DRIVEN + VIDEO: Consumer Reports Gives Its FIRST Impression Of The 2020 Subaru Legacy — Is It RIGHT or WRONG?

Downside: the rough, engine that desperately need to be replaced by a superior inline 4

Downside: the CVT. An 8/9/10 speed real automatic would be better. CVTs and DCTs are not improvements.

Downside: the model year 2000 styling

Advice: Buy a Camry

Buy a Subaru then and you will discover that they are right on the sub-standard piece of trash.

The only advantage is AWD. no other reason to get it over the Accord, Camry, or 6

And AWD is useful ONLY for the snowbelt and even then it's value is dubious.

AWD is much preferable to the most common alternative - FWD. The Subaru interior is not top end, but it's not trash. In fact the cloth interior is very nice. It has good power and drives well. And the CVT has no issues. Those issues were from much earlier gen models. At least their airbags aren't killing folks.

I test drove one (non Turbo) and liked it a lot. There is a good chance this will be my next car, although I will want the turbo.

I thought the touchscreen was attractive and easy to use. The interior looked great and was made of quality materials. Seats were comfortable, they have extendable thigh support, but agree they could use more lumbar support.

The interior looked much better than Accord or Camry (I've driven both). Adaptive cruise and lane centering worked extremely well, and the aggressiveness of the "catch up" speed of the adaptive cruise is configurable.

My complaints were the stop/start system that requires multiple touches to turn off, and it cannot be permanently disabled. Also the USB ports were extremely difficult to access.

Hopefully a Legacy Touring XT will lease well in a few months.

CVT's in general are unsatisfying to drive. Both Honda and Nissan carry them in their sedans and SUV's. They are their for increased fuel economy numbers. Unfortunately they simply don't hold up to smoothness of a properly designed 6 or 8 speed automatic. The Legacy is a decent car otherwise. People either love or hate the flat four engine. That will not change. However it has worked for Subaru over the years and sales are pretty steady. Having almost but a Crosstreck I would have to say interior quality is very much improved over previous Subaru products. But we ended up buying a Mazda CX5 Grand Touring. Why. First 187 HP and a 6 speed auto is always going to win out over 152 HP and a CVT. Second my wife is short and their is no height adjustment for the passenger seat even on the Crosstreck Limited. Finally no power lift gate. So I asked the salesman who do you these vehicles most too. He said middle aged women between 40 and 60 years old. I asked how they deal with short women being unable to reach up and close the rear hatch. He said they rig up a rope that they tie on the latch. For 32K that should not have to be a solution. Perhaps Subaru will change this in a mid cycle refresh.

CVTs are laboratory mileage, but in the real world they accomplish NOTHING. They do tend however to be much more fragile than a real automatic.