When Subaru Won’t Loan You An Outback, What Do You Do? We Just Bought One [Video]

Subaru is one of the most popular brands here in Colorado, but we haven’t gotten to review them for the past several years.

If you’ve just started following our adventures and reviews here at TFLcar, you may have noticed there’s one manufacturer largely missing from the lineup. Ironically, it’s one of the most popular car brands in our neck of the woods: Subaru. The Japanese automaker carries a huge following around here, and that’s no accident. They market their cars – specifically the Outback – directly at the sort of active, outdoor-minded folks that love to head to the mountains on the weekends. And yet, they won’t lend TFL any cars to review.

So, what can be done? We could borrow a Subaru – as we did a couple months ago – but there’s a problem. Since we did borrow it, we didn’t want to take the Outback on a run up Cliffhanger. We thought perhaps we could give the Outback a shot at redemption, but it was too risky. However, we did the next best thing. We bought our very own 2018 Subaru Outback. A moment, then, to welcome the newest member of TFL’s long-term fleet.

With the help of AAA’s car buying service, we were able to get this 2018 Subaru Outback 2.5i Premium for $4,000 less than its $29,647 sticker price. For that money, you get a 2.5-liter horizontally-opposed four-cylinder engine with 175 horsepower and 174 lb-ft of torque. There’s also the option of the more expensive 3.6R model, which sports a six-cylinder engine with 247 horsepower, as we pitched against the Volkswagen Golf Alltrack. Over the course of the next several months, we plan to run the Outback through our usual gauntlet of tests. Check back to TFLcar.com to see how Subaru holds up!

Check out the video below to see the Outback’s last attempt up Cliffhanger, one of our hardest off-road challenges: