Subaru’s ever-popular SUV has just received a mid-life facelift with new technology, new wheel options, and a new exterior look in a bid to keep it fresh in the insanely popular (and crowded) medium SUV segment. The 2022 Subaru Forester will go on sale from October 2021, though Australian pricing and specs are yet to be revealed.
New for the 2022 Subaru Forester are revised styling, updated safety tech, and although mechanical upgrades are not huge, there has been revised transmission tuning. The styling tweaks – while quite minor – have made the Forester stay fresh against its rivals. The front now features a larger grille, a new LED headlight design, and a new front bumper design. The rear remains largely unchanged although there is a new 18-inch wheel design which will come with the upper models, while 17-inch wheels will come on the lower-spec cars.
There are three new colours for the facelifted 2022 Subaru Forester: ‘Autumn Green Metallic’, ‘Cascade Green Silica’ and ‘Brilliant Bronze Metallic’. These new colours are yet to be confirmed for Australian sales, though Subaru’s Australian colour palette is (thankfully) wider than most other car companies, so hopefully they are offered locally.
The interior of the new Forester continues to feature an 8.0-inch touch screen with features such as wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard – other features to be offered in Australia will include inbuilt TomTom satellite navigation and potentially digital radio, There is also a 6.3-inch colour driver’s display, which is largely unchanged from the model it replaces.
Japanese-spec versions of the 2022 Subaru Forester have gotten rid of the CD player, which is a change we expect to follow to Australian models. There’s also a new tan interior colour that we’re hoping is offered locally – the overseas Outback offers it, too.
Subaru have refined the automatic emergency braking (AEB) system for the new Forester by giving it a wider field of view – it now operates in intersections, for example. The company has also made adjustments to the adaptive cruise control to make it more refined, and a long list of safety kit from the pre-update model includes blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, rear auto braking, lane keep assist and auto high beam.
The suspension tune of the 2022 Subaru Forester has also been revised, according to the company, to give better comfort but also increasing the car’s dynamic ability.
Engines available for the 2022 Subaru Forester will include either an 136kW/239Nm 2.5-litre four-cylinder boxer engine and an ‘E-Boxer’ hybrid system, which combines a 110kW/196Nm 2.0-litre four cylinder boxer engine with a 12.3kW electric motor. In Japan, there is also a 130kW/300Nm 1.8-litre turbocharged four-cylinder boxer engine, although it is unlikely that this engine will make it to Australia just yet.
The Australian launch for the 2022 Subaru Forester is due to happen in the third quarter of 2021. Stay tuned to DiscoverAuto for the latest automotive news and reviews.
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