Subaru Forester
A friend of mine just bought a new sport utility vehicle and wants to return it. He hates the seat. Never mind he spent several hours during three trips to the dealership to check and recheck his selection before signing the contract. Never mind he brought his wife and two children along to see how they fit. All three of them loved the SUV. "Buy it," they said.
A week later, he's miserable not only with the seat that doesn't tilt to accommodate his skewed tailbone injured in an accident, but also with the visibility factor. When he's driving, the left A-pillar, one of the struts that holds up the windshield between the roof and the hood, is so bulky he finds himself having to peer around it at certain times, shifting his head to the left or right. Definitely not a good habit on the road.
After a few days' driving the vehicle herself, his wife discovered she had a hard time parking, because the tall "shoulders" of the fenders prevented her from judging distances, even though she sat high, which was a determining factor she had used to persuade my friend to purchase the SUV.
While many auto manufacturers are addressing such problems and responding to customer complaints with some of their new models, Subaru has made ergonomics, or friendly environments, a priority this year on their complete lineup.
"We are concerned with the entire driving experience instead of just placing knobs and switches in optimum positions," said Subaru spokesman Alex Fedorak. "We believe that comfort and visibility are two of the more important elements for safe driving."
A case in point is Subaru's 1999 Forester, a hybrid all-wheel-drive vehicle that is a cross between an SUV and a station wagon. the Subaru Forester is classified as a passenger car, because it is built on Subaru's Impreza platform that is sold as a coupe, sedan and wagon. Subaru Forester has a slightly larger wheelbase, and its all-wheel-drive system - standard on every Subaru - is continuous.
With front bucket seats that are adjustable several different ways, the Subaru Forester's seat cushions can be controlled for height adjustment at the front edge and the rear edge so that the driver has optimum viewing. Also, in addition to the usual forward/back and seat-back alignment, Subaru's seats have lumbar support and heaters, with low and high controls, as standard equipment on the S, the high-end model.
"A variety of height adjustments are usually necessary to give each individual driver control over how they see the road," Mr. Fedorak said. "Another design demand was to analyze hood and fender angles to take advantage of the low profile of the boxer engine." The flat four-cylinder engine is a compact, horizontally opposed, 16-valve, 165-horsepower power plant that sits low in the engine compartment, allowing a lower-than-normal hood profile for a more unobstructed view of the car's corners. Subaru's new engineering standard test for the best view is that the driver must be able to see a 39 1/2-inch-tall child within 10 inches of every edge of the wagon.
The Subaru Forester's A-pillars have undergone further structural improvements for greater support, while maintaining as slender a contour as possible, without sacrificing strength and at the same time providing maximum rigidity.
"The angle between the middle of the driver's front view and the left edge of the windshield, where the A-pillar begins, is an extremely important one for perspective and visibility, so we have designed the width of that particular angle to be as large as possible," Mr. Fedorak said.
While drivers sit lower in the Subaru Forester wagon than in a sport utility vehicle, its appearance is as rugged as many SUVs, with thick roof panels and stiffeners, reinforced side sills and rails.
Maybe if my friend and his family had tried the seats more carefully and checked for visibility obstacles, they wouldn't be waiting for their SUV to reach two years of age so they can trade it in.
The Washington Times April 2, 1999 Amadio, Jill
Find largest automaker car models and best old auto maker ones in the world: