2008 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Review

Once upon a time, the standard Subaru Impreza was a sleeper deal. You got a good chunk of the fun of a WRX and nearly all the funk, just with less power and a cut-rate price. With that history in mind we were initially excited to get our hands on the all-new 2008 Impreza 2.5i, so imagine our disappointment when we discovered that the little Subie is making a play for the mainstream. By many measures it’s better than the previous car, but the funk and fun that made the older car endearing is largely gone.

By Keith Buglewicz Photo Credit: Oliver Bentley

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Our pre-production Impreza 2.5i was about as base as it gets. With no options that we could see, the price on it would have come to $18,140 including the $645 destination charge, a sizeable chunk of change for the company’s entry-level vehicle. Admittedly, it’s well equipped with standard all-wheel drive, a five-speed manual, anti-lock brakes, an audio system with speed-sensing volume adjustment and other nice bits. The $1,500 premium package bundles alloy wheels, vehicle stability control, rear disc brakes, fog lights and leather-wrapped steering wheel and shifter, while the satellite radio and nav package throws a better audio system and navigation on top of that for $3,500.

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The combination of a 170-horsepower 2.5-liter flat-four engine, a five-speed manual transmission and full-time all-wheel drive sounds like a recipe for fun. However, this is a high-carb mixture thanks to the Impreza’s 3,107-lb. curb weight. The result is pokey acceleration, even though the powertrain gives it all it’s got. It’s noisy too, especially at high revs, and the five-speed’s shift action was quite rubbery. Stand on the throttle in a corner and the all-wheel drive corrects most mistakes, but you still find yourself using body English to push the car faster out of the corner.

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The Impreza’s ride is very comfortable, especially for a car in the sub-20 grand class. In our daily commute, it was a relaxed partner. On twisty roads however, the suspension gets discombobulated. On one hand there’s a surprising amount of grip, and because of the all-wheel drive you can carry quite a bit of speed to a corner. But the soft springs mean lots of body roll, and the lack of power means that carrying the speed out of the corner doesn’t really happen. It’s kind of fun in a drive-a-slow-car-fast sort of way, but any tossability the Impreza once had has been, well, tossed.

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Seeing out of the Impreza’s big, airy greenhouse is easy enough, with no particularly bad blind spots to speak of. The oddly shaped rearmost pillars intrude in the outward vision a bit, but only when the rear seats are folded; when up, the rear seat head restraints block the pillars. Mirrors are well sized for the car both inside and out, and the view to the side and front is also very good.

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The handling is partly there, but the lack of power (or presence of weight) hinders what you can do with the car. Shorter gearing would help, as would a stiffer suspension. Of course, if you’re looking for all that, you might just want to step up to the more powerful and stiffly sprung WRX. Unfortunately, you’ll have to shell out an additional seven grand to get there, and there is currently no stiffly sprung naturally aspirated model available, and nobody at Subaru is mentioning a 2.5 RS version any time soon.

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The front seats in the Impreza 2.5i are very good. Although all the adjustments are manual, there are plenty of them, including a ratcheting seat height adjustment. The cloth isn’t particularly expensive feeling, but it imparts a sense of durability, and it’s certainly comfortable. The shift handle and steering wheel in our test car were both bare urethane, and while they’re fine when new, we wonder if they’ll get slippery with age. Also, the door tops and center console armrest are both hard plastic; the only soft spot for your elbow is the small, narrow door-mounted armrest.

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Tall people will find the rear seat of the Impreza 2.5i cramped, but if you’re under 5 feet 8 inches tall it should be adequate. There is good head room, and shoulder room is fine for two people; three would push the limits of personal space. There is no center arm rest at all, and the door tops are hard plastic here, as they are in front.

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inexpensive cars are often noisy, but this Subie bucks that trend with an interior mostly free of annoying noises. At speed there is some wind noise around the mirrors, and there is enough road noise filtering through the car to let you know you’re under way, but neither is particularly bad. The main source of noise is the engine. Under hard acceleration the engine gets thrashy, as flat-fours tend to, and you catch a hint of that distinctive Subaru engine note as well. If you’re a fan of these cars you’ll love it, otherwise it just sounds a little odd.

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Say what you want about image, but hatchbacks are darn useful vehicles. The hatch on the Impreza opens wide, and there’s a small lip to keep items from rolling out onto the ground when it’s open. There’s a little bit of underfloor space for small items, too. Folding down the seats is easy enough, but to really maximize the room you first need to unhook the center shoulder belt, which is typical for modern hatches. One odd quirk was that although the hatch can be unlocked and opened independently of the rest of the car, you must re-lock the whole vehicle after you close it again.

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Our 2008 Subaru Impreza 2.5itest vehicle was a pre-production unit. We did not assess build quality, as it is our rule to praise or critique this aspect of a vehicle only when it is reflective of what consumers will find at the local dealership.