New Guy 2012 XV off road

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:39 pm

Hi All
I am a newbie here my names Rohan I have a nice new 2012 XV white luxury:)
I bought this for 2 reasons, to tow my jet ski and to go off road with friends.
Yesterday I took it off road to Lamington national park with a mates Prado the 220mm of clearance and the plastic guards with hill assist control are great for getting this thing up the hills, and I am amazed how well the AWD system automatically locks whichever wheel is spinning this allowed my XV to go anywhere my friends Prado to go.
However! does anyone know much about how the traction control works on this car? or experienced this problem on previous models, basically I turn the "dynamic stability control off" the 4wd computer screen shows it turned off, but as soon as I get some wheel spin on launches on the hill climbs it reactivates on its own! showing a message "stability control was reactivated" WTF thanks to that I had my clutch smoking black smoke out the engine bay yesterday, is this a typical Subaru design flaw? I would imaging this will be twice as worse when I get her to the sand! The add shows this blasting thru the sand but in reality she burns clutches and activates traction control whenever it pleases! I am not new to 4wd'ing and planned on lifting this.
Also the car unless revved on launched has problems building up revs and quiet often stalls off road too, I know it's only a 110kw ej20 but surely with your foot flat to the floor it should begin to build revs or does it need some mods to give it a bit more power?
Cheers guys

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:58 pm

A quick google and i found that holding the traction control button for longer (>2 seconds) to turn it off. From what i read the light should change colour (green to yellow but maybe different for your car)? Rather than the light simply turning off.

Now without the traction control working against you, you might find it doesn't have as much trouble stalling like you described.

Is it a dual range manual or just single range manual? In the ad on tele they're probably driving the automatic, which is what i would be choosing for offroad if my only manual option was single range.

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:33 pm

Nope we tried holding the traction control down for longer and it did nothing, it is literally re activiating on its own....kind of stupid for an off road vehicle........Not dual range either

The only way to stop the stalling is to drop the clutch at about 3000rpm which i am thinking is because the engine is gutless as hell.
I skipped the auto as I read the CVT likes to cut as soon as you get wheel spin, I am glad I did now seeing the traction control cuts as well it would never go off road with that combo

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:39 pm

Its not the engine its the gearing. Its not really designed for offroad if it doesn't have low range!

I drove my car offroad for 18month with a single range gearbox, it was shit and it cooked the clutch/pressure plate/flywheel. That was with a 3.0 H6 in a car that is probably a few 100kgs lighter than yours. H6 has 154kw and 284NM of torque, still didn't help overcome no low range.

Any offroad vehicle worth its salt is auto or dual range. Even the newer outbacks with their 1.2 ratio low range get caught out on steep climbs.

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 5:27 pm

Apparently this was the case with alot of the foresters too though? Easy fix for that just get some low range gears installed? It did considerablly well off road regardless, it went everywhere the prado went in lamington national park (which isnt a small park) but that traction control was a big issue and hurt the clutch alot

sublime · Post by **sublime** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 5:55 pm

Excelix wrote:Hi All
I know it's only a 110kw ej20
Cheers guys

It is actually an FB20 rather than a EJ20!

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 7:15 pm

sublime wrote:It is actually an FB20 rather than a EJ20!

Still pretty gutless motor in N/A form, would it be worth its time putting a set of extractors on the car for a little bit of extra power? it does seem to struggle on the hills

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:09 pm

A dual range gearbox would be a better option. You'd probably have to wait untill its out of warranty though. Supercharge it?

taza · Post by **taza** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:58 pm

Excelix wrote:Still pretty gutless motor in N/A form, would it be worth its time putting a set of extractors on the car for a little bit of extra power? it does seem to struggle on the hills

Supercharge it! We are just about to buy an XV in the family, I really wanted to see how it went offroad...

Venom wrote:A dual range gearbox would be a better option. You'd probably have to wait untill its out of warranty though. Supercharge it?

Thats what I did, finishing off the supercharge install on my Forester tomorrow.
Although I have a low range and decent gering, tyres and lift the engine either runs out of puff or you burn the crap out of your clutch like how you experienced. But with me its more the lack of torque from my EJ20.

Im suprised its that gutless though. 110Kw, I only have 92 (when it was new) in my Forester and run larger tyres.

For the traction control pull the fuse out, or make a switch wich is the smae as pulling the fuse out. Without a low range would make it difficult in alot of offroad conditions I could imagine..

If you want a low range you could swap the box from your 6 speed single range to 5 speed dual range with a good low range. But it would cost your a few thousand dollars. BUT then your would be the frist person to do that to an XV in the whole world!!!
Taza

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:04 am

It goes in for its first service tomorrow, I will ask the boys at the workshop to show me which fuse to pull, I have alot more confidence the car will do much better without traction on. Again it surprised alot of people with where it went it climbed some very big hills just once I lost momentum taking off again was a pain because traction control kept stopping me.
Absolute lunacy from a car maker to put that in any kind of SUV, even my old territory it would turn off

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:07 am

Some pictures

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:44 pm

taza wrote:For the traction control pull the fuse out, or make a switch wich is the smae as pulling the fuse out. Without a low range would make it difficult in alot of offroad conditions I could imagine..

I'd be pulling the fuse. Painful for the little bit of time it takes to stop and pop the bonnet but it won't void your warranty

taza wrote:If you want a low range you could swap the box from your 6 speed single range to 5 speed dual range with a good low range. But it would cost your a few thousand dollars. BUT then your would be the frist person to do that to an XV in the whole world!!!

For an "off the shelf" SUV, you'd think you wouldn't need to go this far! Plus I don't know if the bolting pattern has changed with the FB engine design. It may have which could cause headaches in a conversion. There are just so many un-known's!

What we really need is a HSV or FPV department of Subaru in Australia to do the things we want these vehicles to do. I think they've been built for a purpose but the bean counters have tightened the reigns and thus the dual range has not been developed or wasn't released

I can see some awesome front an rear bars coming out in the near future for one of these. This excites me. I also can't wait to see what that swedish ski patrol group do with one of these, if it looks anything like the last lot of foresters they've built it'll be awesome.

Just needs that dual range!

Cheers

Bennie

alang · Post by **alang** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:44 pm

the wheels would look good on a brumby

thunder039 · Post by **thunder039** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:48 pm

first of all welcome to the forum!
its good to see someone taking this car through its paces!
taking out the fuse would defiantly be the best option. i have driven a liberty and even with the traction control turned off it would also turn back on when i got too sideways

i have also read that the cvt transmissions are no good for offroading so another issue with the car is a either a useless cvt or a single range manual neither the best choice for a car that was designed to go offroad. this is probably the biggest design flaw with the car.
but im sure once you get rid of that pesky traction control it will be awesome!

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:17 pm

Hope my above pictures worked? that was the softest areas this car was put through its paces specifically so I can see the design flaws, clearance was fantastic hardly any scraping what so ever, we tried to look for the fuse at the time but no luck? Any hints on what kind of fuse it would be that would be controlling the stability control? The hill start assist was also fantastic for hill climbs and I think it can survive without the low range for soft roading just need to disable the traction control.
Please note I never expected to be boulder climbing in this car, just have days of some 4wd tracks and be able to tow my ski onto the sand

taza · Post by **taza** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:19 pm

Excelix wrote:Hope my above pictures worked? that was the softest areas this car was put through its paces specifically so I can see the design flaws, clearance was fantastic hardly any scraping what so ever, we tried to look for the fuse at the time but no luck? Any hints on what kind of fuse it would be that would be controlling the stability control? The hill start assist was also fantastic for hill climbs and I think it can survive without the low range for soft roading just need to disable the traction control.
Please note I never expected to be boulder climbing in this car, just have days of some 4wd tracks and be able to tow my ski onto the sand

In the back of your owners manual it will have all the fuses and what each one is. Try looking there

I reckon for softroading the car should be fine

Yes the pics worked.

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:21 pm

thunder039 wrote:first of all welcome to the forum!
its good to see someone taking this car through its paces!
taking out the fuse would defiantly be the best option. i have driven a liberty and even with the traction control turned off it would also turn back on when i got too sideways
i have also read that the cvt transmissions are no good for offroading so another issue with the car is a either a useless cvt or a single range manual neither the best choice for a car that was designed to go offroad. this is probably the biggest design flaw with the car.
but im sure once you get rid of that pesky traction control it will be awesome!

I agree with everything you said, there are alot of youtube videos showing how the CVT fails off road, this is why I went manual, I think my option may eventually be a heavy duty clutch and better flywheel to hopefully get around the low range issue? The main reasons for my clutch smoking was it was a constant battle against the traction control

taza · Post by **taza** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:24 pm

Excelix wrote:I agree with everything you said, there are alot of youtube videos showing how the CVT fails off road, this is why I went manual, I think my option may eventually be a heavy duty clutch and better flywheel to hopefully get around the low range issue? The main reasons for my clutch smoking was it was a constant battle against the traction control

I reckon without the traction control on it should make a huge difference

A heavy duty clutch will help too when the time comes.

Excelix · Post by **Excelix** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:27 pm

Thanks I think so too poor little car is getting a bashing, I'm expecting some raised eyebrows tomorrow at Subaru when they jack it up and see all the mud still trapped up there! But I didnt buy this car to drop off the kids at school. I will keep this thread updated I am hoping to source some extractors next week just to help with some power I think the car is lacking

thunder039 · Post by **thunder039** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:30 pm

a heavy duty clutch when that one eventually wears out would be a great idea! for weekend getaways the car is great and like most stock subies they were never designed for bolder climbing but were designed for the beach run or camping.
once you get the traction control sorted i think you will notice a huge improve offroad.