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2008 Subaru Tribeca
The 2008 Subaru Tribeca is enjoyable to drive and incorporates a few good tech features. However, it has some real flaws, as well, that could affect your long-term satisfaction with the car.
The latest version of Subaru's Tribeca SUV loses the 'B9' designation, gets drastic exterior restyling, and ups the engine power.
The most radical change is the grille, which has been made to look much more conventional. Very few people were fans of the old design.
The new design emphasizes simplicity, with no unnecessary cues in front, and neatly framed components, including the grille and the headlights.
Subaru increased the displacement of the six cylinder boxer style engine from its previous 3 liters up to 3.6 liters, giving it substantially more power.
With its prominent wheel arches, curved roofline, and small spoiler over the rear window, the Tribeca looks like many other SUVs on the road.
Its small rear side windows and thick D pillar limit rear visibility. A rear view camera mitigates this problem.
On our test car, we noticed that it was ready for a trailer hitch. The new engine should give the Tribeca adequate towing power.
The Tribeca is available with 3rd row seating. In this picture, you can see that there is still cargo space even with the seats up.
Subaru has a very clean dashboard design that we also saw in the new WRX.
Although we found the control interface very usable in the Tribeca, the touchscreen is a long reach for the driver.
The five speed automatic has a Sport mode and a manual selection mode.
We like how the Tribeca's navigation system makes it easy to set up complex routes.
The route guidance uses nice, big graphics, making it easy to anticipate upcoming turns. But canceling route guidance involves navigation through a couple of menus.
We were surprised that the stereo wouldn't show ID3 tags for MP3s, such as album, genre, or artist. It only shows folder and file names.
The audio quality in the Tribeca wasn't impressive, despite the nine speakers.
The auxiliary audio input is conveniently placed, letting you store an MP3 player in the center console.
The rear seat DVD system has good screen resolution.
We like the different options for trip computer information on the screen, but the mileage it reported wasn't good.
The rear view camera is a nice, and necessary, feature on the Tribeca.
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