A New Subaru

[SportWagon]

So I'd snuck into the Subaru dealership with my wife in early February (arranged my detour around LRT construction to go by there) and she went for a test-ride (she doesn't drive, so I did) and she agreed to replacing our 2000 Subaru Impreza SportWagon with a 2016 Subaru Impreza 5Dr.

So I arranged to drop in and finalize the deal a week or so later. She wanted to be left at a mall while I went to the dealership.

Prior to the mall we had driven to a village on the very other side of town for a breakfast buffet. We got to the buffet before it opened. So I decided to try going for gas while waiting, but the gas station across the road wasn't really open either. So after we left the restaurant I dropped in at the gas station and bought gas.

Then we drove along the highway to the mall near the dealership, completely on the other side of town. In the middle of that trip I noticed a distinct electrical engine smell which didn't seem to go away quickly, but lingered with us.

So I dropped my wife at the mall and she quickly went to the doors to get out of the cold.

The engine would not turn over at all. As if the battery was dead (partially true), or, I theorize, you might get a similar feeling on that car if the clutch cable snapped because of its starter interlock.

So I called CAA, and tried to locate my wife after that, but couldn't but left a service message thing at the Wal-Mart desk. Which actually worked later, it turned out.

I thought I'd told CAA where I was, but when I tracked them with their App webpage thingy I could tell they were in the parking lot on the other side of the mall. So I carefully walked over there watching for them coming the other way. (The text messages they send you are not monitored for replies, perhaps not surprisingly).

So I found the CAA guy in his tow truck and we drove near my car. He told me it was too parked in to tow, but he could probably start it with a boost from his power pack. (I suspect it's lithium ion, and probably has a disconnect switch so he doesn't need to worry about sparking; he boosted it directly from my battery terminals, not a ground location).

So yes, the engine started, and he told me I could not stop until I got to where I needed to go.

So I managed that. I guess by that point I had phoned the dealership to tell them I was going to need to come slightly later for my appointment. But I arrived at the dealership late.

We left the engine running all the time I signed the papers and stuff, but it didn't significantly charge the battery, if at all.

The saleman happily set us up with a CVT Crosstrek for the rest of the weekend. (But somehow when I returned it on Monday I got the impression the service manager wasn't so happy with that generosity).

Yes, I needed a new alternator. The car had sensed it was going to be replaced, and had a hissy fit, I guess.

Early suspicions had been I'd just completely wrecked my battery. But at least since that wasn't the situation I didn't need to revise my ideas of how batteries will die.

We'd known before the purchase that it would take two months for the car to arrive. (In theory I didn't buy the car at the time of agreement because it did not exist yet and had no VIN).

So a hopefully last pile of money thrown at the old car.

The new one finally arrived last Wednesday (yesterday) but won't be ready until Tuesday.

[Cam]

Congrats!

[George]

Cool! New car day is always fun...or so I hear.

Time to change your screen name from SportWagon to FiveDoor!

Mmm, breakfast buffet...

[thesameguy]

Seriously. That's as far as I got.

[Yw-slayer]

You realise that there's a brand new Impreza that has been announced for 2017?

[TheBenior]

You realise that there's a brand new Impreza that has been announced for 2017?

Will the first couple years of it's production also burn oil, or will it get a carryover engine?

[Yw-slayer]

That I don't know. Should be the FA20, I'm guessing.

[SportWagon]

A first-year model for 2017? Makes me glad I didn't push it that far.

[SportWagon]

I took some comparison pictures.

I think later I took better ones, but will need to find them.

http://gtxforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=1790&d=1466463059

As the weeks pass, I can't believe how much I loved the old car. The new one just isn't a superior replacement.

Power windows and electronic door locks are just as annoying as I thought they would be. Why can't I unlock all the doors while leaving the tailgate locked? Why should that even be something which needs to be specified? My wife, who doesn't drive, still hasn't built up the nerve to use her key to turn the accessories on so she can open a window if she's waiting for me.

The new one is broken-in now. And the old one is gone.

[thesameguy]

... said no one ever!

Except George.

[Phil_SS]

After owning a 2013 Impreza Sport for the past 2.5 years I have to agree, I still miss my 95 Tealbaru of Doom. The new car has some nice amenities but the Tealbaru was just as good at getting me back and forth to work. And I feel it was a bit more enjoyable to drive.

The new one does get better gas mileage but it isn't anything crazy. The Tealbaru would get about 21-22mpg and the new one is around 25-26. With gas being so cheap. Meh.

If I could buy a brand new GC8 with Bluetooth I would.

[Yw-slayer]

Basically, Subarus were so great back then that it's hard to improve on perfection.

[SportWagon]

I actually owned them together for a couple of weeks. And so drove the old one after having driven the new one for a while.

The steering was just an appropriate bit heavier on the old one, giving a more positive feel. Of course, perhaps the new clutch must count as an improvment; the old one was cable-actuated and needed a good heavy push. Would have been bad right now with my bursitis.

Oh, and to also be more positive, it is nice, after 30 years of driving manual, to finally have a tach!

Oh, and to counter the apparent implication that nobody ever finds newer cars better...

My 2000 Subaru Impreza was a vast improvement over my 1985 Toyota Tercel Station Wagon (FWD).

The only thing I ever found worse on the Subaru was the fact the tailgate on the Tercel opened the entire rear of the car, so anything that could be contained in the car could be put into it. I once had a three-foot square of chicken wire, with pipe on its outside (i.e. a gate) that I could not get through either tailgate or side door of the Subaru. (Though I did manage to carry two-by-fours (over 8ft long) entirely inside the Subaru, with the tailgate closed; diagonally from the back, into the front passenger footwell).

And actually, the new five-door does appear to have addressed that problem somewhat, by reducing the height of the "trunk" lip at the back. And the rear doors are larger too, and also not heavily curved at the back.

[21Kid]

Congrats on the new ride. :cool:
After owning a 2013 Impreza Sport for the past 2.5 years I have to agree, I still miss my 95 Tealbaru of Doom. The new car has some nice amenities but the Tealbaru was just as good at getting me back and forth to work. And I feel it was a bit more enjoyable to drive.

The new one does get better gas mileage but it isn't anything crazy. The Tealbaru would get about 21-22mpg and the new one is around 25-26. With gas being so cheap. Meh.

If I could buy a brand new GC8 with Bluetooth I would.
That's (https://smile.amazon.com/BOSS-625UAB-Single-DIN-MECH-LESS-Detachable/dp/B00B65J5B8/ref=sr_1_7?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1466515212&sr=1-7&keywords=bluetooth+car+stereo) an easy fix (https://smile.amazon.com/Pioneer-MVH-X380BT-Digital-Receiver-Bluetooth/dp/B01463U20E/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1466514894&sr=1-4&keywords=bluetooth+car+stereo).
You can even get a double-din DVD player for cheap. (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PVBZ8A0/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1) (We put that one in our '06 Saabaru).

I don't see why unlocking all the doors & the tailgate is a problem? To do multiple things you'd need more buttons on the remote. You could just press it once to disarm the alarm and use the key on the gate, if you don't want to unlock the doors, for some reason.

[Kchrpm]

What did you guys cross-shop, if anything, before buying the Subarus?

[SportWagon]

I don't see why unlocking all the doors & the tailgate is a problem? To do multiple things you'd need more buttons on the remote. You could just press it once to disarm the alarm and use the key on the gate, if you don't want to unlock the doors, for some reason.

There is no keyhole on the gate. Which is another minor annoyance since that was always where I put my key when I had the tailgate open. In fact, there is a button to unlock just the tailgate. But you can't keep the tailgate locked with the doors unlocked, in general.

My wife never was in the mood before to shop for a new car, saying the old one was perfect (which is was, but it was getting old), and had a health crisis when I finally decided we needed to move quickly. I might have looked at 4WD larger Minis, but I think they get expensive with 4WD, and my friend scowled about reliability when I suggested them as an alternative. I'd investigate Audis if I had more money. I don't think Mitsubishi sells small 4wd cars in the North American market.

So, in all honesty, I didn't really cross-shop much at all.

[XHawkeye]

Your friend is/was correct, the Mini is a lease only car.

[Yw-slayer]

And the Countryman has no redeeming features, while Audis are overpriced. So you made the right choice.

[Kchrpm]

The small wagon market is not one I know anything about, so I took a quick look. It seems most of the vehicles of similar size/configuration with AWD are small crossovers rather than wagons, so it definitely limits the choices in that specific segment.

[SportWagon]

And the Countryman has no redeeming features, while Audis are overpriced. So you made the right choice.
But if I had lots of money, I still would have seriously investigated an Audi. And the Countryman has the redeeming feature that is still looks British-Leylandy. Oh. Um. Er, yeah.

One weird thing is that the earlier generation Imprezas were distinctively styled, even if a little utilitarian-looking. But this one is extremely similar in general shape and styling to similar Mazdas, Nissans and Toyotas.

Perhaps I should blame the Common Market (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Market).

[Phil_SS]

The small wagon market is not one I know anything about, so I took a quick look. It seems most of the vehicles of similar size/configuration with AWD are small crossovers rather than wagons, so it definitely limits the choices in that specific segment.

Agreed. AWD and in that new car price range there is only 1, Impreza. Maybe Juke. Though that depends on what the Juke actually is. The AWD Mini is in the high 20's.

[Kchrpm]

The Juke is a disappointment of a vehicle that could have been a Pulsar instead.

We could have this

http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/298/839/5/S2988395/slug/l/01-nissan-pulsar-nismo-concept-paris-1.jpg

But instead we have this

http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/GLOB/legacy_thumbnail/800x450/format/jpg/quality/85/http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/b0422194e57a0b83280d3436e7cfd3c6/200464371/2014-nissan-juke-nismo-rs-qs.jpg

But I don't blame Nissan, I blame consumers and this weird obsession with having the same car but taller.

[novicius]

No love for the Juke?

http://ladyonwheels.com/wp-content/uploads/29-03-2012/low3.1.jpg

:D

[thesameguy]

A Juke is on the short-list for Santa Fe replacement if/when that happens.

I think you have to love them. If not us, then who?

[21Kid]

No love for the Juke?

[IMG]http://ladyonwheels.com/wp-content/uploads/29-03-2012/low3.1.jpg[IMG]

:D
Go there often?

[novicius]

Yeah, it's where the ladies are. :finger:

[thesameguy]

https://www.speedyceus.com/template_images/aging_and_long_term_care/Woman_in_Wheelchair.jpg

[21Kid]

:lol:

[novicius]

:lol: ;)

[Yw-slayer]

:up:

[SportWagon]

My wife is beginning to use a new nickname for the car; the Un-impreza. That probably Googles.

Yes, it does. Even though I'm sure she made it up herself. It's somewhat obvious, after all.

[SportWagon]

Saw the traction control flash on briefly while going around a roundabout during the first light snowfall about two weeks ago. Didn't see it at all during last nights slightly heavier dusting, however.

But last night I did encounter a dashboard light feature which is almost dangerous.

The "headlights on" light comes on when you click the switch to the sidelight position, and nothing changes when you switch to the headlights proper. There's no notches or anything to tell you what position the switch (rotating end of left-side control stick) is in. (Okay, so headlights is full forward, but...)

I noticed the problem when I tried to put my high beams on. Prior to that, driving down street-lamp-lit streets, I had wondered why my low beams (which I didn't realize were actually my DRLs) weren't helping much.

I think the light behaviour might have been the same in the 2000 car, but there were additional notches on the control arm which made it more obvious what position it was in.

Now I know about it, I can make a point to make sure the switch is rotated fully forward, but it seems strange that that aren't different dashboard indicators.

The dash (here I mean the central console of dials and sliders and buttons) as a whole is difficult to read, but that has forced me to learn to do everything by feel (i.e. consciously memorize things while the car is still to aid in switching while driving later) and one can rationalize that that was a deliberate design measure.

As to the dash (tach, etc, with too many idiot lights) itself, I've also observed it seems rather silly to have the radiator cold light the same color as the high beam indicator. Radiator temperature lights instead of the old gauge are the ultimate in chintziness.

The little needle in the bottom of the speedometer is rather fun. It looks vaguely like an alternator gauge, but in fact tells you how much better or worse than average your current fuel consumption is.

[Yw-slayer]

The "headlights on" light comes on when you click the switch to the sidelight position, and nothing changes when you switch to the headlights proper. There's no notches or anything to tell you what position the switch (rotating end of left-side control stick) is in. (Okay, so headlights is full forward, but...)

I'm surprised. I think all of ours have enough notches that you can tell which is which. Anyway, I just go full-forward all of the time. Unless it's early morning or late afternoon/early evening, in which case sometimes it's DAMN COOL to only use side lights, particularly on the BRZ. :cool:

[CudaMan]

This is why I dislike DRL's (and automatic headlights too).

Our blue Z was converted to DRL's when it was imported to Canada. It's caught us out a couple times driving at night with headlights on (by default) and since we haven't turned the switch on the stalk, we have no taillights. In the case of our converted car, the DRL is the same bulb as the headlight so there's no difference in brightness.

Speaking of TC, I managed to somehow engage it in 4th gear on a dry road going perfectly straight with good tires a couple weeks ago. Darn nannies. For a moment I thought something went wrong with the engine. Racing TC systems are sooooo much better.

[SportWagon]

Well, we had a small accumulation of snow last weekend.

First time I tried applying power experimentally mid-corner, it appeared to cause the whole car to move sideways. That was with traction-control on.

Accumulation wasn't too bad on Sunday, so we decided to to our trip to Fergus for McD, using roads from or nearby my bicycling routes. It was well past sunset the entire trip.

The traffic lights in Conestogo stopped me as I was heading north to Elora. I hesitated when they turned green because I couldn't quite see what was going on with the vehicle with bright headlights opposite me. It almost looked like the cars occupants were walking in front of the car. But after I went through the intersection, I realized that had been an Amish buggy waiting to turn left, braving the light downfall of snow.

Took the busier road all the way to Elora. About two miles out we got caught behind a snow-plough. Somewhere along the way I had decided that traction control off was definitely usually better. Not the same feeling of the road as the old car (2000 2.2 Wagon), but some. (It didn't seem the snow-plough had been clearing the road right down to the pavement; if it was salting/sanding it was only lightly, but no visible banks were piling up on the shoulder.

Coming home I took a less busy route, but snow was really not getting very deep. Part way down Middlebrook Road I saw another strange set of headlights. Another buggy going in the opposite direction. And then I came up behind one going my way, with bright red lighting, and later two more journeying together. Passing the two was a bit tricky, especially as we were in a hilly twisty part of the road.

Down through West Montrose, and west along Hill Street to return to busy-ish Northfield drive. And going along Northfield drive I came up behind yet one more buggy. Yes, there is a family lives along that stretch, on the crest of a hill overlooking an essy dip in the road. When I occasionally bicycle along there, I'll sometimes be coming up behind them wondering when I'll catch and pass them, and then they suddenly move across the road to their driveway on the other side.

I decided to take the steep straight descent into, and S-bend climb out of, the Conestogo River Valley. For that climb, I thought TCS was prudent, but who really knows? (Web searches suggest that because TCS works by reducing power, you will get slowed down, especially under conditions which cause all wheels to slip. With Subaru AWD, TCS does seem very redundant; and overall it seems TCS is not likely any advantage for short steep hills, and might even induce stalling the engine, which agrees with one incident that weekend).

Worst bit of driving all evening was when I didn't seem to settle properly into the roundabout near the end for 360 degrees, but somehow awkwardly came to a near stop half-way through with ABS clunking.

A little later there's a remaining remnant of an old rural hill, pretty urban now. Mildly steep, but short. Even with TCS off going up that hill, I saw the TCS lights flicker. Which is a weird phenomenon I'd seen a couple of times.

This is all with the all-season radials.

[Yw-slayer]

The 2017 Subaru Impreza maintains everything you’ve loved about the Impreza for the last 24 years, and all things considered, it is the best basic Impreza ever made. If I was building a 2017 Impreza for myself, I’d buy the five-door in Sport trim with the Harman Kardon package, which includes the blind spot and rear cross-traffic monitoring and the moonroof. I’d get all that, plus the Stablex suspension with sport tuning and 18-inch wheels and still drive off the lot for a cool $25,465.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/2017-subaru-impreza-first-drive/#ixzz4T4AOFNUy
Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | DigitalTrends on Facebook

Excited for the STI. Hoping for a hatch.

[SportWagon]

Need to find out where exactly you need to wash to get the mud off the backup camera. I no longer think it actually looks through the obvious rectangular panel in the bumper. That probably is just the access panel and as opaque as it looks. The manual doesn't seem to mention anything about it except for how to adjust the brightness, etc.

Straight-line braking on ice. I don't think the ABS works very well. Though I could be microscopically feathering even when I think I'm not, I suppose.

[Cam]

It is good to read your experiences with your new Subaru. Thanks for sharing.

[21Kid]

I didn't like the ABS on my '01. Things seemed to be improved on Shannon's '06. But, I still felt I could do better.

[SportWagon]

That recent day, on the road intermittently covered with recently frozen rain, I know I could do better. I think I could even do better feathering/pumping the brakes even though they are ABS. Which is perhaps a relief. I deliberately used the ABS with room to spare as a test. Perhaps they are better at getting from high-speed to low-speed than (as in my case) getting from low-speed to final stop.

There was another silly observation I forgot to post too...

In the trying to out-think the user department...

The rear window wiper has a setting which is intermittent. No rate adjustment, but intermittent. That's nice. And it has another setting with constant motion. But if you have it on intermittent and put the car into reverse, it switches to non-intermittent. So the first time I did that, sitting playing with various things (trying to figure out how to remove the mess from the back-up camera, I think) I wondered whether somehow the intermittent control had broken or something.

The backup camera seems to have cleared up for now, having got thoroughly splashed with road water. So I will wait until my Friday service appointment to see if they can give advice on where to clean when it clogs up with semi-frozen mud again.

[thesameguy]

Didja RTFM?


In this position, when you move the select lever to the "R" position (CVT models) or the shift lever to the reverse position (MT models), the rear wiper will switch to continuous operation. When you move the select lever/shift lever from the "R" (reverse) position, the rear wiper will return to intermittent operation.

[Yw-slayer]

Car manual? Nobodygottimeforthatamirite

[thesameguy]

Everyone shits. Everyone has time to read an owner's manual.

[Yw-slayer]

No way, toilet time is for grinding in Angry MARIO Future Clash QHD!!

[thesameguy]

I don't have that. :(

[21Kid]

I figured it was one of those features that no one thinks about.

[SportWagon]

It's almost absurd that they'd document that the gear shift lever is also the rear wiper speed adjustment lever. I'll have to try and read the whole section because I think it's more complicated than just that. (I think in some cases it also depends on whether the front wipers are going).

I tried to download the PDF but somehow it got put on Dropbox and I gave up trying to fight with it.

I also felt silly when they did show me where the rear view camera is, but it's nice to know it's not as vulnerable as I had thought, and more accessible for cleaning. It's just above the license plate in the rear hatch, offset to one side. I thought the picture didn't seem symmetric.

Oh. And now remembering how manuals sometimes work. It's probably marked on a diagram early on, not mentioned in the index.

I need to be a lot more careful than in my old 2000 Impreza crossing the snow barriers that build up between lanes before the ploughs have properly cleaned it. Probably still better than the 1985 FWD Tercel, though.

[thesameguy]

I don't think the gear shift lever is the wiper lever. Where did that come from?

[SportWagon]

Okay, so it's "a rear wiper speed adjustment lever", not "the rear wiper speed adjustment lever".

I'll try to avoid downloading a PDF to my phone in future. Finally got around to getting a copy on a real computer.

And I was right, there is an extra complication in the rear wiper interlock...



NOTE

Even if the rear wiper switch is in the “OFF” position, while the shift lever/select lever is in the “R” position with the front windshield wiper operating continuously, the rear wiper will operate intermittently (reverse gear interlocked rear wiper).


Furthermore...



Function settings

A SUBARU dealer can change the settings of the functions shown in the following table to meet your personal requirements. Contact the nearest SUBARU dealer for details. ...

Item: Reverse gear interlocked rear wiper (5-door)
Function: Reverse gear interlocked rear wiper operation
Possible settings: Operation/Non-operation
Default setting: U.S.-spec. models: Non-operation
Other models: Operation


Some things are easier to find in the PDF with text search. But sometimes line breaks stop things from matching which should. I will need to verify one strange detail of the index in my hard-copy.

[Random]

My Fiesta plays the same game with the rear wiper--if the front wipers are on and you shift into reverse, the rear wiper swipes, even if it's set to "off."

[SportWagon]

And that's presumably with a U.S.-spec model.

(Your Fiesta?)


A few quick impressions after a whopping 30 miles of commute time:

The back window is tiny and the mirror is mounted too high on the windshield, leading to a slightly smaller view than totally necessary. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The AC is strong. I usually kept the 328's auto climate control at 68--in the Fiesta, that was too cold for my drive home in 100+ temps. I had to bump it up to 72 and aim the vents away from me. :lol:
Took me a bunch of button pressing to figure out how to scroll up and down the Sirius channel list. The up/down buttons on the steering wheel only go through your presets; you have to use the back/forth buttons on the dash to go through the whole list.
You can bog the engine pretty good trying to drive it like a big displacement engine.
Pedal spacing is bad for heel-toe, just like the Focus. One solution is a spacer (http://blog.modbargains.com/youre-driving-st-wrong-fixing-focus-st-fiesta-st-pedal-gap/) under the gas pedal pivot.


Love the color.


So, did they try to make up for your too small back window by installing a back-up camera?

Wow. It's not far off 555 Blue.

Ha ha. You have all-seasons and summer/autocross tires. I might end up getting winter tires for mine. Probably Michelin X-Ice. And then I'd think about maybe some five-spoke summer rims.

[SportWagon]

So I don't actually recall driving in whiteout conditions ever before.

I didn't cancel our usual Sunday trip to Fergus because not a lot of snow was forecast, and many weeks ago I'd driven in fresh snow conditions anyway. The days are getting longer now, and so it was daylight to dusk as we went there. It was amusing driving onto a snow-covered country road with no visible tire-tracks, but looking in my rear-view mirror and seeing the asphalt through my own fresh tire-tracks.

On the way home I decided to take a more well-travelled route. It was dark by now. At Elora we ended up behind a pickup-truck which was a couple of cars behind something with its 4-ways going, which eventually we found out was an ordinary car. A chain of cars keeping about 4 to 8 lengths between them, going about 30mph, (usual speed approaching twice that, or sometimes more; posted limit 80km/hr), following one another's tail-lights for security.

And occasionally the ghostly daemons of white-out would blow across the road. The snow must have got very pelletized that day, and whenever we got to an open-field part of the journey there was a chance of a white-out occuring. The truck's lights would warn me when he decided he had to stop to let the wind die down. There were one, possibly more, cars following me in a similar fashion too.

At one point there looked to be a van in the ditch going the other way, and the pickup appeared to pull off into a nearby intersection to possibly go help. We had far enough to go home I was willing to leave that to others. It was then I could more clearly see the vehicle with the four-ways going, and tell it was just an ordinary car, not a salt-truck or anything.

When we got to the traffic lights near West Montrose all the traffic in front and behind of me turned right, and I continued alone into Waterloo.

So during the worst of times, I put my own four-ways on now. No-one ahead of me to hint at where the road was. One particularly nasty incident happened when I rode the ABS out for a while during a whiteout. Its rough shaking caused my wife to suggest she thought we were going into the ditch. In fact I believe if anything we were too far to our left. A couple of well-headlighted pickup trucks passed cautiously the other way, and then the white-out calmed down, and I started up, obviously not being in the right-hand ditch, and, as I say, probably too far left. I knew the twists well, and we got to Conestogo soon enough, and I didn't bother with the ancient road into town that night.

Close to home I realized my side-mirror, though not my wife's, was entirely caked with snow. It wasn't too cold so I used the electric window opener and scrape the snow off with my bare fingers. Similarly, when we got home, my side of the car was entirely covered with caked-on snow, but my wife's wasn't. The wind appeared to be coming from the normal right-hand direction (west), but I think it swirled up and over my car and eddied on my side, resulting in the deposit of snow.

[Kchrpm]

That's horrifying. My only experience with white out conditions was during the day on one neighborhood street. Having to cover any large distances in that would have wrecked me. Bravo.

[thesameguy]

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6b/47/9f/6b479fddbd6453789e40b6233fbfccf1.jpg

Obviously.

[SportWagon]

Yeah, I've got to get the normal fog lights soon. No amount of light will help much through a white-out though; there's literally an opaque curtain of snow. During some of the lesser extreme conditions, low beams glare back less than high beams.

The distance was about 40km there and 40km back, by-the-way. Trip home took about an hour.

And I meant to mention that the low-ground-clearance front and side panels do get a bit hung up on the snow, but weight and/or plough effect eventually overcomes it. And true ground clearance for important parts seems to be actually still reasonable.

[thesameguy]

I dunno man, it works for the Swedes. Saab and Volvo both sold setups like that out of dealers for SDM cars. Low positions to get under snow when it gets ugly, high positions to get down the road when it clears up. Little factory 55w fog lights are about worthless IME.

[SportWagon]

The fog lights will at least help light more of the side of the road in good weather at night.

[thesameguy]

Fog lights typically offer about 25' of forward coverage, or about 1/3rd of a second at 60mph or 1/2 of a second at 30. It's not even enough time to get your foot on the brake. Unless you're creeping along at 15mph, fog lights will only tell you what you're about to hit - they lack adequate projection to give even reaction time for normal-speed driving.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2jcc19k.jpg

This is PIAA's, so don't expect the same performance from factory parts, but it's a good illustration. For nighttime rural driving, a good flood driving light (what PIAA calls RPC) is money.

Obviously it's your car/you do you, but IMHO I wouldn't invest a dollar in factory fogs - they are never very good even amongst fog lights and they are inappropriate for anything over 15mph - they don't help you and they just mess with other drivers.

[21Kid]

It's not a Subaru without gigantic fog lights. ;)

[SportWagon]

So I blame the non-simple dome light behaviour.

I often put the dome-light on to help my wife find her keys, but last Sunday I forgot to turn it off.

I claim I would have noticed the light being on with old-fashioned behaviour of turning off immediately when all doors are closed. But instead I'm sort of accustomed to seeing a light on in the car as I go into the house from the attached garage because after you close all the doors, the light dims for a minute or so before it goes out.

Two-and-a-half days later (Wednesday morning) I try to put something in the cargo compartment, and the relay will not work to open the latch. And gradually I realize all the electric things are not working. Except I do notice the dim dome light, and then see that the switch is in the wrong position.

So I called CAA and they came well within half-an-hour. Probably within 15 minutes. A guy by himself in a small van, not a tow-truck. But he was willing to push me in neutral partially out of the garage so he could get in front to boost it with a portable boosting device. And so then the problem was solved. Except there are no indicators of battery charge anywhere.

I had an appointment to have my hair cut at 9:30am. We finished about 8:50am, and I left the car fast idling in the driveway until about 9:00am. And then drove off at about 9:05am and took a somewhat scenic route to the hair-cutting place, arriving just in time.

Good thing I'd intended to drop into a diner for breakfast on the way; so I was able to skip that and be on time.

The hairdresser told me though, that if I'm delayed again, I can just phone and see if she's busy, and often just delay such an appointment. This is the first time I've seen her since she switched out of her nearby place and began working out of her home, actually several years ago. She has a knack for trimming beards that the nearby place I'd been using in the interim doesn't really have.

Can someone change the title of this thread to SportWagon's 2016 Impreza 5-door? Perhaps I could, but I can't see how.

[George]

I claim I would have noticed the light being on with old-fashioned behaviour of turning off immediately when all doors are closed. But instead I'm sort of accustomed to seeing a light on in the car as I go into the house from the attached garage because after you close all the doors, the light dims for a minute or so before it goes out.

I keep the interior lights in the OFF position in my car to hopefully avoid this problem. When I know my wife is going to drive the car next (this happened just last Saturday evening), I'll switch it to DOOR and actually stand there until I see the lights turn completely off. That way she can see the interior when she gets in.

I cannot bring myself to walk away with the lights still on. I guess it comes from all those cars of old that had lights that turned off immediately, as you mentioned and as they should.

Down with non-simple dome light behaviour! :angry:

:)

[Yw-slayer]

I do sometimes leave the light on in my cars after switching it on to look for something.

[SportWagon]

Oh dear. The HKAA is the Hong Kong Adventist Academy.

Well, no there is a(n) Hong Kong Automobile Association also.

hkaa.com.hk versus hkaa.edu.hk

[Yw-slayer]

It's cool. I have battery jump starters, but lost the charger for the old one and so have ordered some which are USB chargeable.