2022 Subaru WRX Sportswagon tS long-term review

JUMP AHEAD

  • Welcome
  • Upcoming: On the road
  • Upcoming: Comfort, space and quality
  • Upcoming: Technology
  • Upcoming: That’s a wrap!

Welcome

  • Price as tested: $57,990 before on-road costs
  • This month: 221km @ 10.4 L/100km ( 3984km on odometer)
  • Total: As above  

Finally, they fixed it.

You know the bit I mean. The chrome window trim of the previous Subaru Levorg, the way it ran along the window sills and stopped abruptly at the rear quarter windows? Ridiculous.

Okay, yes, this is probably the last factor anybody would or should consider when buying a new car – nothing’s perfect, after all – but the thing is, the Levorg was imperfect in too many ways.

The interior was fussy and too busy, infotainment was spread across three poorly conceived displays, the CVT transmission performed a desperate and unconvincing impression of a torque converter, the suspension was wildly under-damped, and… well, this isn’t a review of the 2017 Levorg.

Here we’ve got the new one, still sold overseas as the Levorg, but smartly renamed WRX Sportswagon for Australia.

It’s sharp and stylish in a way previous generations of WRX have never been (the Seinfeld quote, “a loathsome, offensive brute, yet I can’t look away” comes to mind) and it is without question a more cohesive, mainstream-friendly offering than the generation before it.

We’re in first impressions mode here, though, so let’s look at what the new WRX Sportswagon tS is packing.

The complete WRX range opens at $44,990 before on-road costs, getting you the base sedan with a manual transmission.

Our tester, the WRX tS Sportwagon, sits at the top of the tree with a price tag of $57,990 – again before on-roads.

As with the WRX sedan, power in the Sportswagon tS is provided by a 2.4-litre turbo petrol four-cylinder engine, delivering 202kW and 350Nm.

Unlike the sedan, the wagon offers no manual option – to our eternal disappointment – and power is sent to its all-wheel drive system through a ‘Sport Lineartronic’ CVT automatic transmission with eight simulated ‘gears’.

You’ll never see an STI version of the new WRX, either, so those specs are about as good as it’s getting. In fact, Subaru is so over the notion of the WRX being a champ of the small performance car set that it doesn’t even list an official 0-100km/h time. We reckon it’ll run about six seconds – which the previous WRX did officially claim – but we’ll have to test that in the coming weeks.

Fuel use is listed at 8.5L/100km on the combined cycle, breaking down to 11.2L/100km in urban driving and 7.0L/100km on the highway. So far, I’m running at about 10.4/100km with an urban drive most days of the week (the school runs and shopping) and a few 20-minute sprints down Melbourne’s Eastlink to our Mulgrave office.

The new Levorg WRX Sportswagon is 20mm longer in the wheelbase than the previous wagon, and it’s about 15mm taller. Neither figure is impressive on paper, but overall packaging improvements means there’s a little more rear legroom and another five litres of boot space.

Interior style and tech improves on the old model by a good margin, introducing a more modern design through the cabin, while upgrading infotainment and controls to a huge new portrait screen in the dash.

The instrument cluster remains a conventional analogue unit with a colour ‘multi-function display’ between the dials; some may commend this resistance to digitisation, while others might suggest it reeks of behind-the-times, low-budget product development. Each to their own.

All models get that big 11.6-inch main display, along with wired Apple Carplay and Android Auto.

Equipment highlights in all WX wagon models include LED headlights, dual-zone climate control, rain-sensing wipers, reclining and power-folding rear seats, and adaptive cruise control.

The WRX GT adds a powered sunroof, powered tailgate, sat-nav, 10-speaker Harman Kardon audio, ‘Ultrasuede’ seat trim, eight-way powered front seats with memory, and driver monitoring.

Our top-shelf tS ups the sporting credentials, adding a drive mode selector with Sport and Sport+ in the mix, along with adaptive dampers and 18-inch alloy wheels with a design unique to the wagon.

Like some other model lines, particularly Hyundai’s i30 N-Line, the manual versions of the WRX miss out on the best of Subaru’s safety technology. Go for a manual sedan, and the active safety kit is limited to blind-spot monitoring, rear-cross traffic alert and tyre pressure monitoring.

Choose an automatic – which in the case of the wagon is your only choice anyway – and you get autonomous emergency braking, lane-keep assist, lane centring assist, emergency braking assist, traffic sign recognition and an intelligent speed limiter.

Lastly, and unlike the first year of Levorgs sold in Australia, the new WRX benefits from Subaru’s five-year / unlimited-kilometre warranty launched in 2019. Before that, it was a mere three years and 100,000km.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll look at whether the new Levorg is just the thing for that vocal minority of buyers that can’t give up on the wagon dream (this writer included), or if you’d be better off with an SUV – or, perhaps, the similarly priced Skoda Octavia RS wagon.

Things we like so far

  • Sharp new looks
  • CVT is better behaved and more capable than before
  • Good power, really feels like a rapid thing

Not so much…

  • Outdated, unintuitive infotainment UX
  • Unlocking the rear doors via fob can be a pain
  • The rally-heritage manual handbrake is gone!

Up next: How the new WRX tS Sportswagon drives

COMMENTS

Keyword: Living with the new Subaru WRX Sportswagon tS: Long-term test

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