Video: 2015 Subaru Impreza Review

But for years, car makers have been in the stone age when it comes to the responsiveness of their multimedia systems versus smartphones Subaru took a big step forward for the 2015 Impreza. (car door opening) Even if you don't get navigation, the overhauled multimedia system is the biggest leap forward for the 2015 Impreza. ( car door closing) Which also gets a number of other changes as well. Some visual styling changes up front here, some tweaks to the front grill. Obviously big changes here, you can see below along the bumper. Our limited grade test car here has, especially around the outboard areas where the fog lights go a little bit more Chrome ornamentation there. Now, inside the new center controls obviously take the spotlight and even lower trim levels do get a slightly smaller screen with a lot of the same functionality though, not navigation system. Like our test car has still a fairly conservative design on the interior, which marks the fact that, you know, materials are otherwise pretty good inside this car with soft touch stuff and all the important places where your arms and your elbows land, and really good visibility all around. Thanks to things like very narrow A pillars, B pillars, and a very tall windows. Now one of our recurring complaints for the Impreza has been just how noisy it is. Subaru says it added more insulation for 2015, but still a fairly noisy car, especially at highway speeds, enough power overall, nothing to really push it too far back in your seat, but the continuously variable automatic transmission, something that, you know, we're kind of a little bit lukewarm on in general, pretty good in this car. Actually, you really get hard on the gas and it sort of holds gears almost like conventional stepped automatic transmission makes it kind of seem like it's up shifting reduces some of that kind of rubber band droning that we get really tired of with CVTs. Ride quality in the Impreza, pretty good overall and handling thanks to standard all wheel drive really pretty easy to rotate this car around on all fours. You can actually get the tail to swing out a little bit. If you want to do some drifting, not something you can often do in a compact kind of economy car gas, mileage pretty competitive overall. It even matches some compact sedans out there with automatics that don't have all wheel drive. So just how affordable is all wheel drive? Well, pretty darn affordable in the case of the Impreza a sedan with an automatic transmission backup camera and Bluetooth starts right around $20,000. That's competitive with a lot of other compact cars that don't have all wheel drive add to that strong reliability and crash test ratings, And the 2015 Subaru Impreza is a pretty impressive choice. We just wish it were a little bit quieter. (car trunk slamming)