2020 Subaru Legacy Touring XT Turbo and 2.5i Sport Reviewed

On this episode, we travel to Southern California for a look at the all new 2020 Subaru Legacy. It's coming up right now on Driving Sports TV. Before we dive into the new 2020 Subaru Legacy, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for watching. If you haven't yet subscribed, please take a moment to hit that button. If you're already a subscriber, that's awesome. Now, let's get this started. It may resemble last year's model, but this is, in fact, an all new Legacy for 2020. It's now riding on Subaru's Global Platform, the same architecture that underpins the 2019 Forester, Impreza, and Ascent. That's cool. But what's even cooler is that the Turbo is back. Now called the XT, it features new levels of comfort and performance never before available in a Legacy. For our run through all the features, we're going to use a new Touring XT model. Even though it is a Turbo, there's no more hood scoop. Instead, the Turbo is fed by ducting that channels the air through the front grille. Top scoops may look cool, but they're not very good for aerodynamics. The engine is the same 2.4 liter 4-cylinder boxer that premiered in the Subaru Ascent. The turbocharger is placed under the engine and is a twin scroll configuration. That means that the peak 277 pound-feet of torque hits as low as 2,000 RPM and rides all the way to 4,800. Peak horsepower is a solid 260. Premium fuel is not required. It can take 87 octane just fine. It's paired exclusively to a high torque CVT, and it powers all four wheels using Subaru's symmetrical all-wheel drive system, which is standard. There is, unfortunately, no manual transmission available because, according to Subaru, only five people bought them in their final year of production. To those brave five Turbo owners, I salute you. Apparently, Subaru fans that want a manual are all gravitating to the WRX family. EPA rates this setup on the Touring XT at 24 miles to the gallon in the city and 32 on the highway. In the redesign, Subaru has stretched the cargo capacity to now accommodate up to four suitcases. Using the new measuring standard, it's good for up to 15.1 cubic feet of storage. Easy pulls give a large opening for longer objects. With the second row back in place, I fit just fine. At 6'1", I'm close to the roofline but not rubbing. Legroom has also been increased back here by 1.4 inches. On top trims, passengers get dual stage heated seats and dual 2.1 amp USB charging sockets. The center armrest provides a pair of beverage holders. Like the new Outback, which we reviewed just a few weeks ago, the front of this cabin is a new high mark for Subaru. This Touring XT is trimmed with premium Nappa leather from door to dash. And of course, there's that new, massive, tablet-like touchscreen in the center. The 11.6 inch screen is standard on all trims except base. The new seats aren't just pretty, they're also very comfortable. With the driver getting 10-way power adjustments plus memory. Touring also has their new driver ID system, which will save personal settings for up to five drivers using facial recognition. All trim levels, even base, get LED high and low beam headlights. Touring XT also gets steering responsive units, which are a nice step up. The steering wheel on this top trim gets the same Nappa leather along with a large collection of buttons. Available blind spot monitors with lane change assist are integrated into the side mirrors, which have been now sculpted to reduce wind noise. They've also been moved lower on the door to give greater visibility. All Legacy models come standard with the latest EyeSight safety system. This provides adaptive cruise control with lane centering at speeds up to 90 miles per hour, pedestrian detection, collision mitigation, lane departure, and sway warnings. A rear camera is standard across the board, but rear auto braking is an option on some trims. Touring trim also gets the front 180 degree camera. For all the good things Subaru has put into this, it's a shame to still see some piano black around the shifter. This is going to scratch something awful. To help simplify cabin design, Subaru integrated a ton of features into the new tablet-like control screen. And if you're worried about lag, Subaru's addressed that. They're using dual Denso processors to keep response snappy. The top section of the screen gives quick access to weather, thermostats, and music. The bottom section is dedicated to climate control, which also includes seat warmers and coolers when available. Physical buttons are included for temperature and volume. Clicking down a screen, you can find several functions that previously had their own dedicated buttons. If you want to disable the new auto start stop feature, that is three clicks away, and it resets to on every time you start the car. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are standard across the lineup, but they don't really use the large display effectively. Harman Kardon is still their high-end speaker option, and it sounds pretty good. Prices you see it here, fully loaded, is $36,795, including destination. Before we jump into the Touring XT trim, I thought we'd first give the naturally aspirated Sport trim a try. The Sport comes with a blacked-out grille, special 18-inch wheels, a unique rear bumper, and a small wing. Under the hood is the same 2.5-liter 4-cylinder boxer found in the Forester. Here, it puts out 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque. EPA rates the Sport at a shockingly good 35 miles-to-the-gallon highway and 27 in the city with all-wheel drive standard. The Legacy Sport starts at $26,945. Ours came with a package that added sunroof, rear auto braking, navigation, and blind spot monitors, bringing the price to $30,090, including destination. My co-driver is Bradley Brunel from Jalopnik.com. Now if you want to think about what is the Sport, it's basically the Onyx edition of the Outback, but without the turbo and without the StarTex material. Essentially, it's the blacked-out, cool version of the Legacy. It just doesn't have any extra horsepower. Let's try a quick 0-to-60. We do have some extra weight in the vehicle because we have two full-grown adults! Three, two, one, go! 20, 30, 40. We're going to need a longer road. 50, and 60. Okay, it takes a little while to get there. But you know, it is what it is. You want something faster, you get the turbo. You want a turbo with blacked-out wheels, there's always the aftermarket. Oh, and that 0-to-60 run was in Sport Sharp mode. But interesting thing to note about Sport Sharp is that if you're going wide-open throttle, it doesn't matter what mode you're in. And that's not just a Subaru thing, that's pretty much all makes and models. Sport modes typically give you a much more aggressive throttle. However, when you go wide-open throttle, it's wide-open. It doesn't matter. There's nothing to be more aggressive. So if you have a car that doesn't have fancy things like adaptive suspension, which can also get modified, if you're looking at just throttle adjustments, Sport modes don't do jack if you're going to go wide-open throttle anyway. You know, overall, the seat design is pretty comfortable. I kind of like this red stitching that they've integrated here. Now, there is some vinyl to be found in the doors as well as in the seats. But it's not that StarTex material, it's just traditional vinyl. One thing that's kind of nice about the Legacy lineup is it doesn't matter which trim you get. You get their EyeSight system standard. Not only does EyeSight prevent collisions, it also has lane detection as well as the lane centering, which is new for this year. The lane centering system works brilliantly. And if you don't like the vehicle steering for you automatically, you can still enable adaptive cruise control without the auto-steering function if that makes you happy. Either way, this is one of the best systems available, period. Another interesting fact about the 2.5i is that it does have acoustic glass on the front. It does not have it on the sides like the Outback. They also reserve side acoustic glass for the turbo models. But the overall effect is that the vehicle, even without the side acoustics on this 2.5i, is one of the lowest decibel cars in its class at freeway speeds. It is really quiet in here. They've done a number of things to really improve NVH, the noise, vibration, and harshness. Everything from acoustic glass to new seals on the doors. And I think it really pays dividends here inside the cabin. It is really, really quiet. So quiet I can hear the whine of the CVT, which is not the most pleasing of noises, but you know, it's a car. It's a mechanical thing. It makes mechanical noises. Now let's jump into the Touring XT. We picked a car that is the same coat of magnetite gray metallic. See if you can tell the differences. Yeah, they're all pretty minor on the outside. The big change is what's under the hood, of course. Turbo boxer power. Rock and roll. Let's do this. What was the official zero to 60 on this one? It was like 6.2, something like that. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think we're going to see how it does, not by itself, not with a like hundred pound test driver, but with two actual Americans in the front seat. Let's see what we got. Okay, so there's no special settings to do here. I'm just going to keep it in drive. There's no SI drive or anything. Let's see what this does. I'm going to go ahead and preload the dough, I think a little bit here. Okay. A little of that. There's no launch control, but we're going to make, we're going to pretend launch control. Okay. Three, two, one, go. 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. That was uneventful. And I think it was longer than six and a half seconds. It felt like it. It felt way longer. But then again, I mean, I'm 210. I'm a bit more. A bit more. And you know, that's going to impact things. It just honestly is. So if you wanted to know that figure, there you go. If you know, you don't care about that, you just want manufacturer numbers, six point something or other. I'll put the number right here. Okay. Now that we got that out of the way, this is of course the turbo legacy. They don't call it a turbo legacy. It's now called the legacy GT. Nope. Ah, I keep wanting to call it the GT. Now it is called the legacy XT and that is so it's consistent with the Outbacks nomenclature here. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. This is of course the 2.4 liter engine that is taken out of the Subaru Ascent, which is where it first appeared. And they're slowly trickling it around other cars. After the Ascent, it skipped over the Forester and then appeared into the new 2020 Outback, which of course the legacy is based on the same chassis as the Outback. So boom, we have it in the legacy and this being the legacy XT touring, which is the top of the line. You're going to spend almost $36,000 for what we're driving here, which is kind of funny because it is $10,000 more than the legacy sport, which is the 2.5 I version that we drove earlier. Now of course it is using a CVT Subaru is all about their CVTs. This is however a slightly different one than what you'll find in the natural aspirated model. This is the high torque model. This first appeared in the WRX back in 2015 and again, it's been slowly trickling around the other products and yeah, they've included paddle shifters again because it's a CVT and for some reason they want to put paddle shifters on it. It's faking the gears guys. There's no reason to put it on here. I guess maybe if it snows and you want to kind of gear down, but anyway, moving on, let's talk about the handling. Even though the XT model is kind of the sportier, faster model, I mean this is one that you would compare against luxury sedans. It doesn't really have anything special in terms of suspension, uh, or tires, honestly. I mean it has 18 inch wheels, uh, wrapped in the same rubber that you would get on the naturally aspirated model and the suspension they tell us is exactly the same. It's just been modified slightly to adjust for the extra, what was it? 100, 200 pounds, 200 pounds that, you know, the turbo model, um, adds, uh, but somehow, some way this car feels a lot different, um, in the corners than the naturally aspirated version. When this one feels way more planted, I love it out here. Oh, that beeping. That's because this does have lane detection with, um, adaptive cruise control with lane centering. Um, I showed you how that worked in the Outback video and it's, uh, does a phenomenal job of tracking true in the middle of the lane, no more bouncing around. In the Outback video, I wasn't thrilled about this large tablet. I will say, however, that in the Legacy, it makes more sense to me, uh, simply because I don't like it in off roady type vehicles because you're going to get dust. And the theory is, is that you're going to do more outside in nature. But with a street car like the Legacy here, something that is how it makes no pretense about going off road. I think it does make a lot more sense because this is a car that you're going to commute in. Uh, you're just going to drive it around town. You know, it's, it's, it's a normal everyday car and again, no pretense of off road, off of rugged capability or that kind of stuff. And I think a big screen makes more sense here. Um, still not a huge fan of the layout. Uh, it does seem to work pretty good. I mean, it seems to be brisk and I, I can find what I want. Um, still just, you don't have that like physical feeling with your hands. I mean, here I can't just reach over and hit a button. I have to look, I have to engage with the display and that's just not what you should be doing. So we're going to get to some twisty stuff here eventually. I can say that at about a hundred miles per hour, it is a very composed driver. I mean, we're cruising along here at 90 and honestly I could be going to the mall. It's just not, it's uneventful and honestly, you know, around a hundred miles per hour. Yeah. That's kind of what you want. You don't want a lot of drama going in a straight line and this does a really good job. Now, I should note that this car has the exact same wheelbase, even though it's an all new platform because this is now based on Subaru's global platform for the first time. Uh, it is the exact same wheelbase as before, but the overall length is one and a half inches longer. And most of that went to the second row for legroom, which was very important because the Legacy always seemed to lag on legroom. Well, finally it doesn't lag. It's right up there with anything else you would buy in the class. Now, you will also note that I don't have to be yelling here. It is super quiet in here. I'm doing 70 miles per hour right now. I could whisper to Bradley, I will whisper to you, Bradley, and you can hear me. It's a little creepy, but you can hear me. It's great. Yeah. It's all because of the XD models have the, um, the sound glass. What's that called? The, um. Acoustic. Acoustic glass on the front and on the sides. And just, they've done a really good job of really pulling back that NVH. And when accelerating with this car, I'm not hearing all of the little weird mechanical noises that we heard in the, um, 2.5i version of the car. The naturally aspirated makes a lot more. You can really hear that CVT working. This one, it's smooth like butter. It's like, it's like driving butter. Now you will, you heard it shift there, didn't you? Because when you go wide open throttle, it does default to, um, to shifting, to fake shifting. You know, this kind of reminds me of my old legacy GT. That car had no second row leg room, but always had fun to drive. I owned a 2007. You know, the funny thing though, is that I bet this car stock would probably outperform that car. Unlikely. Yeah, which is just, that's insane. 12 years of progress. 12 years of progress, especially Subaru's progress. Oh, that's a little hot there. Come on. Oh man. And we are at a little bit of altitude here too. We're about 3,000 feet, um, which is going to affect it a little bit, but it's a turbo, so it compensates. Which, you know, if you had that H6, wouldn't compensate. In fact, let's talk about that H6 just briefly. The interesting thing about the H6 was that it didn't have the traditional torque profile, torque curve of a six cylinder engine. It was very, the power came on really late on that car, on that engine. And so in many ways, this car, I mean, in pretty much every way, this new 2.4 turbo is superior. They're talking to you. They are. Talk to me, tires. Talk to me. You know, the handling here is actually, uh, you know, it's relatively neutral. I'm not getting a ton of nose push. I mean, you're going to get a little just because it's a production car, but really the overall effect here is just superb. And of course the confidence you get with all wheel drive. The Subaru symmetrical all wheel drive system provides excellent grip, but like most of Subaru's mainstream cars, it doesn't have a rear limited slip differential. Instead, it gets automatic front wheel inside braking to help neutralize understeer in the corners. New for 2020, they've extended this technology to also brake the rear inside wheel for added balance when necessary. They call this system active torque vectoring, and it is surprisingly effective. I would just prefer that they not call it torque vectoring because it's not really sending additional torque there. It's just limiting torque. But that is a battle of the words that I am clearly losing. Torque split continues to be a maximum of 55% to the front and 45% to the rear, so it's not performance oriented like Acura's SH all wheel drive system, which can send a lot more power to the back. If you want performance, the WRX and WRX STi have rear bias all wheel drive setups available. Yeah, I do just wish that it was not a CVT. Honestly, this engine is just screaming for a manual transmission and they're not giving it to us yet. Yet. I mean, if you had, if you could tap all the horses here, you add just a little bit of extra boost and you add a manual transmission, this engine would be just, oh, it would be fantastic. Uh, here it is still really good because keep in mind, this is not a sports car. This is not even, I mean, they didn't call it a GT, it's an XT now. It's not trying to be, um, like a grand touring, you know, epic road bombing, Canyon clawing monster of a sedan. It's just supposed, you know, it's, it's trying to be a better accord, honestly. And I think it kind of is because, you know, all wheel drive and there's not enough else here that I would say I don't like that. I would say it would be any worse. So would I get this or in a court and I'm straight, I would get this. And this interior, I mean, for a Subaru is fantastic. This Napa leather, I mean, this is like, this is like luxury car stuff. You know, this is, I'd cross shop this with an Audi a four and a three series any day of the week. I mean, just knows how uneventful this is to drive quick. I mean, you get a little, a little noise from the honestly very mediocre tires. The suspension is a little on the soft side, but man, just do, do, do, do, do you have a favorite thing about this car? And then I'll ask you the contrary. Um, probably the, the color of this interior is my favorite thing. Yeah. I really love this terracotta kind of color caramel. Yeah. Then you reach out and touch it and it's like so soft. Yeah. And like the vented seats, the seats are really good. I will say that the, the, uh, bolstering is fantastic, um, for a standard sedan. Uh, I felt that way about the naturally aspirated car too. I believe it's the same structured seat with this one has nicer leather on it. Um, as for things I don't like, uh, probably the tires. Yeah. They're, they're fine for what most people use this car for, but when you really start to push them, they, uh, they, they fade away on you pretty quick. Yeah. But it's because they bring, you know, the, the tire selection is critical in achieving the EPA ratings that they're targeting. You have to go with a harder tire that's just not going to give you that, that same level of grip. Now they don't go to the absolute hardest tire because there has to be a compromise. There's like, you know, you have to have a little grip around the corners. Right. And I think this is an okay compromise tire. You know, Subaru has a history of compromised tires. I mean, anybody with a WRX knows the old RE92s. They were legendary in the forums of, I even saw like people posting RE92s caused me to crash because I went around the corner and the RE92s did not hold me onto the road. Just think about that marinade on that one for a moment. Um, but yeah, everything on here is fine. I don't particularly like the touchscreen. Yeah. I would prefer it to be a smaller one, especially when you're using Apple CarPlay. Yeah. It's funny how it just kind of windows it up in the top. Yeah. Just, it just blocks out half of the screen. So you're, it's useless anyway. Yeah. And they do that too. When you put this in reverse, you get the little box screen, you don't get, it doesn't use the whole area, which this being a touring. It should have a surround view camera standard. I'm sorry, at 36,000, it should have that and it should help use that whole display up as well. Yeah. Maybe if this screen was, was, um, landscape instead of portrait. Yeah. That would be pretty cool. Absolutely. Yeah. But then they have a whole like, how do you integrate it and all that. Also, I know that the guy who's in charge of this over at Subaru is enamored with Tesla's screen. Ah. And that's, I mean, that is a clearly an influence here. Of course. And you know, honestly, Tesla has a real, whether, you know, whether, regardless of what you think about the cars, you got to admit, there's a cool factor with Tesla and you know, it's, it's this halo that Elon Musk has waved a wand and like hypnotized half of the population into thinking they're like these brilliant, amazing cars. So clearly car makers are going to follow that lead. I mean, a Toyota put the tablet display on their Prius, you know, it's on a Prius. And again, it hardly uses the display adequately as well. It's just like, Oh look, we have a tablet display. Uh, no, none of our software actually runs full screen. Okay. The nav does, but you know, what else would you possibly want? For the entry price of $23,645, including destination, this new legacy is more than just a solid choice. It simply blows the Nissan Altima all wheel drive out of the water in terms of features and price. Even when comparing this to the top selling Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, the legacy more than holds its own. Same goes for the Kia Optima and the Hyundai Sonata. The only real disappointment with the Subaru is the lack of a manual option in this category. If you want a manual, your best choice is still the new Accord, but you can't get that new Accord with all wheel drive. So there's that. If you do go with a new Subaru legacy XT, consider laying aside some extra money for a second set of wheels wrapped in something like Michelin Pilot Sports to drive during the summer months. This car is supremely capable and the tires do let it down a little bit, but that is an easy fix. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan Douthit. Thanks for watching. How do you feel about this new legacy? Is it what you've been waiting for? Leave a comment below. Also, like and share this video. Thanks again for watching. Is there something I missed? Join me this Friday for a live discussion on the new Subaru Legacy right here on the Driving Sports TV YouTube channel. I've scheduled to have Chuck Ballard from Subaru of America join us in the discussion. We'll see you then.