► Month Three with the Subaru WRX STI
► The fuel economy is heading south (our fault)
► Adjustable diff gets the tail out happily
I love driving the Subaru fast, but at lower speeds around town the ride is painfully stiff. If it had adaptable suspension, it’s like it’s permanently set in Race mode. Unfortunately, it isn’t adjustable, so we’re stuck with hard dampers even on a pot-holed high street. Passengers jiggle up and down like unwilling parents on a bouncy castle.
However, in true nerdy, technical Subaru style, the centre differential is adjustable. Perfect for… er, actually I’m not sure why they made the diff adjustable. Unless (like me), you want to get it sideways at every opportunity.
Drive the WRX hard and keep the diff in Auto mode, and the handling’s pretty neutral, with a bit of understeer in the wet. It’s not painfully intrusive though, and overall you can keep up a wicked pace. I often take the longer route home from work, down an empty, twisting back road. I’m always astonished at how you can maintain momentum, cross-country, even in a downpour. However, fiddle with the ‘Driver’s Control Centre Differential’ (or DCCD) and you can manually fix the torque distribution between the front and rear axles. Subaru explains that adjusting rearward ‘sharpens cornering’ and forward ‘increases traction’; what they’re really talking about is oversteer. In my case I only adjust one way, all the way to the back.
There’s also a knob for engaging the ‘Sport Sharp’ setting, which remaps the engine to give you a hair-trigger throttle and a turbo boost so sudden it makes you yelp. Channelling torque rearward in this mode, with traction control off, the car is markedly less well balanced, and choosing steering angles feels less instinctive. But on my favourite curly off-ramp, or accelerating out of a junction in the wet, you can get the Subaru to slide like Solberg, which makes me grin like a Cheshire cat.
Unfortunately, fuel economy is heading south with all this playing around. Over the month I’m down to 20mpg, but I know on some journeys it’s probably been 17 or 18mpg. The boxer engine is a beaut, but there’s a price to pay for everything in life, including tail-slides.
From the driving seat
+ Purposeful driving position and great seats
+ Supercar pace cross country
+ Every last drop of the 300bhp is exploitable
– Suspension is jerky-bouncy stiff round town
– My wallet is wilting with the fuel consumption
Logbook Subaru WRX STI
Price: £28,995
As tested: £28,995
Miles this month: 636
Total miles: 4302
Our mpg: 20.2
Official mpg: 27.2
Fuel this month: £162.98
Extra costs: £0