End of the adventure...

With a tint of sadness, I bid goodbye to the loaned car today. It has been a hectic week and with some good adventure. Well, I'll say that for those who are in the market looking for a reasonably priced large Japanese sedan, they should seriously check the Legacy out.

It is not a car that can be found easily in a international car rental fleet so one may not be familiar with it. It's a pity because it's good for touring with a large trunk for your luggage, and none of your passengers can complain about being bundled up in a squashy rear seat.

But do take the Legacy for test drive if you are out shopping for your own car here. Maybe you can use it for your own cross-country motoring trip!

Last date with Legacy

As i'm writing this post, i'm nearing the end of my date with the Legacy.

Legacy had went dating with my family, my cousins, my friends, my colleagues and lastly my suppliers.

She nevers fails to get attentions whenever we are in the carpark!
Others will look and look and look at us...
Either the Legacy is attractive or i'm damn ugly..

in 30mins time i will leave company and head to Toa payoh to return the car.

So Sad... ;-(

I love the Legacy! Maybe later on will try begging them to extend the dateline to... maybe another 1 week?

Haiz.. so fast time flies.. 1 week.. and its all over.. Back to reallity.. No more sweet dreams..
No more waking up and diving into a spacious, powerful monster to work...
No more adrenalin pumping drives...


Tmr back to my Impreza. At least its still a Subaru...

:-)

Day 7 of 7 - The Last Night

Time flies when you are best enjoying something that has a time-span. It's the last night with Legacy. Pity its a week-day and I am too tired after work to take the Legacy for a longer drive on this cool-weather night.

That blogger (no pun intended) beat me to it at describing the Legacy's paddle-shifters,so I shan't be draggy at it in my blog entry. I agree with Bot Rocs to a large extent anyway.

Nothing can beat the real deal of pedal-clutch and gear shifter stick when it comes to manual drive. If you are in doubt, go try the WRX-manual and burn some rubber! To master the precision and timing required to reap the full-potential of a manual-drive car, you need practice and more practice.

While you are at it, the adrenaline and sense of achievement wil make it all worthwhile. And for your information, you should shift your gear down before the wide turn to match the speed of the turn, and then accelerate lightly into the turn to ensure maximum lateral tyre grip on the road. Not during the turn.

I did however, notice that the use of Legacy's manual mode sure did not unleash the fuel-regulator into the wild. The rpm does not race towards higher readings for rapid shifting with the paddles. And hence a killjoy. But to be fair, the Legacy's acceleration is already wonderful in its full-automatic drive mode. So that's enjoyable enough in my opinion.

Now, the rest of driver's controls in the Legacy are very good. Oh, except the horn which is hard to depress with your fingers. The turn-signal and windscreen wipers levers are excellent. Just a light push and they go into position, and does it so quietly and softly. The turn knobs for headlights/fog lamps are equally fantastic to operate. And then there is the button for releasing the boot's hatch. It's an electronic switch actually (as opposed to cable-pull type), which require you to press and hold until the boot "pops". Same electronic switches are used for the air-conditioning and audio system controls in the Legacy. Cool enough I'd say unless you yearn for those futuristic touch-screen type controls.

I think the concept Legacy showcased in 2010 has these touch-screen controls but likely to be too costly for incorporating into its production-version.

I will have to return the Legacy tomorrow, but I am still looking forward to the day for another reason. For I am getting my "re-newed" Forester XT from the painters tomorrow! I miss that crazy monster :'S

A MPV Replacement?

I met a client today for lunch. He was surprised that I had a new car. No, I said, it’s just a loan set of wheels, and I’ll be returning it tomorrow. Whilst in the car I tried to show off the Legacy: it’s double-tiered large glove compartment, the light on the vanity mirrors, bottle holder on each of the doors, the ample legroom in the rear seat, and the humongous boot.

He was not impressed with most of them. Huh?? No? Well, he said the glove compartment, the vanity light, bottle holders and huge boot were all available in his 1.4L VW with TDI. Oh… maybe this is a European car design style then.

But he did like the large legroom in the backseat. In a smaller car, if one fits in a baby seat, there would not be much room left for the other passengers in the rear, but it will not be so for this car. Ah, at last, this is one up for the Legacy. So families with babies, you may not need to get a dowdy MPV; you can consider this car instead!

Going Manual

The Legacy can be driven in manual mode. It has an upshift and a downshift gear paddle on the sides of the steering wheel.

Whilst in a large carpark with no traffic, I decided to switch to manual mid-drive to test it out. I upshifted from 2^nd gear to 3^rd gear after accelerating on the straight road, then downshifted before the road hump. Then I tried to park the car. Well that’s when I had to get out of manual mode and go into the regular Reverse mode of an auto car.

What I noticed too was that unlike a regular manual shift car, one cannot change gear mid-way with the steering wheel turned more than 90-degrees, especially if one drives with the pull and push method during turns. Those horn-like gear paddles on the inside of the steering wheel would be anywhere but at the default horizontal position on the steering wheel when the wheel is not turned.

Thus far in real life, the only times I overrode the auto gear selection were during twists and turns on the slopes to reduce my speed on these tricky roads, and not to negotiate on simple straight roads. So if I turn the wheel too much, this gear shift paddles mounted on the steering wheel may not work for me.

Day 6 of 7 - Fuel Consumption

The low-fuel warning lamp came on again and so I had to visit the petrol kiosk this morning. I chose SHELL 95R (as opposed to SPC 98R) this time round. For the previous $60 (before discount) tank of SPC 98R, I managed to travel 300kms before the warning lamp came on. At S$2.09 per litre, this works out Legacy's fuel consumption to be 10.45km per litre of fuel then. This is only an estimate, as any car's fuel consumption will be influenced by traffic conditions and driving habits.

Now, I am driving on the tank of SHELL 95R fuel. No noticable difference in Legacy's performance so I guess 95R fuel will do just fine for the Legacy. The manufacturer's fuel specification recommendation for my Forester XT is 98R though hence I have no choice.

The Legacy provides a digital "estimated kilometers left on remaining of fuel" measurement gauge at the centre of the dash board. The information could be useful in curbing one's bad driving habits and planning for when to refuel. A word of caution though, the low-fuel indicator came on when it reported 90kms remaining. I didn't want to prove Legacy wrong and so I went to refuel after just 5 kms anyway.

I will have to return the Legacy soon. Just 1 or 2 more blog entries for you to stay tuned to....cheers :D

Day 7 in a Legacy

Today i had delibrately called up a friend who is working near my place to pop over to meet me for lunch.

He is driving a Lancer GLS.

He came over and we went off in the Legacy.

During the journey, i psychoed him to change his car and join in the Subaru family.

Ditch Mitsubishi and join Subaru are the words i kept on chanting to him.

Explained all the functions of the car and obviously he was drooling...

I saw the eager in his eyes.

i popped the question to him : Want to test drive?

He replied : Sure!

He drove back to my workplace and reluctantly came out of the car.

He mentioned to me he can only dream of this Power, Luxury and Comfort in his dreams only as he cannot afford the Legacy.

He will definitely get a Legacy if he can manage to afford one.

Also commented that to sit in a Legacy is really a King's treatment given by Subaru.