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Impreza hatchback was the perfect addition to our little family

By Craig And Deanne Conover - Daily Herald - | May 28, 2017
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Sometimes the perfect car comes at the perfect time and it just fits into our life and the things we have planned for the week, so It was only a few short weeks ago when we had our first chance with an Impreza four door limited sedan.

When we found out that another Impreza was coming out, but this time as the Sport model and more importantly for us with a hatchback, we were excited to give it a test drive, especially since we were going to have our grandson Jensen for the weekend, a very active 3 year old. Of course having a 3 year old with us changed our lifestyle for the weekend taking us completely out of our comfort zone, and having the Impreza helped us when hauling the kid and all the stuff around that goes with a youngster.

We’ve had our grandson overnight in the past, but not for an extended time, and with mom and dad way down in St. George, we had to come up with the plan for Saturday to help him forget that his mom and dad were gone. So we planned a trip to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake because he loves the animals, what more could a 3 year old want?

Since the Impreza is really targeted at younger families with one or two kids, it could not have been a more perfect time to find out if this sporty Subaru was up to the challenge of taking our new small family on a day trip to the zoo. Getting the required car seat set into place was a snap as the designers had included small pieces of seat cloth with Velcro to cover the car seat hooks in the rear, making them very easy to find and easy to snap into place, and the extra addition of hiding the hooks when not in use is a great touch.

The sport version of the Impreza sits a little lower to the ground, which made it slightly harder for grandpa to get out, but Jensen loved the fact that he could just climb right in and get up into his seat. We loved that part too as we didn’t have to lift him in, making our day just that much easier, and we needed it after running after the very active 3 year old for the better part of 4 hours at the zoo!

Our Impreza came with cloth seats, something that we would probably not buy if we were getting the car for ourselves wanting for more of the leather clad seats, but having a little one with us we were glad to have the cloth seats that were so easy to clean up those spills that are inevitably going to occur with a child. So if little ones are part of the family, we would recommend the cloth seating surfaces, and quite frankly they were every bit as comfortable as the leather and were even heated for the wintertime.

With Subaru being more of a ‘life choice’ kind of vehicle, it’s something that you would see and go ‘Wow I’ve gotta have one of those’, they have made certain that their vehicles are equipped with as much safety technology as possible. Ours came with the added option of Subaru EyeSight driver assist technology package installed, and we have come to know that it is one of the best in the business.

It comes with adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, pre-collision braking, blind spot monitoring and rear cross path traffic alert. It always seems to amaze us how great these kinds of safety features work to keep the occupants safer, again traffic at one point came to a complete stop on the freeway and the Subaru stopped itself with no problem, and blind spot monitoring is always a great add-on to keep tract of the other guy in heavy traffic.

The Impreza comes with a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder boxer engine that will produce a respectable 152 horsepower and 145 lb.-ft. of torque, more than adequate for the small hatchback, and most importantly we averaged just over 33.5 mpg. If more speed is desired, Subaru will accommodate that also with the WRX or STI version of the Impreza.

One important fact to note is that this is the first Impreza built all in America at Subaru of Indiana in Lafayette, Indiana. Seems that more and more manufactures are starting to build more of their vehicles here in the U.S., something that we feel is great for our economy and job growth.

This new version Impreza has been given added strength for a more ridged structure to help keep the comfort level higher when on uneven ground, add that to the torque vectoring control that pushes power to any wheel that needs it during the drive it of course will make easy work of any road.

The new body style is overly sculpted with more aggressive lines running down the sides of the Impreza for a very dramatic effect. Upfront there is still the signature hexagonal grill that has become synonymous in all vehicles across the Subaru line. With the two different body styles to choose from this year, the sedan and also the fine looking hatchback we had for the week, we would bet folks will opt into is more often as there is more storage space in the rear and also more roof space for extra gear.

Of course with our grandson in tow, we found that having the extra space in the back was even more of a necessity and also having it accessible from the inside was a nice feature also as Jensen loved the fact he could just throw his backpack over the seat into the rear compartment.

Inside the designers have added various new amenities starting with full color LCD center console display, some very comfortable heated seats. Another full color display above the 8- inch center console touchscreen that will display all kinds of cool vehicle information and most importantly soft touch points pretty much everywhere we set our arms and hands.

Since the last upgrades a few years ago with the refreshed Impreza, when new sound deadening materials were added, along with a completely new touch screen infotainment system the interior has vastly improved. The new look is very user friendly and with all the additions prompted us to put the price of the Impreza in the low 30’s after first driving it the first day.

With the Sport version of the Impreza sitting lower to the ground it may not be the vehicle to take into the mountains as much as other Subaru’s, but it still maintains it’s all wheel drive abilities, our delivery driver came through quite a snow storm in Wyoming on the way to Utah and he said it handled just fine.

Our week and especially our weekend experience with the Impreza was more than we could have asked for in the family oriented vehicle, maybe we should have the grandson over more often to help us try out the many rides we get. Well maybe not…. as getting him to bed at night proved to be more challenging that we had expected and in our older age we need to get our rest.

The Impreza Hatchback is the perfect vehicle for a small family with all the room needed to get the little ones around and give mom space to put all the bargains in the back, after driving both we would opt for the hatchback also just to have the extra space. See them today at Doug Smith Subaru in American Fork at 523 West Main, 801-492-1110.

Base Price: $22,495

Price as Driven: $27,060

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