---
title: 'The Subaru Forester Wilderness Is a Tough, Capable Small SUV'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z03DQdxuvYs'
video_id: 'Z03DQdxuvYs'
date: 2026-07-21
duration_sec: 1448
channel: 'Doug DeMuro'
---

# The Subaru Forester Wilderness Is a Tough, Capable Small SUV

> Source: [The Subaru Forester Wilderness Is a Tough, Capable Small SUV](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z03DQdxuvYs)

## Summary

The 2026 Subaru Forester Wilderness is a compact SUV with light off-road upgrades, including all-terrain tires, increased ground clearance, and revised bumpers for better approach and departure angles. It features distinctive styling with gold accents and plastic cladding, but its powertrain remains unchanged—a 2.5L flat-4 engine producing 180 horsepower, making it one of the slowest in its class. The interior offers practical touches and a large vertical infotainment screen, though the digital gauge cluster is limited in configurability.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Forester Wilderness** [00:04] — The Forester Wilderness is Subaru's off-road-oriented trim of the compact Forester SUV, designed for light off-road use.
- **Exterior Changes: Plastic Cladding and Gold Accents** [02:01] — The Wilderness adds black plastic cladding to protect paint, distinctive wheels, and gold-themed badges and trim.
- **Off-Road Upgrades: Tires and Ground Clearance** [03:33] — Standard Yokohama Geolander all-terrain tires and a half-inch lift increase ground clearance for better off-road capability.
- **Improved Approach and Departure Angles** [04:13] — Revised front and rear bumpers improve approach and departure angles, aiding off-road clearance.
- **Powertrain: Underpowered 2.5L Engine** [04:42] — The 2.5L flat-4 engine produces 180 hp and 178 lb-ft torque, making it the least powerful in its segment with 0-60 in 8.6 seconds.
- **Mechanical Upgrades: Transmission Cooler and Final Drive** [05:37] — An improved transmission cooler and revised final drive ratio enhance off-road performance and low-speed crawling.
- **Interior: Off-Road Drive Modes and Front Camera** [06:16] — X-Mode offers two off-road drive modes and activates a front camera, though the camera resolution is poor.
- **Seats and Interior Trim** [07:12] — Seats feature a three-pointed star pattern (resembling Mercedes-Benz), gold stitching, and Wilderness logos.
- **Interior Practicality and Infotainment** [08:35] — The interior is basic but practical, with a vertical infotainment screen that is slow but includes physical controls for key functions.
- **Digital Gauge Cluster Limitations** [11:09] — The digital gauge cluster is barely configurable, offering only small black-and-white info displays.
- **Spacious Rear Seat** [12:08] — The rear seat offers ample legroom and headroom, suitable for families, with power ports and climate vents.
- **Cargo Area Features** [14:37] — The cargo area includes a spare tire, power port, a speaker for tailgating, and switches to drop rear seats.
- **Pricing and Market Position** [16:56] — Starting around $40,000, the Forester Wilderness is cheaper than the Ford Bronco Sport Badlands but less powerful and capable.
- **Driving Impressions: Slow but Competent** [18:09] — The car is notably slow and loud under acceleration, but rides well with minimal compromise from all-terrain tires.
- **Conclusion and Doug Score** [22:55] — The Forester Wilderness scores 100 on Doug's scale, tying other Subaru Wilderness models, but the Bronco Sport is preferred for better power and off-road capability.

### Conclusion

The 2026 Subaru Forester Wilderness offers light off-road upgrades and distinctive styling, but its underpowered engine and limited configurability hold it back. It's a competent, practical choice for those who want a little extra capability without sacrificing on-road comfort.

## Transcript

Wilderness, and it brings a little off-road muscle to the fairly boring world of the compact crossover. Think of it as a Subaru Forester that's made for, well, the wilderness. Today, I'm going to review the Forester Wilderness and
show you what I mean, and I'll show you all of its quirks and features. Subaru Forester Wilderness for an update on my 1973 Ford F250. We inherited this
pickup truck from my late father-in-law who had started the rescuing process but he passed. So, with the help of AutoZone, we're finishing the rescue. Since we can't really be driving around with light bulbs from another century,
yes, century, we're going to brighten things up with new headlight and tail light bulbs. The Sylvania light bulbs will get the job done. And today we we're going to order these parts on autozone.com and pick them up at the
store same day, so there's no delay. Good thing there's always an AutoZone. All right, time for the quirks and features of the Subaru Forester Wilderness. Starting with a little background. The Forester is Subaru's
compact SUV, and it's been their lineup for like 30 years now. A brand new fully redesigned model just debuted for 25 and now for 26 we get the new wilderness
which is sort of the off-roady adventure trim of the Forester. Now Subaru's done wilderness versions of other models already. The Cross Trek that's their compact wagon, the Outback, of course, a midsize wagon crossover and even the
previous generation Forester. And like other Wilderness models, the formula for this new one is largely the same. It's more capable, but not the most capable. You don't get crazy off-road hardware like in a TRD Pro Toyota. Instead, you
get some light upgrades for going off-road, but maybe not off-road. Let's obvious change to the Forester Wilderness is the way it looks compared
to a standard Forester. specifically, you get a lot of plastic cladding, plastic trim on the outside of the car. The thinking, putting this on an off-road model, is that when you're driving through the brush, your painted
nice features in the standard Forester, they won't get damaged since they're just typical black plastic. So, you can see all down the side of the car, the sort of black plastic cladding giving it that tough wilderness.
As for other cosmetic changes, distinctive wheels for the Wilderness model. This wheel design is only seen here. And you get distinctive badging. These rather large Subaru Wilderness badges. You can see on the door there's
also one in back. Very big, very bold, very clearly tells you what this vehicle very clearly tells you what this vehicle is. And you can see that badge has gold writing. Gold is sort of the theme color of Subaru Wilderness. And you can see it
in several different places, especially on the outside. You can see gold trim on the roof racks right up here. The Forester badges, gold on the side on the rear door. And there's various other gold trim pieces throughout the car,
both inside and outside, which is sort of Subaru's wilderness themed color that goes along with the car. But the changes to the wilderness are not just cosmetic. There's actually quite a few real upgrades that make it more capable. And
the most important is the tires. The Forester Wilderness comes standard with allterrain tires, these Yokohama Geolanders. They're not the most aggressive all-terrain tire, but they're more capable than what you get in the
regular Forester. And they're a little bit taller in profile, which helps increase the ground clearance of this car by a little over a half inch obviously gives you a little bit more capability off the pavement. Beyond
that, you also have revised styling front and rear. You can see the front bumper is revised. It looks more aggressive, more meaty. It also includes gold trim accents. And that's the same deal in back. It's a little more
aggressive, little more off-roady capable looking. But it's not just for style. Those revisions to both the front and rear bumper allow for improved approach and departure angles, which means kind of like as you approach
objects, how much angle can you clear? Compared to the standard Forester, this one does better because of the restyling of those front and rear bumpers. Sadly though, there's been no change in powertrain. I say sadly because the
powertrain. I say sadly because the Forester still uses a 2.5 L flat 4 that makes about 180 horsepower and just under 180 pound- feet of torque, which makes it more or less the least powerful vehicle in this segment. And it makes it
pretty slow. 0 to 60 in the mid 8second range. The new RAV 4's base engine has 25 more horsepower than the Forester and it still doesn't exactly feel fast. And
there's a hybrid RAV 4 with way more power than that. The Forester does offer a hybrid model with an extra 15 horsepower, but unfortunately you can't get the hybrid powertrain in the regular Forester, and even then it's still
pretty slow. Subaru always seems to be kind of lagging behind each class that it's in in terms of power and that remains true here. Now, with that said, there has been some wilderness changes under the skin, some mechanical
upgrades. Specifically, there's an improved transmission cooler, which is actually an important off-road feature. You're going slow speed, rock crawling off-road, you're idling a lot, the transmission cooler will help keep the
car cool in those circumstances. You also have a revised final drive ratio for sort of more eager performance when you're off-roading. And Subaru says they've adjusted the suspension to maximize off-road capability while still
delivering the best on-road performance or whatever they've said. It doesn't seem like there's dramatically enhanced suspension. The lift in this car comes sure how many changes there really are,
a little bit later and see if it's noticeable when driving. Inside the Forester Wilderness, there's quite a few wilderness upgrades as well. And the most important is the addition of some off-road drive modes. You go into the
infotainment screen into the X mode area. You can see two separate off-road drive modes. Obviously, for different things, but regardless of which you pick, when you choose it, it also turns on the front camera to illuminate the
road, and you can see exactly what's ahead of you as you head down the trail. Now, the drawback, as you can see, the front camera is not particularly good. The resolution is bad. They don't include any guidelines on the screen
where the tires are, how far stuff is. It's really not a high quality thing, but it's there and it adds a little bit of off-road improvement. Beyond that, interior. The seats, as you can see,
kind of this distinctive three-pointed star pattern look suspiciously like the MercedesBenz logo. And then on the headrest, you have Subaru Wilderness imprinted in there with the Wilderness logo, just like one of those exterior
badges to really emphasize exactly what's going on in here. Now, also on the seats, you can see the gold stitching, and you have quite a bit of gold trim in this interior. Gold stitching on the seats with this little
Subaru Wilderness tag to remind you how wildernessy it is. Gold stitching on the door panels with again the Subaru Wilderness tag. You also have gold accents on the dashboard, including more of these MercedesBenz three-pointed
stars, which is definitely an odd choice for a graphic, but it's there. And on the steering wheel, more gold stitching and gold trim again to emphasize the wilderness special color. You also have a few distinctive graphics in here, like
for example, the floor mats. You can see looks like a relief map of some cool place where you might take your Forester Wilderness off-roading. Same deal with the door bottoms. you have like a little bit of kind of a terrain map look to
that. Again, emphasizing the wilderness capabilities. Now, beyond all of the wilderness upgrades, let's talk quirks in this interior. Starting with all the basics, and that is this interior is pretty basic. You look around and you
don't really see any crazy luxury touches or design risks or unusual materials. It's mostly just straightforward, practical, solid, and well-laid out, but not particularly exciting or unusual or luxury. That's
pretty much what you've come to expect from Subaru. Solid, basic, usable, but not crazy or luxurious in any way. With that said, there are some nice practical touches in here, like for example, a camera button. You press this and it
the infotainment screen, which is nice to have kind of easy camera access, even if the camera is not that great. You also have this sort of hole opening in the cup holders in the center console that reaches all the way to the front to
the phone slot. And it's kind of cool actually. It fits an envelope. So if office, to the mail, whatever, they can fit inside of your little storage compartment here, which is a pretty smart idea actually. Doesn't remove any
functionality, but add some. Now, the big focal point of this interior is undoubtedly the center screen, which is this rather large vertical screen, big and mounted right in the middle. And there's some drawbacks and some benefits
to this screen. The primary benefits are number one, I like the vertical smartphones. People are already used to using a vertically oriented screen, and I wish more automakers would do a vertical screen like this. I also like
the fact that the mostused controls remain physical buttons or dials on the outside of the screen. So, your volume, your power button, your tuner, and some changing the climate temperature, remain physical controls. Those that don't are
actually really easy to figure out at the bottom of the screen, fixed in little tap and it's on. Instead of having to go into a menu like in some cars where you pull up the seats and steering wheel menu and figure it out,
here it's just a little tap, it works. Now, there are some drawbacks to this screen and the biggest is the fact that it's kind of slow to respond and sort of feels a little bit outdated. I already mentioned the camera system, which looks
reversing camera, which again, low resolution, not high quality. But you move on from the camera, and you can see stuff is slow to respond. screens are kind of slow to load. It really feels like it's in keeping with Subaru, which
is it works. It works well, but it's not like incredibly dynamic or exciting or modern or fresh. It just does what it needs to and nothing really more. And it doesn't go out of the way to do an amazing job. That's especially true, by
actually a little disappointed by. The gauge cluster is a full digital screen, and it looks pretty cool, but it's barely configurable. You can really only change the display that you see in the left part of the screen. And even then,
it just brings up kind of different small black and white info displays. Nothing huge. Can't get a full screen map or half map, half music or a phone info combined with all the other stuff. It's really very basic choices, even
the point of that would be more configurability. I will say it does give you the option of displaying the number of minutes you've been driving and the exact amount of fuel you've used down to the thousandth of a gallon in case you
want that information for some reason. You do have that display there, but I would probably trade that for maybe a different, more configurable display screen. And next up, we move on to the back seat, which is shockingly large for
a compact SUV. There's a lot of space back here. I'm tall and I'm fitting back here. No problem. Leg room, knee room. My knees aren't even close to the seat in front of me. Got a lot of headroom. The Forester has become shockingly large
inside. Certainly could easily use this as a family vehicle with car seats, etc. There's a lot of space back here. Pretty impressive. And there are some well. Start with the basics. Typical stuff. You have power ports back here, a
USBA and a USBC as you can see, and climate vents, which is a nice touch. not always seen in the back of compact crossovers, so it's nice to see it here. front seats, you have a storage pocket, as you can see, but then below that,
there's a second storage pocket, which is specifically segmented for phones. You can see the size of it is exactly designed to fit a vertically oriented while you're charging it, while the car is parked, whatever. And you have that
spot on the back of both front seats, which is pretty cool practical thinking. Now, in the back, you lose the imprinted Wilderness logo on the headrest. You can see merely generic headrest back here, but instead you gain on the off-road
trim on the floor a couple of little stars from the Subaru logo. So, not only do you get a little terrain map, but you get those little Subaru stars actually printed on the floor, which adds to the amusing nature of the wilderness
experience. Now, back here, you do have water bottle holders integrated into the rear doors, which is nice to see, but they are not specifically designed to be cup holders. For the cup holders, you have to go into the center seat and drop
down the armrest to get your cup holders, which is fine, but it does mean and still have a place for drinks, which is a little disappointing. By the way, speaking of that center seat, one interesting item here is the seat belt.
Now, by law, all seating positions must have a three-point belt over your shoulder. And here they've done it in an odd way. It comes from the ceiling, which you see on some cars, but then it has to be fed through this kind of hoop
mounted on the seat back in order to be correctly put in place to be a three-point belt. And once you do that, then you can hook it up to a different seat belt that's mounted in the seat bottom and then put it across your chest
in order to buckle it into that center seat belt. from all this stuff. They make it pretty clear to me that they don't expect many people to be riding in this center seat in back, but it is there for riders if you need it. And
finally, we move on to the cargo area in the Forester Wilderness. You pop open the power tailgate. You can see pretty generously sized cargo area back here. slides in place like basically everything has. And on the bottom of
this cargo area, you get this giant cargo floor mat which says Forester on it that includes a relief terrain map just like the rest of the kind of floor mats in the interior to really emphasize the wildernessy off-road capabilities of
this vehicle. Now, interestingly, there's actually some kind of cool stuff back here in this cargo area. Under the floor, you do not have any additional storage like you see in some cars, but you do have a spare tire, which is nice
to have. You also have a power port back here. It's not a household port, which I would love to see, but you do have a cigarette lighter style port where you can plug in devices or accessories, like for instance, a tire inflator if you're
going off-road. That's nice to see in the cargo area, even though I prefer a household. Also back here you have a speaker which is a kind of surprising touch since there's no seats in the cargo area but Subaru figures you might
they stick a speaker back here. You can listen to music while you're doing that and that's kind of a nice feature to see as well. I also like the fact you have a the tailgate that becomes kind of the lighting while you're in here getting
stuff out of the cargo area. And there's a switch. You can turn this light on or off. Meaning you can have the tailgate open. You don't have to have the light on potentially draining the battery if you're just sort of hanging out with the
tailgate open at a campsite, off-road, wherever you may be. Most importantly though, a neat feature this car has little switches on the side in the cargo area to drop the rear seats. You pull on the switch, the seat goes down. This is
something you typically see in midsize SUVs, not always in compact SUVs, nice to see it here. It adds a little bit of versatility and practicality in large item. You don't have to go around to the seats and manually drop them by
opening the rear door. But anyway, since we've covered all the quirks and features, let's move on to pricing and market position. This is actually a rather unusual vehicle. There's not a lot of off-road focused small
crossovers. Honda doesn't have anything like this with the CRV or the HRV. Mazda doesn't have anything like this with the CX-5 or the CX-50. Toyota offers sort of an off-road version of the RAV 4, but it is primarily cosmetic. The only real
rival to the Forester Wilderness is the Ford Bronco Sport Badlands, which is offered with a Sasquatch package that gives it some real off-road capability. Now, the Forester is cheaper. It starts right around $40,000. The Bronco Sport
Badlands is about $2,500 more expensive. However, the Bronos Sport is considerably more powerful. Like I mentioned, basically everything in this segment is, and it's more capable off-road. It has kind of meteor tires
and a few more capabilities that the Forester Wilderness doesn't have. So, what I would say is this is for going off-road. The Bronco Sport Badlands is for going off off-road. And then if you want to go off off-road, that's when you
get a real Ford Bronco or a Jeep Wrangler. Something that maybe compromises its on-road driving experience to maximize its off-road driving capabilities. With all that in mind, now it's time to get behind the
wheel of the Forester Wilderness and see how it drives. Let's do it. All right, how it drives. Let's do it. All right, driving the Forester Wilderness. you are driving the Forester Wilderness is it is slow, slow, slow, slow, slow,
is it is slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. I don't understand why Subaru cannot just be a little bit more generous with power. I'm not asking for insanity here, but a car that's doing 0 to 60 in 8.6 seconds in a world where
we've all been in an electric car that does it in 3 seconds for about the same money, it's a it's just a little it's a little slow. And you know, the new RAV 4, like I mentioned, is now 25 horsepower above this. Uh the Bronco
Sport is way beyond where this is. Like Subaru is always worst in class in power, and it feels it honestly when you're driving. And the result of that to kind of floor it to get up to speed, which is fine. It gets up to speed,
okay, and it's no problem, but it's loud. The car is working hard. You're like, you know, if you just gave me an extra 3040 horsepower, I maybe wouldn't have to push it so hard and work so hard, which is what other cars do. Now,
beyond that, though, I don't really have like actual complaints about this car from a driving experience perspective. These all-terrain tires are not exactly the most aggressive all-terrain tires you can get, which means that they're
not going to be the most impressive off the pavement, but the benefit is they the pavement, but the benefit is they ride not that differently from regular street tires. And so, I'm sitting here driving the car and it doesn't really
feel like I'm driving on all terrains, which you can often feel when you're they've chosen a pretty good tire to match kind of the character of this car, not going to go insanely, and you don't have to compromise onroad that much. So,
the tires are pretty good. The ride quality is pretty good, especially for a car at this price point around $40,000. This is pretty good ride quality. You do Certainly not a luxury car. You hear wind noise, like I mentioned, you hear
engine noise, not really any tire noise, but just driving around, you're hearing stuff going on. That's to be expected for this segment. a compact crossover at this price point. That's pretty standard. Uh but it is something to at
least, you know, mention. It's it's true of all this car's rivals, more or less. kind of more completely removed unless you go up to sort of a next price segment, sort of the mid- $50,000 range, you can do a little better. One thing
is worth noting, it doesn't drive ponderously. So, despite the fact that hardware, the bigger tires that add some weight, um it drives like a Subaru Forester. And if you would put me in this car and just, you know, said, "Hey,
you know, what do you think of this compact SUV?" I wouldn't even know that there's going to be people out there who are worried like, "Oh, I kind of want camping." But I'm worried it'll drive weird. Well, it doesn't. It drives like
notice it. It's definitely the right car to get if you're looking for that sort of off-road feel and you don't want to compromise onroad. This doesn't really. think that the the primary drawback really is is definitely the power. Um,
are no real other drawbacks. Like a lot of other Subarus, it is a solid feeling, nice, good vehicle. Like most other modern Subarus, there's not a little there's not a lot of fun component to this car, right? Like you're driving it
pavement if you if you take it out into the wilderness, but in terms of driving exciting, thrilling car. It is just simply a usable, competent one. And that's what this car is. Just like a good, usable, competent, reasonable
crossover. Does exactly what you'd expect. Totally no problem. Not really getting you there. They're not really going to give you a lot of fun or thrills, but it's totally fine, totally reasonable, uh totally usable, very
practical, and as a result of that, you know, everything is is pretty much like you'd expect. Steering, very predictable, very easy, no problems mean, I I reviewed the new Forester already. I I was very positive about it.
I think the wilderness one is is, you know, kind of a cool thing. I'm the wildernesses, the cross tracks and I'm surprised how many of them I see around. So, I think that this is a
consumers. And I think generally vehicle. Like I said, it's not going to light your hair on fire. It's not going add a little pop of capability without
think it looks kind of cool. Add some aggressiveness. It's just a a good vehicle that takes you a little bit further out into the world uh than your standard Forester. And so that's the 2026 Subaru Forester Wilderness. Most
people interested in a compact SUV probably won't ever take it off a paved road. But if you're looking for a little SUV that can do a little more, well, there's the Forester Wilderness. And now it's time to give this car a Doug score.
100, which puts the Forester Wilderness here against rivals. It actually ties the Outback Wilderness and the Cross Track Wilderness. All three Subaru Wildernesses have exactly the same score, and the one you should pick
depends on exactly what you want. The SUVishness of the Forester or the larger of the Cross Track. All three are great, though, I still prefer the Bronos Sport here. It may not have Subaru durability, but it offers better styling, much
stronger acceleration, and more off-road capability, and is just a little cooler.