2024 Subaru Crosstrek First Test: Buy the Upgrade Engine

Great. Your CrossFit buddy just bought the outdoors-ready 2024 Subaru Crosstrek. Now you get to hear about both.

But here's the thing with CrossFit and Crosstreks. The more you hear about them, the more you see them. They begin to grow on you. Every rope you see points to CrossFit, and every parking lot you see leads to a Crosstrek. Subaru says it best: "Love is out there. Find it in a Crosstrek." It fits with my own adaptation: "Fitness is out there. Find it in CrossFit." And now I can't un-find them.

Fine. Tell me about your Crosstrek. And CrossFit.

For model year 2024, Subaru ushers in the third generation of its subcompact Crosstrek SUV. Visually, it's much more sculpted, toned, chiseled, and more aggressively athletic and aerodynamic than before—like the Crosstrek itself did some CrossFit over the winter. It even spawned a new Crosstrek Wilderness variant.

Subaru claims the chassis is 10 percent stiffer, the dual-pinion electric power steering rack (from the WRX) is more responsive, and the CVT is smoother and quieter. It's hard to discern these subtleties, but we can, however, easily discern the manual transmission is dead.

A big Subaru Starlink 11.6-inch portrait-oriented infotainment touchscreen replaces the 8.0-inch screen of the outgoing Crosstrek. Bigger (muscles, touchscreens) is always better, and this ginormous touchscreen even trickles down to the lower-grade Premium trim. With the enhanced multimedia system comes wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The base and Premium Crosstreks, made in Japan, get the 2.0-liter flat-four engine that makes 152 hp and 145 lb-ft of torque paired with a CVT. The Sport and Limited, now made in Lafayette, Indiana, get the 2.5-liter, good for 182 hp and 178 lb-ft of torque. With our tester, a Sapphire Blue Pearl 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Premium, we were stuck with the underpowered and pathetic underling of an engine.

Unsurprisingly, the CVT returns better fuel economy than the now-defunct manual—part of the reason the latter is dead. But we didn't get the satisfaction of good fuel economy to atone for the lackluster powerplant. We couldn't achieve the 2.0-liter's 27/34/29 (city/highway/combined) fuel economy, instead averaging about 24 mpg in mixed driving conditions. That's not good enough by today's standards, especially when there isn't even a power trade-off. Sadly, the Premium is like a toned CrossFit athlete with terrible heart health. It's unfortunate.

On the bright side, the Crosstrek Premium is smooth and comfortable—as expected for an Impreza hatchback-based crossover—as long as you're on time for your CrossFit class. Running a bit late and need some aggressive acceleration? Not gonna happen. Mashed to the floor, you still risk merging at under-freeway speeds. Because it's so anemic, one could be tempted to drive the base-engine Crosstrek like a rental—pedal to the floor or nothing.

The Premium has one "performance" anomaly—a faux manual shifting mode with steering wheel paddle shifters, allowing us to "shift" through eight preset transmission ratios. Aggressively "shifting" is fun because there's only a slim chance of actually getting yourself into trouble. And always using SI-Drive's Sport mode makes it slightly brisker off the line.

Our Crosstrek Premium's instrumented testing was similarly lackluster. It labors to 60 mph in 9.1 seconds and manages a 17.0-second quarter mile at 84.8 mph. To be fair, though, the atrocious quarter-mile time actually somehow beats an all-wheel-drive 2023 Honda HR-V EX-L by half a second and an all-wheel-drive 2022 Toyota Corolla Cross XLE by just a touch. But that doesn't make it OK. This is akin to CrossFit fanatics who run 15-minute miles.

To reiterate, there's nothing compelling about a battle of 17-second cars, especially when it doesn't have to be that way. There are better options within the lineup of Crosstrek engines. A last-generation Crosstrek Sport with the 2.5-liter flat-four ran a 16.0-second quarter mile at 87.7 mph—that's a whole second faster—and accelerated to 60 in 7.8 seconds (versus 9.1). There's also the plug-in hybrid Crosstrek that pairs the 2.0-liter with an electric motor. With a 16.5-second quarter mile at 83.5 mph, it's also a peppier choice than the 2.0-liter.

What's the bottom line? The numbers speak for themselves. We wouldn't buy the Premium—an otherwise value-packed lower-grade trim—because of the engine. We'd gladly shell out $2,850 to step up one trim level for the Sport with its 2.5-liter. If you're in the market for a PHEV, we'd suggest the CrossFit Hybrid, too.

The Subaru Crosstrek is rated as MotorTrend's No. 1 subcompact SUV. That which is petite can still do mighty and big (Crosstrek and CrossFit) things, despite size.

We found ourselves worried our two kiddo car seats might not even physically fit through the door opening. But they did, and we rocked family life in a Crosstrek more successfully than we thought possible. One kid wasn't able to kick our seats, and the bigger one had plenty of legroom. And this wasn't at the expense of jamming the front seats all the way up to the dashboard, either. We're not certain where the space came from, but the slender rear seats might have freed up some real estate.

The big touchscreen in our Crosstrek Premium makes us feel like we're getting a lot for our second-from-bottom trim. With such a big screen, though, physical controls are sparse, and those that remain are a tad questionable: Do front and rear defrost really need stand-alone physical buttons? As a result, many functions are only accessible through the touchscreen, sometimes a few menus deep and sometimes not intuitively. With a little patience for the learning curve and some settings adjustment according to preference, the system is livable and feels modern.

Despite the sparsity of controls, there are two chunky, totally 1990s toggle switches in the center console for the front seat heaters. Besides the risk of drink slosh gumming up the switches, their location is dangerously close to the passenger's left hand. Opportunity mixed with immaturity—the same force that makes us delight in the steering-responsive LED headlights, now standard across the lineup—tempts passengers to constantly mess with the driver's seat heater. Lastly, these manual switches retain whatever setting they're on (high/off/low), so if you don't want a heated seat the next time you sit down, you better remember to manually turn it off.

The Premium Crosstrek has USB-A and USB-C inputs in the front center console—along with a 3.5mm auxiliary input jack. Why is there a jack port? Subaru must have determined it to be pertinent, but we can't help but chuckle. On a final note, the armrests have a cushy, mushy spot where the supportive structure underneath seemed to disappear. Our elbows appreciated that detail.

The new Crosstrek gets the latest version of EyeSight driver assist technologies, a useful extra set of "eyes" complete with robust driver aids. The biggest issue is trusting it, which can be very hard for some seasoned drivers. The steering hunts to center itself in the lane, making you feel like you need to apologize to others on the road for driving like a drunken sailor. It also turns off when it can't discern a lane; turning it back on can be distracting. Many of the other safety features, like Automatic Emergency Steering, thankfully went untested.

Like CrossFit, a Subaru Crosstrek may or may not be good for you. Do you buy into it? Do you feel the love? Does your golden retriever love it? Are you committed? Then absolutely; it's perfect (that is, the Sport or Limited with the bigger engine, not the smaller-engined Base or Premium that we tested). Throw a rooftop tent on those roof rails—yes, even the Premium gets standard roof rails—and enjoy some off-road sunshine on your CrossFit rest days.