Video: 2024 Subaru Ascent: Time for an Update

With standard all wheel drive and the lowest as-tested price in our test, the Subaru Ascent really does have some appealing qualities, but its smaller overall footprint, really did put it at a disadvantage in a number of our scoring categories. This thing is, is just too small. It's too small inside, in the first row, the second row and the third row, especially the third row. The first row is okay for, in terms of comfort, but the second row, the leg room is really tight. The foot room is really tight and that third row is really only suitable for kids. Yeah. You know, I only sat in the third row to test it to see how it was, and it was from my frame, it was borderline unusable. Interestingly enough, it was the front row that gave me the most problems. Obviously, I spent the most time there, but I had real problems with shoulder room, you know, a little bit of leg room. I felt like I was sitting more on the seat than in it, and it was kind of a firm seat as well. You know, and when I did have my stuff in the front, like water bottle, and keys and phone, I didn't really have much place to put it. It just kind of seemed they were, stuffed in little nooks and crannies. I will say though, the visibility is pretty good. I mean, you're sitting up fairly high, the belt line is rather low. You can see all around you rather easily, but at the end of the day, it's just too small. I agree. You know, and it is, to the point with visibility, Subaru's usually really good with that, with visibility. It does feel though, in operation, observably like a class size down, it just is too small. Subaru makes a lot of noise about its safety systems. It has some of the best in the world, supposedly. But things like the EyeSight system that you have in the Ascent here, I find myself, I turn it off whenever I get in because it's always beeping at you. It's beeping at you for the lane departure warning, or if it thinks you're not paying attention, or if you got a car in front of you in cruise control and it moves outta the way, it moves back into the way, it's always beeping at you. And I find, I turn it off, which is not something you wanna do for a safety system, but you kinda have to in order to maintain your sanity. Yeah, no. So both in the Ascent, immediately, the first thing I did, and in my own personal Crosstrek that I have, I turn off the lane keep assist immediately and it punishes you in the way that it puts a small yellow light on the dash to let you know that you've turned it off. And there's no way around that. I totally agree with your sentiment. It's kind of finicky, camera gets blocked, it yells at you, it freaks out. One thing that I wasn't the biggest fan of was the attention monitor that's mounted on the dash. Like the idea, don't really like the execution. You can, I must say you can toggle it off and I did just like the other systems, but I noticed when I would be taking, sometimes a right or left, and I would be looking in the direction that I was turning, it would yell at me sometimes for not keeping my eyes on the road, yet my eyes were on the road. So yeah, not great. Yeah, lots of nanny systems in this thing and to have to turn them off every time, it's not what you wanna do. It's not really what you should have to. And especially since those systems are embedded in the screen. You'd think that by giving up interior space and comfort that these 2024 Subaru Ascent would make up for it in other areas like fuel efficiency and driving engagement, but you'd be wrong. This Subie's 22.9 average mile per gallon on our real world fuel economy run was the lowest of the bunch. If Subaru wants to seriously compete in the three row segment, that is very hotly contested, it's time for a rethink of the Ascent.