77,948 new cars were registered in slovakia in 2015. 18,203 units accounted for suv category. suvs achieved 28% annual growth in sales in slovakia. that’s why our cities and editorial test are full of suvs. it sometimes happens that this type of car manages to escape the busy streets and hits the bad roads behind the city. then, it heads straight into the terrain, such as in our test of three newly introduced vehicles. to stop mocking, there are motorists who buy suvs just for rural life.
and sometimes they really need to go off road with their family car so we decided to comparatively test abilities of various types of all-wheel drive. if nothing else, at least we hope to trigger a debate about whether a hybrid system 4x4 can cope with most frequently used modern concept of inter-axle clutch. toyota raw4 comes with a hybrid drivetrain that replaces previous combination diesel-4x4. kia has the latest version of their drivetrain with a diesel engine and a manual transmission. most sought after subaru in slovakia is the forester. in contrast with the history of subaru there is a new concept of their powertrain and we want to find out whether even the forester of the new kind can stand out from the crowd.
we took all of them: beautified hybrid raw4 with a new front mask, slovak porsche-kiu and the blocky forester to our favourite motocross range in brezno-lucky. we are allowed here. understandably, bad tarmac and dirt roads are not enough. therefore, where others park, our test only begins. on this track, usually, dirt bikes are driven, jumped and fallen off. but here comes the committed trio: the hybrid, the slovak and the symmetrical one. perhaps, they defeat the mud in the driveway, at least.
and one more thing: same way the 4x4 has changed, alongside with the people driving it, also our testing system has. well, hopefully it will be fairer. to today's test i invited two assistants, because you're right: i’m sometimes able to force these cars to do what i want and thus it is a bit bent – a common driver would probably drive them differently. that’s why we have here sample of quite a common driver, who does not know too much, but on the other hand, we have here a professional off-road driver tomas. hi tomas!hi!
tomas holy has done many miles off road even in reverse and straight on he advised me that what i planned for these suvs here would probably be too much to handle. he chose this, what will we be able to see? well, cars will drive through the mud thus will be forced to lose the traction a little, yet there’s no risk of any damage or a situation where they would get stuck in an extreme terrain dedicated for off roads. so, a woman should be able to handle it?katka definitely should, i believe. well, the point is, cars should be able to make it. and so, we are about to have quite an ideal situation guys will organize, manage it all and a woman will do the job.
just like back home. well katka, come this way towards us and this is your finish, so come little forward and then go over that edge but at an angle. i will add that katka has forester’s cvt automatic continuously variable transmission, in my opinion it’s suitable to such light terrain, let’s watch what happens to the wheels. katka, a little more to the right, good, a little more, good and wait now, stop. tomas, the front is down, should we do this faster or try to “walk†through?
first, we’ll try to walk through it, we’ll see what the car and its basic awd can do. ok katka, so try to slowly pass over here on this drier part where there is less mud, slowly, stay right from your perspective and we will observe what the wheels will be doing. it goes pretty deep down there. well, now to the left, towards us a little… good, to the right now, but easy, very easy to the right, good, not more, continue like this. but she didn’t even turn on the off-road x mode yet.
it seems, that if we want it to lose traction more, she needs to approach it more sideways. kia, actually, has the inter-axle clutch. a bit to the right katka, yeap, enough. now straight, straight, straighten it, like that. oh, the car is already scratching its belly here a bit. i notice that most of the time one of the wheels gets the traction somehow. ok kati, stay still, stay still and try to engage the inter-axle clutch lock. so, we are switching the lock on.
she has to go back a bit, i guess. it means, breaking of the rear wheel is not so extensive, right? this helped a great deal! hybrid raw4 follows, which means, what toyota has done now, it discontinued petrol classic adw version, which wasn’t a bad one by the way, but rear axle is now powered by an electric motor which recuperates on the road and off road it should help especially. so, this is a front wheel drive with an electric motor powering the back, making it a all wheel drive – what are your expectations? we’ll see what it’ll do, i’m especially curious about the electric motor and its impact
and how is the power sent to both rear wheels. cause the diff is there anyhow… ok katka, you can make your favourite route. hm, favourite route my ass, my favourite route would be on a flat ground. electric motor got her going, so now the rear axle will, in my opinion, when it will push… yeah, it started the engine right away. a bit to the right, from your perspective. she hit the bottom lightly, because she went straight.
yes, but it was able to crawl through, exactly. good, go ahead. listen, this was a pretty smooth power delivery, right? yeap. now we had only the front left wheel spinning and probably a rear right, i can’t see from here. indeed, i can see the water rippling there. but, honestly, we need to say that the channel got already deepened a bit. and she went further this time, as well.indeed, indeed. but she made it without any other help so… i actually don’t know if it applies break on the unloaded wheel?
it definitely should. it should put break on the unloaded wheel and therefore send the power on to the other wheel. now it’s exactly spinning wheels diagonally. katka, do you have any options to turn on in the raw4, help of any sort? yes, i have “high†and “low†here, but it’s only seat heating control. hahaha, but it started to sound good. i almost believed we have a car with low range gear here. ok, try to stop.
what did we lose? a piece of bumper? a piece of plastic.it’s ours? yeap. so, the approach angle is a bit less forgiving with this raw4. ok, c’mon, straighten it, and then you will go more sideways, this way, towards me. ok try it, come, c’mon now, don’t give up, good! by the way, now the drivetrain worked well, in my opinion. it did well, indeed, but now also she did everything right as well. i see.she didn’t do it like a woman altogether.
yes, so she drove it like a man this time, right? right. but, how do you rate the drivetrains now? from this first exercise, off course, the forester seemed to handle it better than others, perhaps because it was first to try, perhaps also because it has the highest clearance? it definitely has the highest ground clearance, yes. concerning the hybrid, there was a delayed reaction of the two different drives, where kia powers both axles by one engine and only a clutch is coupling the power, raw4 has to engage the electric motor to power the rear axle or vice versa to start up engine in the front so the front wheels could join and probably from this stems the delayed reaction of the all wheel drive.
now follows an intermezzo for those users, who buy suvs rather for a higher seating than for delight of driving in the mud. you will get into toyota without soiled pants and even if you are 6’6†(200 cm). its interior is love on second sight. it excels in sound-proof and originality. thus, do not be discouraged. it is a really good place travel in. it's probably the quietest hybrid from toyota. kia sportage’s thresholds are not protected from dirt and mud, on the other side it has no sin in the interior. excels in materials, first-class processing and user friendly navigation control. we really bow our heads before gt line’s cockpit.
forward field of view is very pleasing and for going in reverse, its parking camera comes in handy. subaru will keep its thresholds clean even after returning from a hunt. the driver has a great view to the sides and probably the best seating position behind the wheel. the seats are shallow and soft. kia is in the interior the most charming of the three, raw4 the most spacious one in the front and subaru excels in seating position. although all three interiors are fairly assembled, kia has the smallest share of creaky noises. you can hear those especially when you twist axles. you stress the body and especially the all wheel drive.
this was a passage to a cabin, but there’s a problem now. neighbour’s parked car. exactly, a neighbour’s car. but since we have a suv, we can pass it through the ditch, partially, and get back on the road – and that could handle even a woman, in my opinion. i think so, but primarily let’s see if the car can handle it. well, katka come. so, you’ll go next to the tires in order to keep an approach angle. and we're going to start with raw4 which could have a problem with its concept. cause all the cars will climb up a snowy road. now what?
try again slowly and when you get to that breaking point, try to keep your foot down all the way to the floor. that is a nice piece of advice, to keep my foot down, but then i will slide a hole over there. we have to get through, no matter what. now the axle twister will happen and also the other wheel pulled. now she made it simpler, driver-wise, didn’t she? she didn’t drive as we showed her and how the ditch is set up. now try to keep the wheels as they were, try to drive up more vividly, but don’t steer, ok?
are we going to try this angle with a second car?let’s try the second car, yes. slowly, so we don’t hit the front, ok, come. good, tomas says that when you get to that point when you slide, you should hit the gas, floor it. don’t steer. she went too fast now, i think. she approached it quickly, so she vaulted over the ridge. ok, katka, come, reverse back and we’ll try to torment it slowly even more. now speed up, hold it, floor it, ok, clutch and stop, don’t go back down and i’m curious, if you now use lock, whether it helps. turn it on.
but it tries harder now. it’s obvious the car struggles more now, not struggles but tries harder now, but, you know, the lock does lock front and rear axle but diagonally it can do nothing. left and right side – wheels can spin all they want unless the traction control system helps them applying brakes. keep coming straight, we have forester here, slowly, so we make it struggle, slowly, slowly. step on it, step on it. forester made it exquisitely.wait, we wanted to engage the x-mode yet. but note, here you could clearly see, how brake was applied on the lifted wheel sufficiently so the power could be transferred to the other, right front wheel.
so much was done by this and it’s obvious that the car, or better the car maker has experiences with all wheel drive and here you could clearly see it. in fact, we didn’t get a chance to engage the x-mode yet, so forester made it to the finals. and we’re going to make it harder for it. subaru has symmetrical about everything except division of its back seats. they can be folded from the trunk and the room in forester is remarkable, in the back there’s a lot of legroom but a lower ceiling. but european carmakers can learn from japans how to use the width of the trunk because that is a parameter, where also raw4 dominates. toyota’s batteries did not eat up its trunk space, there was left enough of it to even accommodate a spare wheel. hybrid drive does not limit the practical use of the car at all. we even found many practical details.
kia sportage led stand out the width its boot and luckily it carries around a spare wheel. there’s less overhead space in kia than in toyota but the back seats fold flat with the bottom of the trunk. also getting in is quite nice. look, if her wheel goes this way, the bumper shouldn’t hit this. she can’t climb on this edge. if she’ll drive past this stick, she’ll be fine. katka, listen… i climbed it nicely, guys, didn’t i?i’m handy. listen, in this part you’ll try to avoid hitting the centre, this way. here? yeap, like this, like this, like this, but over here you can’t stop anymore
and you’ll go straight up here, pass this stick, i’ll be here with the stick and… really? now you are not joking, are you? no! look, you’ll go this way and here it’s important that the wheel goes over here. here, your wheels will be here, look! rasto, surveyor… turn on your cameras down there.ok, i will. listen, will she make it over this centre? but, if she’ll approach it from over there, she should be fine. yes, she’ll have to have the wheel on the edge of the ridge.
ok, katka, reverse a bit and first you have to go a bit to your left, ok? hmm, ok, i’ll go left. well, i’m curious if she’ll make it. you know what, i did this with q7 and it was cool. we’ll see, i’m curious myself how the car will… good, enough, there’s a mud, don’t reverse any more. that’s too much! not that way! and she did it just like a woman now. you chickened out, didn’t you?
i made it to the top! but it doesn’t count. how come? you said i should have gone up and left. allrighty, so it’s the off-roader’s turn. slowly, very calmly, it will work. carefully, a bit to the left, good, good, now come over here now, all the way to the side, to this side, good, good, come, come, you’re doing well, good. turn on the x-mode now, you’re orientated brilliantly now.
i’ll stand here, follow me with you headlight. ok, try it, floor it. good, come, come, come, come. good! i taught him well. listen, it didn’t even slip the back wheels. well, ok, you are a off-road driver, how do you…? to be honest, i didn’t expect it to make it this easy. and consider, the wheels were not even doing “chshhchschâ€. it went, i don’t even think we hit the bottom, maybe in one moment we might rub it lightly, so also its ground clearance is pretty high.
but there was finally some thrill in the test, you know? it did it safely, my idea wasn’t that i have to climb it no matter what, even if i break something on the car, it was smooth and slick. although we wanted to eliminate driver's impact on test results, katka showed us that it still depends on the way in which obstacles are overcome than on the car itself. true, raw4 with hybrid awd will sweat off road most of the three, and it’s too sheathed with plastic for such use. however, it is best prepared for the present times. it’s because its awd is the only one which is a benefit and not a burden in the city unlike the competitors, it lowers its power consumption there and you can drive around a city using six liters of gasoline per 100 km (47mpg).
kia has a good inter-axle clutch and would only need to be able to apply brakes on its wheels more significantly when off-road. the gt line series is the most “driver’s car†so to say, its suspension is most quiet and on a curvy road it would probably have even the forester eat its dust. maybe this is difficult to listen for some, but it's true. forester got more civilized. it adapted to current time. extra-urban, with its two liter engine it can be driven with 6,4l of gasoline per 100km (44mpg). in city it can fit within 9l/100km (31mpg) it undoubtedly remains the king of the terrain and the automatic transmission goes really well with its nature. so, a nice day with three suvs is behind us,
katka, in which one were you able to complete the tasks we’ve given you with tomas best? i have to admit, that subaru was best, it handled the most and it went through the obstacles easiest. i felt best driving raw4, cause its automatic allows to dose the gas well and it goes very smoothly and pleasantly. kia has a manual and that didn’t suit me that well when going through those challenges, so i would rather opt for automatic. therefore, an automatic for the women.well, not only for the women, but it’s good. guys like to change gears and like to drive those mechanical off-roads. for you it was a bit different world, how do you rate presented models? well, the tasks that we prepared were adequate for suvs, meaning there weren’t any special off-road elements,
but as katka said, the subaru handled it best, while kia and toyota were comparable – the difference there was really between the automatic and the manual transmission. especially with the manual you need to figure out which gear to select and how to work with clutch. ok, but should a common customer be figuring out the concept of the awd whether there is a electric motor in the back, or this or that kind of inter-axle clutch? again, we’ve seen that every car was able to get through the challenges, that often were critical for the suvs and all cars were able to handle them. i was even surprised by the hybrid- as i mentioned – the power delivery on the rear axle from the electric motor or starting up the engine to power its front wheel drive
was perhaps delayed, but it was able to handle everything. therefore, if you are planning to buy a suv for your wife, there’s a plenty to chose from, but if you want one for yourself, one able to handle more harsh terrain, you need to stay faithful perhaps to the classic – the subaru.
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