fourD2

Your point is well taken. I rarely use ASS as I live in a small town where ASS is largely unnecessary. However, last weekend I was in Chicago at the Axpona Audio show and did a fair amount of driving through the suburbs to and from the Renaissance Convention center. At some of the stoplights, the waiting was time extensive as left turn traffic played out at every corner. I can see how idling time at stoplights in the bigger cities can be significant. Your comments on retirement and environmental concerns are likewise appreciated. Let's leave something for our grandchildren to enjoy.

I think I know what you mean. The hesitation you describe is caused by fake or simulated shift zones in the CVT meant to create a geared transmission experience. It is most noticeable under conditions of light acceleration. If you drive the car hard and the turbo spools up it is not noticeable but under light acceleration the transmission does not quite know what to do. I would much prefer a linear CVT experience but apparently the engineers at Subaru decided to go with the simulated gear concept.

What is a BIU? I googled it and Body Integrated Unit came up. What is that?

In all likelihood, there is probably a way to disable the ASS in a manner similar to disabling the seat belt chimes (for newbies – you put the car in accessory mode and buckle and unbuckle the seatbelt 20 times within a 30 second period and they are gone for good), we just do not know the process. My thought is someone will come up with a solution without having to shell out a hundred bucks for $5 worth of bypass wiring. I am hopeful.

What is really at issue here is the failure of Subaru to offer a soft wear update that allows one to change the default from "always on" at start-up to “last setting”. There is no need to buy a non-EOM wiring harness to defeat the ASS. It can be done with a simple soft wear update. The issue with car companies is the ASS gives them a 3% - 5% bump in fleet emissions reduction which, in the competitive automotive world is significant. So, they stick us with a feature very few of us want, to keep their fleet emissions competitive. My previous car, a BMW, defaulted the ASS to last setting automatically and I never had to bother with it. Prior to that I had an Audi which like the Subaru, was always on at start-up, until I had someone with a Carly OBD device reprogram the ECU. All of the German cars, or at least most of them, allow for after market OBD devices to reprogram the car’s electronics. But you have to be very careful because once you tap into the car’s ECU anything can happen if you are not technically proficient. I am not aware that there is a similar device for the Japanese cars.

What is disappointing is that every car I have owned with an ASS has always set the ASS to default to the last setting. So if you shut it off, it stays off until you activate it again. I am guessing Subaru will do this at some point in the future since very few people opt to use the ASS, myself included. I do not mind turning the ASS off manually as I find the cost of the wire harness, at $99 excessive, given that the manufacturing cost is probably around $5, if that.

Could you be more specific as to how you did this. Like others, I never use the auto-stop and would like to disable it.

I would not call the Legacy XT fuel efficiency "godawful". To my knowledge it has the best MPG of any midsize (non-hybrid) AWD sedan. An added bonus is, despite being turbo-charged, it takes regular gas. Most 4 cyl turbo engines require premium.

Two questions, why premium if the owner manual calls for 87 octane. Not disagreeing with you, just wondering why the manufacturer would recommend an inferior grade of gasoline if indeed there were deleterious effects down the road. The other question I have is why filling stations that are purportedly top tier do not have the top tier logo on the gas pump any more. In my area of the mid-west Quick Trip, BP, Mobile and Cenex all used to tout their top tier status with a sticker certifying such. None of the stations carry the top tier logo any more. I did inquire about this by sending an email to Top Tier and received a generic response with a list of stations certified as top tier. No explanation was given for dropping the logo. One of the managers at Quick Trip told me they no longer pay the fees associated with top tier certification, which purportedly are substantial. He did not know whether the additives that qualify the gas as top tier were still being added to the gasoline product.

What is the issue with the OEM battery? Prior to purchasing the '23 Legacy XT I had a BMW sedan. The battery in that car would go dead if the car was not driven for 2 weeks. From their forums it was disclosed that most modern cars will lose charge over a relatively short time period if you do not drive them regularly. In the case of my BMW, in the winter, (I am in Wisconsin), if you did short hauls and ran the seat heater and steering wheel heater, the battery could not keep up. So I had to keep a trickle charger on the battery in winter or in summer if I did not drive the car regularly. A short haul was defined as less than 25 miles. The battery in that car was a high power AGM so the issue was not so much the size or quality of the battery, it was an an inadequate recharging system and excessive drain from running the heating accessories in winter. I am wondering if we are discussing the same phenomenon with the Legacy and should a trickle charger be used in winter.

Thank you. There is a ground wire in the harness. Is there any reason the ground wire that comes off the negative pole of the secondary 12 V battery and the harness ground wire cannot be affixed to the same chassis bolt. Just trying to keep the wiring tidy.

I had UHaul put a trailer hitch on my car a short while back. The technician who put the hitch on did not hook up the wiring harness because he was not trained up enough to do that. I had not planned to pull a trailer anyway, it was for a hitch mounted bicycle rack so I let it go at that. I now would like to hook up the wiring harness as there are occasions when I need to pull a small utility trailer. The Subaru dealer where I purchased the car indicated they would not do the electrical hook up (or the hitch for that matter as I had originally gone to them for that job). There is a Trailer sales company nearby that indicated they would do it but the quote for the work was around $325 which I thought was a bit high, more than what I paid for the trailer hitch installation. I think I can do the Plug-and-Play electrical part myself except for running the wire up front to the 12 Volt battery. That looks tricky and requires a hoist. My question is: If I just plug the 12V wire into a portable 12V battery placed in the trunk when I want to pull a trailer, can I disconnect the wire when not in use? In other words, will the car’s tail lights work normally if the 12V wire that runs the trailer lights is disconnected?

With the hidden hitch and the receiver in place, would you not be faced with the same dilemma, which is to say the receiver is going to occupy the same position as the Draw-Tite. Thus I do not see the clearance issue going away .

Sure, and your point is well taken as I considered all of the options before committing to having U-Haul do the work. The standard hitch that U-Haul uses for the XT with installation was $190. The EcoHitch is $360 plus installation so there is a price differential. I would have gone with the Ecohitch but there is no one in the area where I live (rural wisconsin) who could install it (for whatever reason). The EcoHitch without the receiver in place is hidden under the bumper. With the receiver in place it will look just like the photo. The advantage of the EcoHitch aside from cosmetics, is with the receiver removed it does not sit so low to the bumper and thus will not bottom out under circumstances where there is a big dip in the road. If I am not mistaken your Sport version has a different suspension and has more clearance so that may not be an issue. My advice is to go with the EcoHitch if you can find an installer.

I recently had U-Haul put a hitch on my 2023 XT. When I picked it up they indicated they did not have time to do the electrical connection and offered to finish that part another time. As I am 50 miles from the U-Haul facility I thought I might either do it myself or have it done locally. I am aware Subaru does not recommend towing with the XT and my intention is to primarily use the hitch to haul my bicycles. I would still like to hook up the wiring just in case. My understanding is there should be a connector somewhere in the trunk for attachment to a plug-and-play wire harness kit. I have been unable to find that lead. In the photo below is a small lead coming off the tail light wires but that appears to be too small ie only 3 pins so I assume it might be for something else. Does anyone know where that connector might be. I guess it is possible there is no such connector in this model as it is not designed for towing a trailer.