I’m overall pretty happy with my 2016 Subaru Legacy, which I purchased primarily because it had one of the best safety packages in Eyesight, at the most affordable price at the time. I was able to get automatic emergency braking on a car that cost me about $25k. It was also the first model in the US where Subaru offered lane keep assist. The lane keep assist provides minimal correction when you start to approach lane markings when you are driving over 40mph. It does not keep you in the center of the lane and if you keep your hands off the wheel (aside from disengaging at some point) it will basically ping-pong you along the way until you are too sharply crossing the lane markings and it won’t do anything at that point. The adaptive cruise control works very well though. Overall, I use those features occasionally, but it is far from a self-driving car.
Many of the cars currently do a much better job of keeping the car centered in the lane allowing for a more “hands free driving” for a little bit. I’m really curious how well the new “Lane Centering” will do compared to the lane keep assist.
I have yet to find any reviews, yet they are marketing the feature for the new 2020 Subaru vehicles. I’ll try to update this thread whenever I come across any reviews, or if I get a chance to do one myself.
I test drove the 2020 Legacy today (Sport trim) and the lane centering is FAR FAR superior to the previous lane keep assist.
It detected the lane markings, even though one side of the road did not have very good lane markings. It identified the lanes once I engaged the adaptive cruise control. The car stayed near the center of the lane for several miles without any intervention. Not once did I need to correct the steering. The car would give a warning to keep hands on wheel. If you ignore the warning, it warns again, and again, and then it flashes on the center display to keep hands on the wheel, then it shuts off.
I was very impressed with the implementation but I wasn’t able to use it for very long. Based on the information I found in the user manual online, it looks like the lane centering will work all the way down to 0. I would like to see how well it works at low speeds. The current lane keep assist only works at speeds of about 40mph and over. This would be a nice improvement if it works at lower speeds.
As I haven’t used lane keep assist systems in other vehicles (aside form the Tesla – which works very well), I’m not sure where Subaru stands in the overall driver assist features.
While this thread isn’t meant to be a complete 2020 Subaru Legacy review, other features I noticed that were new included the engine turning off at stop signs while the foot is on the brake. I’m not sure how much that improves fuel economy, but you can turn off the feature if you don’t like it. I suppose the amount it improves fuel economy depends on how much time you spend sitting at stop lights, trains, etc.
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