Spy Shots: 2015 Subaru Legacy prototype caught testing in Michigan

Filed under: Spy Photos, Sedan, Subaru

The current Subaru Legacy is only three years old, but compared to rival midsize sedans like the Mazda6 and Ford Fusion, which have recently received thorough redesigns, it might as well be a million. In other words, a reworking is in order. Caught in these spy shots, the 2015 Subaru Legacy appears to be about the same size as the current model, but it appears that Subaru is looking to push the sedan a little more upmarket in terms of styling and luxury.

Despite the heavy camouflage, some elements of the new Legacy’s design are still visible. The new headlights still have a scalloped shape but are much narrower, and we can also see the deep body creases that run the full length of the sedan. At the rear of the new Legacy, the taillights should get some added depth with a C-shaped brake light design similar to what we saw on the WRX Concept earlier in the year.

Showing that Subaru is aiming a little bit higher for this Legacy, this car is being benchmarked against all-wheel-drive luxury vehicles like the current Infiniti G37 and the Audi Allroad – the latter is likely for comparison with the Legacy’s wagon version, the Outback. Following the XV Crosstrek Hybrid, we expect the 2015 Legacy to be the next Subaru product to get a gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain, which we hear will be paired with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, a CVT and, of course, all-wheel drive.

No word as to when the 2015 Legacy will debut, but the New York Auto Show is as good a guess as any.

2015 Subaru Legacy prototype caught testing in Michigan originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 30 Jul 2013 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: How to railslide a front-drive 1992 Subaru Legacy

Filed under: Etc., Videos, Subaru, Humor

1992 Subaru Legacy railslide

Wyatt Knox creating a new Winter X-Games event – Click above to watch video after the jump

The extreme sports and motorsports worlds have collided in recent years, with the X-Games set trading in their small wheels for much larger ones. In that same spirit, rally driver Wyatt Knox is looking to reverse that trend and bring rallying into the action sports world. Take a front-wheel drive 1992 Subaru Legacy, a well-placed log on Team O’Neil Rally School’s closed course, a couple of HD video cameras and you have the recipe for an automotive railslide.

The end result actually turns out pretty well because Knox knows what he is doing behind the wheel. His backside car slide can be seen in the video after the jump.

[Source: YouTube via Jalopnik]

Continue reading Video: How to railslide a front-drive 1992 Subaru Legacy

Video: How to railslide a front-drive 1992 Subaru Legacy originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: California livin’

Filed under: Sedan, Subaru, Long-Term Garage

It’s been about a month since the long-term Subaru Legacy 2.5GT arrived in Northern California, and as the weather slowly turned south, my opinion of our burgundy sled has improved. Dramatically.

Transitioning from a German compact into a near-luxury sedan from Japan (both within $1,000 of each other, oddly enough) has proven to be an eye-opening experience – but not in the way you’d think. Maybe I’m just biased towards the staid interior stylings from Deutschland, but the Legacy’s insides came off as overwrought and sub-par when compared to the Jetta MK5 TDI Cup Street Edition. The materials didn’t exude the same level of quality and while fit-and-finish is certainly above board, it still lacks the high-end tactility I enjoyed in the Volkswagen. Plus, the experience behind the wheel has felt heavy and ponderous after living with the Jetta for the better part of four months.

This opinion lasted right up until the first monsoon. I was driving north on 580 when the world went blurry. Traffic was crawling along, but with the wipers set to meth-head speed, I was able to plow through the storm with confidence. As the weeks have worn on, I’ve grown fond of the Legacy’s added heft and all-wheel drive – there’s just something inherently comforting about piloting a heavyweight down the road – not to mention sending power to all four wheels. That said, it’s far from a fair weather driver’s car. The suspension is too floaty, the seats are far too flat and the shifter is far too floppy. However, that last bit we’ll be dealing with soon.

Gallery: Long Term: 2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT

2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: California livin’ originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: The key to changing map discs

Filed under: Sedan, Subaru, Long-Term Garage

How to swap map discs in a 2011 Subaru Legacy – Click above to watch video after the jump

Pop quiz: Where’s the slot to swap out DVD map discs for the 2010 Subaru Legacy’s navigation system? No, it’s not the one you can see with your eyes in the image above; that’s the slot for audio CDs. The DVD drive is hidden. Answer: behind that blue plastic panel located directly beneath the CD slot.

Since the nav system in the 2010 Subaru legacy doesn’t contain an entire atlas of North America on an internal hard drive, you’ll sometimes have to change the map disc if where you’re headed is on a different disc. I discovered this when having to make the trek from Ohio to Michigan because maps for the Wolverine State were on a different region disc than the one that was already loaded.

The manual, of course, makes the process of popping off this panel seem easy. Put your thumb on the top of the panel and lift the panel up from the bottom. In reality, the nearly invisible recess at the bottom of the panel is blocked by the buttons below it, and unless you have long and particularly strong fingernails, the tight-fitting panel’s not coming off without some outside assistance. A pocket knife would work best, but all I had at the time was a small key. Since I didn’t want to scratch the aforementioned buttons, I tried lifting the panel off a little to the right of the recess. With much effort and a grunt for good measure, the panel came flying off the console.

Most people won’t be swapping map discs very often, as each one contains a large chunk of the country in which to navigate. But even if I had the fingernail length required for the job, I still wouldn’t like having to pop off a cheap panel to do it. Follow the jump for video of a staged recreation of my first encounter with this panel.

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2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: The key to changing map discs originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: Taming the Mt. Washington Auto Road

Filed under: Sedan, Etc., Subaru, Long-Term Garage

Mt. Washington Auto Road

Taming of the Mt. Washington Auto Road – Click above for high-res image gallery

In our last long term update, I mentioned that my wife and I took the 2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT on a two-week road trip up to New England. Our ultimate destination was Bar Harbor, Maine, though a stop in New Hampshire on the way home became our most memorable vacation moment of all time.

After spending Fourth of July at the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa, we decided to drive up Mount Washington and visit the Mt. Washington Observatory at its summit on our way out of town. I knew little about Mt. Washington, but my wife had visited this tallest peak in New England as a child and claimed she and her family had hiked up to the summit.

The story goes her father had convinced them all to hoof it up to the top rather than hitch a ride on the mountain’s Cog Railway by offering them each the price of the train ticket as bribe money. Sounding like something my father-in-law would do, I trusted my wife’s memory was accurate and imagined a post card-quality bluff, easily scalable by a trio of children and their persuasive father.

This is the story of how wrong I was, and how the 2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT fared as our mule on the harrowing eight-mile ascent up the Mt. Washington Auto Road.

Gallery: Taming of the Mt. Washington Auto Road

Mt. Washington2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT on Mt. WashingtonRoad to the Sky safety instructionsView from Mt. Washington

Photos copyright (C)2010 John Neff / AOL or their respective owners (see gallery for credits)

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2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: Taming the Mt. Washington Auto Road originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: Heading to shop for recall inspection

Filed under: Sedan, Performance, Recalls, Subaru, Long-Term Garage

2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT – Click above for high-res image gallery

Truth be told, our long-term 2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT has been running like a top from day one with not a single issue arising that has required a trip to the dealer for repair. We did get her oil changed around 5,000 miles, though we had to skip the dealer experience since we were pressed for time and they couldn’t squeeze us in on short notice. But there are some recalls in effect for the 2010 Legacy, three to be exact, so we made our first appointment at Ganley Westside Subaru in North Olmsted, OH to have our 2.5GT inspected.

Kudos to Ganley for making the experience as painless as possible, as well as accommodating a very late cancellation and rescheduling. Upon arrival, they took the keys and put our 2.5GT in the air on one of six lifts in their service area.

Of the three recalls in effect for the Subaru Legacy, only one affects our particular car. It’s for a bundle of wires in the steering column that could crack and cause certain functions to stop working. If that happened, the problem could manifest itself as the horn not working or something more severe like the driver’s front airbag failing to deploy in an accident.

Our car was inspected and deemed roadworthy with no repair needed. The dealership also let us know that Subaru Service Program WVP26 affects our car. Apparently some units were shipped with cracked covers for their anti-lock braking ECU modules, so the action has dealers inspect and replace the affected part if needed. Again, ours was looked at and showed no such issues.

We were in and out in less than an hour and the total cost was $0, so our trip to the dealer went off without a hitch and our long-term Legacy carries on trouble-free. Stay tuned for a report on what we did during our summer vacation with the long-term Legacy, which included logging over 2,000 miles traveling through a beautiful part of the country that’s absolutely obsessed with crab.

– 7,906 miles

Gallery: 2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: First trip to the dealer

Photos copyright (C)2010 John Neff / AOL

2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT: Heading to shop for recall inspection originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Recall, stop-sale issued on 2010-11 Subaru Outback and Legacy models over gearbox flaw

Filed under: Sedan, Wagon, Recalls, Safety, Crossover, Subaru

2010 Subaru Outback

2010 Subaru Outback – Click above for high-res image gallery

Once again, Subaru’s mainstay models, the Outback and Legacy, appear to be girding for a recall. Both models have already faced callbacks for leaky CVT hoses and wiring issues, but according to Inside Line, a new issue affecting a number of manual transmission-equipped 2010 and 2011 models will not only precipitate another recall, but also a stop-sale on all potentially-affected vehicles.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the oil lubrication hole in the six-speed manual transmission has not been drilled on the affected vehicles, which can cause gears to break. NHTSA issued a statement, saying:

“If the transmission gears are not properly lubricated, a groaning sound may begin to develop, alerting the driver to a problem. If this sound is ignored and no action is taken, the gears will eventually break and this condition will lead to vehicle power loss, possibly resulting in a crash.”

Vehicles will be repaired, free of charge, at any Subaru dealer in America. Most will simply have an oil lubrication hole drilled, though the automaker has informed its dealer network that vehicles with 6,250 miles or more will require the replacement of the third through sixth gearsets, as well as the main shaft.

A total of 809 Outback and Legacy models are affected by this recall, which is expected to officially go into effect on August 6. In the meantime, owners are urged to contact their local dealers as soon as possible to have this problem corrected.

Gallery: First Drive: 2010 Subaru Outback

Photos by Jonathon Ramsey / Copyright (C)2010 AOL

[Source: Inside Line]

Report: Recall, stop-sale issued on 2010-11 Subaru Outback and Legacy models over gearbox flaw originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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