on the tires. Yeah, I mean I, I recently just took took it out just to familiarize myself with it.

4:12 And there it's just that like underline. Yeah. We say like there's an underlying noise. You know we use that word a lot underlying. But you can hear that just like a little grumble, an extra grumble on regular roads. And I was shocked because it was in the garage. I turned it on, drove up the garage door, had to get out to open it.

4:28 And that engine is really loud. I like it, it's loud inside. It really is loud standing outside of it. But I mean, well, let's let's get into the handling and the ride, you know, overall, I mean, Maddie go go on with, you know, with what you were talking about with with tire slap and such is, is this going to be like a, an old Wrangler or is it going to be much more like a regular Crosstrek or somewhere in between? Yeah.

4:49 So overnight we, we drove it all around our track for probably a couple hours, both of them side by side, the sport in the wilderness. And they were very, very similar, except for we felt that the handling was just a little bit sharper in the sport. And it could be that, you know, it's the tires and the, the tires in the wilderness are probably a little bit more grippy, and it just felt like there's a little bit more confidence in taking those high speed curves.

5:16 But when you get down to the lower speeds, that's where the wilderness really shines. We took it over some gravel and you got a lot more grip with those tires on the gravel. So if you're going to be doing actual off roading, going a lot of dirt roads, you'll have that nice grip with the tires in the wilderness.

5:32 Did you find the steering? You know, how was it comparing on the gravel or are we on to the hard, you know, hard tarmac? Yeah. So I think the wilderness in general, with its all terrain tires, feels gives you more confidence off road. So when you're on the gravel, you feel like you have a little bit better control of the vehicle.

5:51 You have a little bit, you know, sharper steering off road. And then it's kind of the opposite. When you get on the road. Right. It's a little bit more dull. You feel like you have to give a little bit more steering input with the wilderness. But these are not drastic differences. Right? Both of these cars are just fine on the road.

6:08 And frankly, the regular Crosstrek is pretty capable off road as well. Yeah. I mean, it is. Again, I don't want to try to reinvent history and say like, oh, is the first. But I mean, when it came out there like, oh, well, we took a Subaru Impreza wagon, which you all liked, and we raised it a little to make it good for Vermont or fire roads or whatever.

6:26 So it's like marginal gains, like how much better can a wilderness be than a regular Crosstrek? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you get what, point six inches higher ground clearance. And again, we, we took it out on not like our big rock wall but like more uniform. Our access road the rock hill. Yeah. But not as rocky I mean yeah.

6:46 And they both handle just fine going up and down it. So I think the true test is going to be in the actual wilderness. But not intended or intended. So yeah, I think they both drive very well. You're going to have some downsides in the, fuel economy for the wilderness because of the tire. So you get slightly worse fuel economy.

7:11 There are some, like, pros and cons to get in there. So if you're really going to be taking this out camping or going out into, the mountains, it could be worth it for you. But you have to ask yourself that question. Do you want to compromise the ride? Do you want to compromise the the handling and the noise and the fuel economy?

7:31 Because you do get the higher ground clearance, you get the all terrain tires. And then you also get better towing. So there's 3,500 pounds of towing in the wilderness, but only 1500 in the sport. So are you actually going to be using that towing? That's the question right? Is if you tow do you buy a really small SUV?

7:52 Yeah. Like, you know, almost a subcompact SUV when you start towing a lot. I mean, you do have the ground, the greater approach and departure angles as well with the wilderness. But I mean, I guess it's, you know, we could talk over some, some like, well, you're going to take it here, you might do this, you might do that.

8:07 But like, what do you get in comparison to the Crosstrek. Because we are looking at vehicles that are two different price. You know, there there's a few thousand dollar difference with the wilderness, for example, starts at 33, seven 32,795 hours, costs 38,259. I mean, you're looking at like, you know, like a $5,500 difference between the two.

8:27 I mean, what do you if it's just tires and badging? What is it? So it's not just tires and and the suspension changes. So with the wilderness, at least the one we got with our options, we you get a heated steering wheel, you get a power adjustable driver's seat with, star tech support Street, which is kind of that synthetic leather.

8:45 And you have, upgraded audio system as well. And so, you know, it's some additional creature comforts. Not just the, suspension and tires. Okay? I mean, we have a sunroof in ours, for example. I think it's. Yeah, that's funny though, because, like, if you want power driver seats, you have to get the moonroof.

9:04 So it's just forcing you to get a moonroof if you don't want a moonroof. And the audio system, because I feel like power seats are so ubiquitous nowadays, like, except for like maybe base trims don't do it, but Subaru is one of those manufacturers who still are kind of like holding back on power seats, and you have to upgrade or get up, get a higher trim, or pay for the package.

9:24 Yeah. So I think it's fitting that they lump those together. So Maddie, this really falls into your wheelhouse because Subaru's not great with putting safety or some key safety features across the lot. They do a lot, but not everything, right? Right. So Subaru has what's called their eyesight, which is standard across the line.

9:43 However, that excludes blind spot warning and rear cross-traffic warning with rear AEB. So what it does include, though, is adaptive cruise control, lane centering assistance, AEB, forward collision warning with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane departure warning and lane keeping. So you're getting a large number of systems, both convenience and safety features.

10:06 But you are missing the blind spot warning, like I would say, and rear cross-traffic warning that is available. So I should say that is actually standard on the wilderness and it's unavailable on a lot of lower trims, which I think it should be standard across all trims. That's one feature that we know for certain does have a positive impact on, safety.

10:27 So it lowers crash risk. So it's really unfortunate that that's, like I said, not available. But it is nice to have it on the wilderness. However, what's missing, which I really wish that this vehicle had, was her 360 degree surround view monitor. It's only optional on the limited hybrid. So that's something, you know, you get that like top down view of the camera from the cameras, the ground, which I think would be really helpful for off roading.

10:51 So it's interesting that it's not even available on this vehicle. Yeah. I mean, even if it's not, a trail cam or it's showing, you know, the articulation of the wheels or what you're going to run over, or at least you know what's around you, perhaps, or even backing out. Yeah, yeah. You know, I agree. You can't see with the camera always.

11:06 Or you may not maybe turning into something that. Yeah. Then the camera catches catches of you. So yeah. Speaking of the view, what about how this thing looks? Oh I mean, that's kind of the big the big thing with Subaru you want to host, you know, so it's got all this orange trim. It's got these bulbous plastic cladding pieces all over the doors and fenders.

11:27 And it kind of stands out for that. And I think people notice it for that. What do you guys think of that? Yeah. Well, so I mean, we were chatting and you see a lot more of them, right. And not just wildernesses, but all the brands out there. They are, they're out there. It's almost like, oh, I got to get it, like the new thing.

11:47 But yeah, I mean, even the sport has some, like, trim, like goldish trim too. So yeah, it does. It is a little eye catching. And you see a Crosstrek and you're like, oh that's a nice let's cool Crosstrek. And then you see with a little flashes of orange you're like, oh what's that. Right, right, right.

12:02 And so yeah, I mean it does a little flashy. Not in a like ostentatious way. There we go. But, yeah, I guess I can see people paying a little bit more because they like how it looks. I mean, people do make car buying decisions based on the exterior, and that's that's up to them. So I can I can totally see people buying it because I think it looks nice.

12:24 I always found it so crazy. You know, people talk talking about how great something looked. For example, I think back to the Fisker Karma because we'll we'll go back in time, but oh my god, it's so cool looking. It was like, I don't care what it looks like cause I have to drive it. Yeah. Awful inside.

12:37 And it looks so a bad side. It's a pain in the neck, but okay. It looks great when it's when it's broken. It's the same type of thing. I. I see the looks and people really are gravitating towards them. And I don't know if it's because you get two free colors when you buy a car nowadays. White or black.

12:53 Yeah, basically every manufacturer charges for anything besides white or black. And if you go Americans don't necessarily order, you know, I mean you order your European car because that's their business process. But everyone else it's what's on the lot. Yeah. You go down, you kick tires you buy. Is it just like I don't really need a wilderness, but the white one's really ugly.

13:13 And the dealer only has five wildernesses left on the lot. And I like, you know, home. I mean, what what what do you guys think about it? Is it availability? Is it the coolness? Is it post-Covid people being outside more? I think it's just it's trendy right now. Right. Oh again, like we're testing more of these soft roaders a lot of manufacturers have off road trims of their, you know, mainstream vehicles.

13:35 And I think it's just in, it's in and people want what's in. Right. Yeah. I mean it's the possibility of what you can do. You can take it out and you can tow something out into the wilderness. You can go over a lot of rocks and squeeze in between in between trees and have an adventure. And that's what they're going for.

13:53 And so it's it's the feeling of, oh, I can do that if I want to, but I can also drive it to work because it still rides well enough to do that. Yeah. You're not giving it a it's it's not going as far as like a Wrangler. And I mean not to not a Wrangler. It's got its flaws already. We know that. But you know, if you want to go off road, you you really off road.

14:10 I mean, I rock scrambling, you know, you know, climbing big hills. You get a wrangler. But of course that has the compromises on road. So yes, you don't have to be as hardcore. So you can, you can have something that's still livable or a little more livable, I will say. So I'm from Utah and I went camping a lot.

14:27 And I will tell you that like one in every ten cars is a Subaru out there. Yeah. And then half of those are going to be cross tracks. People love cross tracks for camping because they're small enough so that you can go into BLM land and you can just find a spot, squeeze in between trees and camp there.

14:45 Sure. So it is a very practical vehicle for that at the very regular. Yeah. You know, you know, it's not it's a small vehicle but you can still carry for people and stuff. Yeah. It doesn't, doesn't Subaru say you can put like a 700 pound tent set up on the roof. Yeah. It's not what it was. Seven oh 700 pound static.

15:03 Yeah. 165 dynamic. So you could camp out on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all the trims, not just the wilderness. Right. That's true. Well and again that's then it comes back to okay. Crosstrek was already like ready. It's already good enough. It's it's on the lot. Hey guys I can go off road. Why are you bringing in this cool looking version of me?

15:22 Because now you can go deeper off road. Yeah, I mean, 8.6in deep. Yeah. Right. Right, right. That one rock. You kept scraping your transmission. Cool. Early on. Now you can go right over. Yeah. So look at the end. Is it worth the difference in price? Is it flasher useful? What would you do? I think we've agreed kind of.

15:42 It's it's actually useful. It's not flash. It's not just a trim package. And you know everyone goes haha we just made five grand. Yeah I mean so I think for me it gives you a bit more confidence off road. You know with the additional ground clearance, a little bit grippier all terrain tires at the expense of slightly more, you know, road noise, a little bit duller handling.

16:02 And that hit the fuel economy as well. But the compromises you make are pretty minimal. So if you like the way you look, sorry, the way it looks. You like the way you look inside. Yeah. Exactly. You don't. Yeah. You look maybe it helps you make it. Maybe. You know. Yeah, I mean confidence, it gives you confidence. Right.

16:19 The Crosstrek in general is a good car, right. It's it's not the quietest car. But it it's practical and easy to use. It doesn't fix the flaws of the Crosstrek. No. It's some there are some not plentiful, but some. So I say go for it if you like the way it looks. I think it's still a solid overall car.

16:38 Yeah, and you don't have to buy a $38,000 one. Yeah, you could buy one for 33. Seven. I mean, it's. Yeah. So, Maddie, your thoughts on it? Since I care about fuel economy more and I don't really care about, I guess the exterior styling that much. I would probably just go with the sport. If I, if I could throw the hybrid in, there, I go.

17:01 Well, actually, no, not for the not for the Crosstrek, because we found that it didn't really have much better. It did have better fuel economy like period. It's not significant. Yeah. To, where the pay off is so close. Yeah. It's short period of time. Yeah. And with the price difference. So yeah I'd go with the sport honestly.

17:17 You get you get what you need, I can I can deal with the manual. See a test testament. But you still get like the same. Well now I'm really talking to myself in circles here because now I would want the blind spot warning. So now I'd have to get the next trim up like a I don't, I don't know. I've taught my head what the trim is, but right.

17:37 You can't get the sport because it doesn't have. Yeah it's unavailable so I would get the non wilderness probably non-hybrid trim that has blind spot warning. Do you want to go out to the showroom floor and take. Yeah yeah yeah I'll go out of here I don't know let's, let's, let's just take another test drive.

17:53 That's that's good. That happened at the dealer. Yeah I agree I mean it's funny I think that it keep coming back to it. The Crosstrek is so such a, such a good off road vehicle already that you could buy a set of wheels and tires, maybe even from Subaru, let alone aftermarket, you know, and you have 8/10, you know, 7/10 of what this gets you almost there.

18:11 Whereas if you had a Rav4, Toyota Rav4, or even the I say the Rav4 because of its all wheel drive system is is electronic one. So it's it's not a mechanical system. So it's a bigger improvement when they have their own off road version because they started from like, yeah, it's good for snow and rain.

18:27 Let's just leave it at that. Not off road okay. This version is it's just a bigger jump that you can make. Whereas the other one is is small and it makes it's a harder decision I think financially. But from the looks and you know confidence thing I would definitely get that. Want to stay up to speed on what's happening at Consumer Reports.

18:44 Sign up for our What's New newsletter and get the very latest product news, safety updates and improvement advice from our experts. So okay that'll bring us to our question answer portion of the show. As always please send us your questions to Talking cars@consumer.org. That's our new email address for your, your text questions.

19:03 Again, talking cars@consumer.org. And this week's question is from Jonathan. I really like your name who says I like the name. But this question lock in on this one. There are multiple Volvo Ex90 on AutoTrader right now for under $41,000 in less than 20,000 miles. These cars are barely a year old sitting at half of mSRP, and they still have their full factory warranty.

19:28 The depreciation is real people. I know there are software issues, basic commands and menus are apparently a mess, but everything else about this car is exactly what I want. Three rows. Powerful. Safe. Quiet. Luxurious. I don't want a Tesla. So is it stupid to buy this thing, or is this just what a great deal looks like on a car nobody trusts yet?

19:55 Wow. You can go and take over. Yeah. Maddie. Well, I have some thoughts on this. I actually, made a list. Wow. Yes, there's quite a list. It's a full page. I have some feeling. Let's go. So I know that Dave doesn't like paper, but I felt like this needed to be printed out. So first off, let me just tell you.

20:18 So back in 2024, at the end, we did a podcast episode of what are you most excited for in the coming year? And I said, we have lidar coming on the Ex90 and so very excited about that because it's going to give more precision and like a 3D mapping of the world. Yet the cars will be able to use to better see objects and see the lane lines and just react faster and better, hopefully.

20:43 Great. So I'm really excited to see that because it was going to be the first vehicle that we test that has lidar. So light detection and ranging, what it does is it basically like lasers measure the distance and can create, just a 3D map of the environment. And it's really helpful for driver assistance systems.

21:03 But guess what happened? That company that provided the leader went out of business. And so it's not functioning. It was delivered not functioning in like learning mode. And so I felt like we were all lied to. We were going to get lidar. They said, oh never mind. And then they took it away from model year 26.

21:22 So everyone who has a model year 25 and lidar, it's not doing anything. I was with that big bump thing on the roof, right? Yes. People say it looked like a taxi cab. Yeah. So I think that's just so disappointing. I'm very sad about that. But if if not Volvo's fault, it just chose a bad vendor. Well, I think it is Volvo's fault that they chose to equip it when it wasn't ready for use.

21:48 So setting it in beta isn't is. No, this whole car wasn't in beta. Yeah. And I think that it's just been we've been struggling with it the entire time. Maybe. So it's if if John Jonathan, if this is not important to you, I have a whole other list of reasons why. So first off, there have been so many updates for the key card issues because you would get the key card, which is just like the old like the Tesla one, where you can fit it into your wallet, supposedly like a credit card, like a credit card, and you place it in the phone charging spot, which doesn't make sense unless you have the key attached.

22:23 You felt like you have, the phone key. Yeah, it's programed, but then it doesn't always work. So three times when we first got this car, I was assigned to this car. And three times I could not get home because it decided to stop working. And it would not recognize the key. So then supposedly those issues are resolved.

22:43 But then that doesn't stop. That doesn't take away from the fact that it doesn't have proximity to the key access that when you approach. Yes. So typically when you see vehicles that have like a key access to their phone, you walk up and the door handles extend, the vehicle unlocks and it's nice. This one, you have to either take the key card or your phone and like hold it to the left side of the the door handle, not where there's a little indent, where normally that means that's where you tap or that's where you like, that's how you unlock the car.

23:15 No, you have to go to the left of that, which makes no sense. Absolutely. Like human factors wise, no sense at all. Look at this. Don't do this, don't do this. Don't you do this obvious thing right here. Not do it. Do it here. So that also really bothers me. I'm going to give you I'm going to give you guys a moment to, to contribute because I've been talking for a while.

23:33 Yeah. No that's fine. Take them. Take a breath. You know, I mean I was gonna I was going to say the same thing about the key. It's such a basic thing with a car to not get. Right. Yes. And it's such a frustration with this car. You know, we have an old man. I can't read the comments right now. Oh, get with the program to the future.

23:51 Yeah. Do you have your phone? Even if you have your phone, it doesn't have a proximity feature, right. So you have to take your phone out of your pocket, hold it up to the door. Which, by the way, only the driver's door works, none of the other doors. So you can only unlock and lock the car from one door. Yep.

24:06 And then you have to put your phone in the wireless charger to start the car, which, I mean, that part is okay. That's fine. But what if you don't want to take your phone out of your bag? Yeah. And in most other cars, like, you know, similar cars, like Rivian's Teslas, that you can put a phone key and those cars have proximity to the car.

24:26 It unlocks door handles extend on the Rivian's, and you can get inside and just put it in drive and go. It's not the case here. And there was a proximity fab available. It may still be available. From you can get it as a dealer accessory. But why do you have to pay for it? Right. It is not included with these cars.

24:47 You're paying $80,000 for this car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for a little piece of plastic with. Yeah. Microchip. Yeah, yeah. And our X30 does have the proximity knob, and it actually works pretty well in that car. So on that one, you just walk up to it. It unlocks, you get inside, put it in drive, and you're ready to go.

25:03 It's not the case here. So it's just such a basic thing. It's a to get wrong, and it makes this car such a nightmare to live with on a day to day basis. I, I look at it beyond the convenience factor of the safety, this safety factor, because I remember driving it at night, went to a, a store in a sketchy area with my kids.

25:25 And, you know, a year or two ago, they're a little younger, you know, but they're we're walking up to it. I'm like fiddling with the key, fiddling with the key, looking around. Dark parking lot, no lights. You know it because you're focusing on that. Yeah. Like what? You're not aware of your surroundings.

25:41 It's something that I think about too. It's like, what if I was feeling uncomfortable or unsafe? I need to quickly hop into my car. I have to pull out my phone or my pull out the key card and then try and find the specific spot. Right? And I can't even, like unlock it in advance. Right. So that's it's yeah, it's it can come down to safety.

25:59 And who ask for this like we, we had we had keys and doors. Then they gave us fobs and that was good. I like a, I like a fop, right. Yeah. Like it was good. I mean it's like almost biblical. Like they gave us this and it was good. And like this. Yeah. Why did we need to now go to the go to the. Just because it's your phone doesn't mean you need to have it.

26:17 I know it's getting like old man ranting at cloud. I know this, I've joined you there. But go on back to your your list. So now we have the I'm going to go to the controls inside the vehicle. So as an EV we it when we drives us here at ATC Consumer Reports, we like to mess around with the region settings.

26:37 That's not something that you can easily do in this vehicle. You have to go through the center screen. So if you want one pedal drive or to adjust the region, you have to go into the settings or through the quick controls. If you want to adjust your side mirrors or your steering wheel, you have to go through the center screen as well.

26:55 That's not something that you can just do blindly with your left hand and like feel for things or, you know, just the steering wheel. Now you have to take your eyes off the road, do it, and then use the steering wheel controls to adjust them. And that's just such a hassle. I hate doing that. I hate any car that does that.

27:10 I feel very strongly about this. I am on, clearly I'm on. I'm on that train right there. Yeah. Okay. And then we have some flimsy controls inside as well. So the turn signal and the, gear shifter are both like this plasticky, flimsy material, and they don't latch very securely. So the windshield wiper spray button is on the end of the turn signal.

27:31 And if you press and hold it in, a lot of the times, I'll accidentally turn on the turn signal because it's just not solid enough to stay in place like the distance. You're saying for the turn signal? Yes. Yeah, yeah. And then, there's some confusing labels inside as well. So with adaptive cruise control and lane centering, they have like these indent of buttons that you don't get access to.

27:54 So you can see them. They're like very dark against dark. It's just like the indent of where the icon would be raised. Steering wheel button. Yeah. And it's not even a feature that's available. And then they also have this. The speed plus and minus buttons have like a circle arrow that you would think would be to resume adaptive cruise control.

28:13 But that doesn't do anything. And we have talked to Volvo themselves and ask them, what does this do. They said they didn't know. And so I'm like, so you just recycled basically an old steering wheel design and didn't care to update anything. It's in version three. It's the next version. But we based model here.

28:31 We borrowed a new on. Yeah. And it's still the 26. Yeah. So yeah there's no way to actually resume a set speed for adaptive. There is. So it's just not intuitive. How do you do it. Well I had to ask Volvo. You press and hold down the gear shifter of course. Of course. Way to what? To resume. If you already had a set speed and you canceled it, you can resume it to the same speed they have to press and hold down the gear shifter.

28:54 So quick presses sets it at your current. Yeah, because I want to mess up thing that controls the direction of the vehicle at 70 miles an hour. That's. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I have some feelings about that. And then, you know, let's just go with the center screen itself over. What do you think of it?

29:14 I'm going to turn it to you I it it's not great. It's just a massive tablet like in a Tesla. It's, it's it's very confusing to use. Distracting. I just I don't like it. Yeah. It has an odd menu structure. Yeah. It's again just simple things like the region. I mean, to your point, like, even if you're not here where you, we mess with region, you know, in the sense of like, I'll try this, try that. Okay.

29:41 You could be on the highway and you want all of a sudden activate one pedal braking. Yeah. Then all of a sudden traffic lightens up and you're just on cruise control and you don't want one, one pedal brake. You want to use the friction brakes on your own or say it shouldn't be, tap tap tap tap tap. Yeah.

29:57 Oh, my God, I just hit the wrong thing. And again, same with the control that you can do it total by just mind to muscle. Yeah. You can't do mine to muscle with with something that doesn't give feedback. Yeah. And so that's also the same thing with climate control. Climate is split between two different menus.

30:12 And it's it takes a quite a number of times of driving to like figure out okay, if I want to do temperature I tap here. If I want to do fan speed, I tap here. This is where auto is going to be. This is where sync is going to be. These are my seat heaters are. And it's it's just you have to think about it every time you want to change something.

30:29 And it's also only in the touchscreen. So now you're also taking your eyes away to tap away. And it's it's just not the best design I think, for enabling drivers or supporting drivers to keep your eyes on the road. No, not at all. Yeah. So so I mean there's there's a lot of usability issues with the. Yes.

30:50 But there's some good stuff about the car too, right. Yes. Got comfortable seats. It's quiet. I like adjusting the seats to see the adjustments. The adjustment mechanism has hard to. Yeah, but that's a usability issue. Yeah. The seats themselves are still pretty comfortable. Smooth powertrain, you know, but most EVs have that it cruise as well.

31:07 Yeah it does really well cruiser. It didn't struggle with the usability. I think it'd be a great car. Yeah. It has potential. Yeah. The car some weirdness with the handling. Right. It's got like very little body roll. So it's like kind of darty. You turn the steering wheel a little bit and car kind of moves around a lot.

31:25 You can get used to it, but it feels a little unnatural if you're not. But yeah, it's just for me, it's the usability stuff that just kills it. That stuff that you can't, you can, you can, you could get used to handling, kind of compensate, you know, if the backup camera wasn't the best field of vision, you have mirrors or something like that. But.

31:43 So Jonathan should buy two for the price. I mean, he's euros are cornering the market on these used cars. What do you think I would say if if Jonathan wants to buy one, he should make sure he gets the proximity keyfob at a bare minimum. Yes. That should be a negotiating tactic. And from there, it's his decision.

32:04 I think if he's going to get it. I agree on the proximity key. I would definitely take the time to sit down in it and test drive it and see if he can do the most basic things, like turn on his headlights, which are also on the touchscreen, change the temperature, change the music, use, use the adaptive cruise control and lane centering.

32:26 Try it out, see if you like it. Because like you said, yeah, it drives. It drives pretty well. It's just are you willing to live with a system that might frustrate you every time you sit in the car? Yeah, for me that's a no go into reboot or something like that or. Yeah. So I mean, I'm not saying that we've always seen it, but the systems across the board aren't always reliable.

32:49 Yeah, we've seen from every manufacturer. So you're going to get into you're adding in that worry as well, especially with like these newer EVs and these newer software systems that are coming in them because they're like basically the beta testing. And so that's why we had so many software issues. Not only was it given like we bought a half baked right, but also all of the software updates along the way were pretty painful.

33:11 We're still having issues to this day that we have to drop it off at the dealership for. Yep. So not to say that a used vehicle that Jonathan goes for is going to have those same problems, but it's something to be aware of. So I would I would probably go for a used Mercedes X SUV because I was checking online.

33:33 Yeah. And like the prices are very similar. For used vehicles, I mean EVs in general, the, the price they sell some, some don't depreciate as much. So like the R1S, which I also would have said maybe check that one out. That one's still, pretty their firm price. Yeah. Yeah. They don't have a depreciation.

33:51 So Dave, since Jonathan gets a free piece of Consumer Reports swag for using this question, can we send him a sweatshirt maybe in case he gets locked out in the winter? What if I just x some gloves to maybe like a ski cap. So. Well anyway, Jonathan, definitely. Since we've rate this car and your choice over the coals, some sorry us an email and let us know what you choose.

34:12 As anyone, as we said, you, if we use your question on talking cars by sending it to talking cars at consumer.org, you will get a, a piece of Consumer Reports swag, probably the black t shirt like this. No. No. Sweatshirts. So, as you may know, Consumer Reports is a nonprofit company, and it's part of a nonprofit.

34:34 We really watch our finances really closely. We bring you all kinds of unbiased information from our ratings to our surveys, all of our testing, not just cars, products across the board. So if you look at the screen and you want to click that donate button and, and send us a donation, we'd really appreciate it.

34:52 Or click on over to Consumer reports.org and become a member. And you can get information beyond talking cars sent to your email box monthly, weekly. And you can go back and forth to our website and see all of our ratings on thousands of products, not just cars. And that'll do it for this episode. Thanks very much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

35:18 For 90 years, Consumer Reports has been testing and reviewing and advocating for you. We are independent and nonprofit memberships don't cover everything we do. So please consider donating today to help us go further.