2026 Subaru Outback Premium & Touring XT

Hi, and welcome back. I'm Mike Quincy. I'm Ryan Dulekowski, and I'm Mike Monticello.

So we are super excited to talk today about the 2026 Subaru Outback. This is an uber

popular model. It's got a pretty radical redesign and really marking the end of the

Outback as a wagon, which a number of us really liked and got all sentimental about. It's clearly

an SUV now, just looking at the styling. But even with the changes, the 2026 Outback dimensionally

is the same as the 2025. The roofline is a little bit higher, a little bit more headroom,

more cargo room. And in somewhat unusual twist, we actually bought two Outbacks to test. We bought

a premium, which comes with a base 2.5-liter engine and a Touring XT, which has a more powerful

turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder. And without getting too much in the weeds about options and

whatnot, we spent $40,098 in the premium and coughed up $50,290 for the Touring XT. So let's

just get right into it, obviously starting with the powertrain and going from there. Let's go

through a few details about how these trims are different. And Mr. Monticello, let's start with you.

Yeah, so I mean, you're right, you got to start with the powertrain because these two trims actually

are remarkably similar. You know, there's not that much difference between them, but the powertrain

is the really big thing, right? You're talking about 180 horsepower for the base trim, the base

engine without a turbo and then 260 horsepower with the turbocharged four-cylinder. And you know,

the bottom line is the turbocharged four-cylinder is a nicer engine. There's some things about the

the regular engine. For me, just starting right off right off the bean as you're getting going,

it has this kind of annoyingly abrupt throttle delivery. I call it the dreaded subi surge. Yes,

has a lot of love it. Subaru naturally aspirated engines have this where as soon as you hit the

gas pedal, the thing launches forward. And they do that with the lower horsepower vehicle so that

it makes them seem a little thicker than they really are. It's a CVT, but they kind of do something

with the gearing to make it seem like it's as little as a throttle delivery. It's not it's not

even the CVT. It's just the way that the throttle is tuned. And not only that, but even does sort of

like a dual surge, like you get that initial surge and then as you're getting going more,

another surge comes on. So that said, I think that, you know, if you can if you drive it gently,

you can get around that abruptness a little bit. And once you get going, it's actually not a bad

engine. It's not a, you know, the CVT works well, the beauty of a CVT is it can keep

the revs nice and low during regular driving. And it has enough power for most situations. But

if you need any kind of moderate acceleration or more, two things are going to happen, right? One,

it's going to get pretty loud, the engine. And it has to be revved pretty high to get some real

sauce. And there isn't that much left in reserve, you'll find when, you know, you think you're,

you're not that far with your throttle, and then you realize, oh, wow, I'm almost flooring.

And there isn't that much left, right? So, so that's, and the other thing I want to say is that

it does do simulated upshifts, the CVT, the continuously variable transmission,

which we typically like, right? Because it helps CVTs tend to, you know, let the revs wind out

really high. And that can get annoying. And when they do simulated upshifts, it bring keeps bringing

the revs back down. So it feels more like a regular automatic. But you got to be careful what you

wish for, because in this case, sometimes the, the simulated upshifts are rougher than the upshifts

of some regular automatics, especially when you're harder on the throttle. So not everything

is perfect with that engine. But and so because of that, I, you know, prefer the turbocharged

four cylinder, Ryan, I'm going to let, I'm going to let you speak about that a little bit, because

I, well, one thing I've gone on and on here. I like it better. I'll let you talk about some

of the things you like better about the turbo four. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's considerably more

powerful. And maybe not numbers wise, but it feels that way when you drive it. I mean, it's,

it doesn't, you know, it's not hunting, you know, you know, when you step in the throttle,

you're not getting the revs, the CVT to wind out. And because of that, you get less noise and

it's you get a little like a better experience altogether, right? But, you know, you just tip

into the throttle on that and it just, it takes right off. Now, these are little SUVs. So I'm

just picturing like with their XT, if I have this thing loaded to the gills, and it's already

feels low, you know, underpowered by myself in it, never mind the premium. I'm sorry, the

premium, I'm sorry. Yep. Yep. Well, it seemed backwards to me, the premium.

Premium doesn't seem premium anymore. I would think that's the higher term. That's what I

thought when you got him here. Anyway, yeah, so that's the first thing I think about. Like,

this thing already feels underpowered now. So the XT makes sense to me, like, okay,

because I'm going to put stuff in this, you could potentially tow a little bit with it,

whatever you're going to do. And just driving it, it's just, it feels more relaxed because you

don't have to, you don't have to beat it up so much, you know? I think that's the main thing.

And that goes a long way. It makes you just feel like you're in a nicer car and because

they're not that much different otherwise, right? Yeah, I think you're so right that it just feels

like it doesn't have to work anywhere as hard as the regular engine, right? And I also, you know,

it's not perfect either. There's a little bit of a propness off the line, but nothing like the

regular engine with this engine. And the funny thing is that it also has a CVT and it doesn't do

simulated upshifts in the way that the regular one does it pretty much only does them if you're

pretty hard on the throttle. So I kind of missed that a little bit, but it didn't matter because

it has that extra power to work with. And when it goes back to CVTs in general, we've always,

like a little more power from the motor helps that CVT behave a little better. So the package is

always a little better when it has a little more power. Historically, we've kind of always seen that.

Did you also find like, again, first of all, I really do like this turbo engine. We've seen it

in other vehicles, we've seen it in the Ascent. It is a nice engine, but it does do kind of these

surging moments at other times. Like, I noticed sometimes I'd be going along and maybe I lift

off the throttle and then I get back on the throttle, and then the power will come on more

abruptly. Like again, there's something about the delivery. Again, I still would much rather have

this engine than the regular engine, but it's honestly, it's not perfect either.

Right. And just like in day-to-day living with the non-turbo engine, for me, it's like merging on

the highway. And you get going, okay, just like you said, Monty, but then you need some more power.

You can see the traffic coming up behind you. And so you put your foot down, you get a lot of

sound and fury, not a lot of power. And you're like, okay, come on, let's go now. And getting

into the turbo models is a different animal. I think it's interesting when you talk about

the pros and cons of the CVT and turbo engines with Subaru and maybe most manufacturers,

early turbos used to have a lot of turbo lag. And I don't think we're really seeing that,

at least with Subaru's application and CVT's overall, seem to be getting better. They're not

the dreaded, three letter word that people would get upset about. Sorry, traditional turbo lag,

I think is kind of a thing of the past, right? Thank goodness. If anything, we'll see delays,

but it's really throttle mapping or transmission issues or DSGs. But it's not really the engine

itself. The power is there right away nowadays. I can remember years ago, yeah, you would sometimes

have to wait for these things to wind up and then all of a sudden just slung you in back in the seat.

Yeah. And that's no fun either. And it was a four-wheel drive, you'd get like torque steering

all the way. So a lot of the weirdness of either turbos or turbos or CVT's have been tamed by

Subaru. And that's really nice. We're not done testing these cars yet. But certainly,

looking at the logbook comments, most of us prefer the turbo. And I think, you know,

that's right now, we're thinking, yeah, if I was going to buy one of these.

Well, yeah, you know what's funny? It's not a small difference in price.

No, you're right. Like, I mean, you were talking, it's not like two, three grand.

It's $10,000. It's $10,000. That's a lot of money.

It would be a no brainer if it was, but it's not a no brainer.

That's where it becomes difficult because it's like, wow, I mean, that's a lot of money.

It's a lot nicer, but I don't know if it's how much nicer is it? And, you know,

if you're in the market for one of these cars, you know, this is in some high end luxury vehicles.

So you're paying attention to what you're spending probably, right? I don't know.

That's a lot of extra money for that. Yeah. And so when we talk about the differences

with the engine, let's look at a few other things that distinguish one model from the other.

And the first one that comes to my mind are the seats. So can we talk about how the XT's seats

are different than the premium? Yeah. So the XT, I mean, first of all, I like both front seats.

They both work well for me. They're both pretty good bolsters and good comfort,

but the Touring XT has more features. So it has a 12-way power driver seat with four-way

lumbar support and one of those manual leg extenders. And the cushion, yeah.

Yeah, on the front edge of the cushion. I love that too.

And it also has an eight-way power front passenger seat. So when you look at the premium that we

have, it has a 10-way power driver seat with two-way lumbar support, no leg extension ability,

and a four-way manual front passenger seat. So some big differences right there.

And more than that, although if you look at the seats side by side, the shape looks pretty similar,

but the Touring XT's seat has a longer bottom cushion, which for me worked better. I got to

imagine some of the long legs like you. It must have worked even better. So I just found the

comfort and support better in the Touring XT. So it's just another thing that you're getting

for that extra money that you're spending. Yeah, it's not just a motor. There are a few other

things. Did the seats, did you find similar that you preferred the ones in the Touring XT as well?

Yeah, they're both okay. They're both good, but the XT was better. I have an issue with driving

position if you don't want to jump into that. So the seat doesn't go low enough in either car.

That's a Subaru problem for you, isn't it? I know the cross-track is the same thing.

Yeah. Even with the extra headroom that this model has compared to the last.

Yeah, it's still not thick. Yeah, it's weird. I thought that too. It's just a little taller.

It's almost like getting into a Forester. The Forester always like, you know, but this isn't,

it's not that way. I get in there and sometimes you have the sunroof issues too, where the

ceiling is a little lower because of the sunroof built in. So unless your head's where the sunroof

is, which it's not in this case, it doesn't help me. So yeah, so I found myself just not getting

low enough. And when I get in a car and I can't get the seat low enough and get in a good position,

I cry. No, I don't. We can't have rides. It is funny that when you, at the end of the day,

you walk out into the parking lot and you see, you know, this big burly guy out there in the

driver's seat crying in the test car. You feel bad. I didn't cry. No, because it would be so great

if I could just get a little like, I need to go down like an inch me, right? And there's reasons

they didn't make that or couldn't do that. But yeah, the seats, I think they're good. The XT is

better. But the driving position suffers a little bit for both for me. Yeah. Right. So maybe on

the taller side of the drivers, people would feel that. I think Monty, for you and I,

that you guys were fine. Yeah, because we're not quite... Did you like the Tourian XT seats better

as well? Absolutely. I keep trying to find, it's like, oh, I disagree with that. My goodness,

you guys, this is such a boring podcast. I'm still like the logicality of Ryan's. Well,

why is the premium model not the top model? Logicality? That's a word question.

Technologia? It's probably not. Okay, so we got seats. We got driving position. Let's talk a

little bit about fit and finish. Like you guys, sometimes you get into both. We got the white

one. We got the green one. And sometimes they seem so similar. So are we seeing $10,000 more

for the interior fit and finish compared looking at the two? Well, you're the... What are you

looking at us for? You're the fit and finish guy. As super produced, David, I don't know anything.

One of the guys on staff that handles actually scoring the fit and finish of the cars, I will say

this. I noticed very few differences between them. The biggest one would be that the Tourian XT

comes with Napa leather. And the premium has what they call Star-Tex, the Leatherette upholstery.

Which is pretty... They almost look and feel similar. Right.

Beyond that, I thought they were very similar. And I'll let you speak to any big differences.

But what I will say is, one of the things I really like about both of them is that they have

lined door pockets. Now, that's a weird pet peeve of mine maybe because of my time scoring fit and

finish. But you just don't see actual lining in door pockets at these prices. And it's not like

it's amazing. Like Volvo also does it. Volvo's more expensive vehicles. Their material is more like,

you know, soft carpet inside. This is cheaper. But most door pockets anywhere near this price

range are just plastic all the way around. Possibly not even a rubber base, just plastic

everywhere. And so, I kind of give them credit for doing that. And there's some other nice things

like soft touch window sails front and rear, nicely padded and stitched upper door panels,

nicely grained plastic trim around like the interior door release and the mirror controls

and window controls. And same with some of that on the center console. So, some actually pretty

nice stuff in there. But what is there a big difference? Not much. I mean, when you talk about

the door panels and the mid-dash area for the premium, it's sort of like soft to the touch

fabric. It almost looks like the corduroy, if you remember what corduroy's were like.

For the X, for the Turbo XT, that's kind of a kind of a leatherette with exposed stitching.

And Subur also says that the wrapped steering wheel is a little nicer for the XT.

But again, a casual person probably wouldn't know. Well, that's what they say in their press.

Sure. And $10,000. No, no. Of course, it's more than just the finish. I mean, it's the engine,

it's the seat. They're both nice. But the differences are way more stark when you drive it,

as opposed to just looking at it. And also, looking at it, the wheels and tires are different

between the two. Ryan, you want to comment on that a little bit? Yeah. So, the XT has bigger wheels,

fancier wheel and tire package. I'd actually opt for the premiums, the smaller wheels and

more. So that sidewall gives a little bit better ride. They both ride really well.

Like really well. But I think, and it's kind of for two different reasons. I don't know what this

suspension tuning is a little different, but then also that wheel and tire offset it because

less sidewall, a little stiffer. 100% agree. More sidewall, a little more compliance,

but then the suspensions are different. So there's some, but they almost bounce out pretty well.

But yeah, that being said, I mean, they both ride really nice. And I think for that type of car,

it's very appropriate for that type of vehicle. I think anyone that buys it is going to be pretty

happy with it. I pull out of here with the XT the first day I had it, and then go down the dirt

road. And that's like, just Powell's got it from the winter and it just soaks everything up. And I

was like rather impressed with it, which that's, that's what I was expecting though. It's an outback,

right? It is an outback trait. However, one of the outback traits that I'm finding to be very

different between the previous model and the ones that we have are the noise levels. And we touched

on that with the regular engine has to work harder to move the mass of the outback. So that's

like one aspect of noise. But for me, also spending a lot of time with both these models on

highway, there's a lot of wind noise. There's a lot of road noise. The boxy shape is, you know,

the Subaru was like, we need to make it more like an SUV than a wagon. Well, the downside of that

is it's a brick through the wind. Yeah, I got a fair amount of wind noise, even some road noise

on the back roads. Yeah, I thought the road noise was, I actually thought the road noise was worse

in the premium. I don't know if there's different insulation between the cars or if it's just purely

a tire thing, because could be, you know, they are different size wheels and tires.

But yeah, so the road noise is definitely gets elevated. And while the naturally aspirated

four cylinder for the most part, if you're just driving casually, it's no big deal stays in the

background. And even just, you know, cruising on the highway at 70, it's not like it's, you know,

all encompassing or anything. It's mostly in the background. But it's those situations anytime

you need any kind of like I said, moderate acceleration and more, there's a stark difference.

And look, they're both horizontally opposed four cylinders, right? Flat fours, box or fours,

whatever you want to call them. And they have a unique sound. And to some ears, including mine,

they don't always sound better than inline four cylinder, right? So that is part of not only

is it an elevated sound, but it's a slightly odd sounding sound. So there's that to keep in mind.

And because of that, the touring XT I think is unquestionably the quieter car overall.

If for nothing more than the engine alone, that it's the turbo is muffling this, you know,

turbo is muffled sounds. And also just the fact that it has more power, it doesn't need to rev as

high. Exactly. And when you when you talk to car reviewers, they'll often bring up this term

NVH is like noise vibration and harshness. And one of the things that I think is indicative

of Subaru with this flat four engine to go on what you're saying is like when you start it,

and sometimes just at idle, like the engine shakes a little bit, and it kind of shakes the car a

little bit. And some people might be put off, I think it's kind of cool. It's an engine, I love it.

And it revs high too, at idle. They think right off a rev pretty high. You can feel the whole car

kind of shaking a little bit just when the engine is running. And so there's definitely some vibration

there. It's a little mechanical device. It's like, you know, reminds me of like a, you know, a 70s

era transient with the shaker hood. You can see the whole thing moving in the car. It's a unique

sound, right? It's definitely a unique sound. It's not like it's terrible, but it is going to sound

different and potentially louder than some other engines. Yeah, even the turbo four I thought

sounded just sounds doesn't sound great. It's like, you know, but hey, we want to neglect

other parts of the car, like the interior, like we talked about finish, but let's let's chat about

the controls a little bit. Some of the big news about this outback is a much bigger screen is

going horizontal as opposed to vertical. What did you guys think of the controls overall?

I kind of like them. I mean, the screen is big. It's pretty easy to navigate. The climate stuff

is easy to navigate. I'm not a huge controls guy. I try to make keep things as simple as possible

and drive the car. But yeah, I think, you know, we've gone back and forth with them where they

have the heated seat buttons and all this stuff. And I think they finally have it pretty well sorted

out. Yeah, what do you think? Yeah, I I think the best part about the controls for me is that

they have all physical climate controls. And we've seen this is so this is a new kind of a new thing

for them is that we've seen in a lot of super is lately where the the vast majority of the climate

controls are in the the center screen. Yeah, the portrait oriented touchscreen, right? So it's

taller than it is wide on these other super is. And so the climate controls end up being

toward the bottom of the screen. And most of them are in the screen other than like temperature

buttons, which are the only physical ones. And I think defrost buttons. So here,

they're all physical controls. And of course, that's what we've been pushing automakers to go

back to. And they have that here. I also say in a weird note, because I am a weird dude, and I like

never know. I love I love that two of the driver screen views have an actual tachometer, like

there's multiple views you can switch between, which is cool that you can do that. But two of

them have an actual tachometer. And I love that. So I think they're kind of in some ways, going

back to some, some a better way of doing some controls, some aspects of the controls.

I would agree. Overall, pretty simple, doesn't require lots of orientation or your salesperson

standing over your shoulder. And this is how you do this. And they say you do that.

It's all pretty straight forward. And that's, yeah, exactly. That's, that's really refreshing.

Goes along. It kind of goes a long way, you know, but let's, but let's kind of go into

not, not the weeds, but there's no hybrid option. Now, is this a mistake that Subaru is making with

the Outback? Maybe it's coming. Yeah, that's what I'd, I'd, I'd lean. Maybe they're not telling

us. I guess it's coming. I mean, because we've seen it now in the Forester, we've seen it in

Cross Trek. They use some Toyota source components, which is a real smart move that no one does

hybrids like Toyota. So those are real smart moves. So I would say since so many,

so much powertrains are shared between all the supermodels, I'd say it's a, it's a good bet

that a hybrid's coming. Okay. Well, maybe it's around the corner. Who knows? We might be testing

another app these days. And finally, we have to talk about the styling. Okay. Can you call it

styling? Now, this is not something that we, this is not something that, that we evaluate. You

don't get points for, again, styling or something like that. But we're car people, talking cars,

audience are car people. This is where it all goes south for me. I don't dig the body cladding.

I don't, it's just a big blocky mess. There's no, there's no round softness to it at all.

And when, when, when you think about like the wheel wells, first of all, they have the fake

grab handles, which drive me those. I couldn't tell if that was like, uh, you're supposed to pull

on it or you push on it and it like pops out and becomes a bottle holder. Like what the heck are

those for? I don't know. It's a weird touch because it does look like a handle. Yeah, I, yeah. My,

my issue is though, yeah, it's a lot, but like 50% of the body mass is plastic and the rest is,

you know, metal or painted plastic, whatever. But like, it's very like, just blocky and chopped up

and it's not very cohesive. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I wrote in the log book

that the Alpax, a totally fine vehicle, if you don't have to look at it from your side out. And

the other thing I said was it, it reminds, all I can think when I look at it is the family truckster

from National Lampoon's vacation. If you go and look up that, uh, you'll see that there is some

real similarities. It's a little awkward. Yeah. The final detail that just kills it for me are the,

are the, the wheel wells. They're squared off. You think round tire squared off wheel well.

But when, the first time I saw it, it reminded me of the early 2000s Toyota 4Runner and Chevrolet

Avalanche. And I'm sure, and it's totally the great is flashing those images right now. And it

also is key to note that, that, that Chevrolet and Toyota softened those during before, like a full

redesign of either the 4Runner, the Avalanche, they made those wheel wells rounder, better looking.

And so you can only hope the Subaru is listening right now, because if you're going to do some kind

of a mid cycle refresh for goodness sakes, please fix those wheel wells. Make wheel wells round again.

Exactly. No. It's a new campaign. So, kind of putting, putting a wrap on this. Who do you think

is going to be buying the premium? And, and what do you think like a touring XT customers like?

And Ryan, I'll, I'll start with you. I don't know. I mean, we talked about it earlier. It's,

it's not a small amount different in price. I mean, it's considerable, an extra $10,000.

If you, yeah, I mean, if you, Wow, we got him stumped.

I'm looking at myself like, what would I, I don't know. That's a lot of money.

But I do like, I do appreciate the power that the XT has. The XT interior doesn't make me feel

like I need that, that for that much money. And otherwise they ride the same. So it's very like,

to me, it was mostly the engine that's giving you that premium. I don't know. I mean,

you can really pinch and pennies and you want a nice, super practical car. Right? I mean,

I think the, the, the premium is going to be okay. You just have to deal with a little bit of

underpoweredness. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think you'd go with the premium because you want to

save some money. You know, in our case, the, they were about $10,000 different, but actual base

prices between these two trims is more like $13,000, you know, without any options, you know,

we got some options on our, on our premium. So that's not insurmountable. And then you're talking,

you know, better fuel economy, right? 27 MPG combined for the premium and 24 MPG combined

for the Touring XT. So according to the EPA, according to the EPA, we'll do our own testing,

of course. So I think when you think about right now, what's going on in the world or what's going

on with the economy, fuel prices, I could see why this would be a good time to spend as little money

as you can as possible. So I could see going with it. But that said, if you can swing it and you

can pay the extra upfront for the, for the Touring XT or the, what's the other trim that

comes with that? The limited XT. So if you can swing it and you know that you're going to take

that fuel economy hit, it's just going to be a nicer vehicle overall. That powertrain does

make a big difference in your everyday drivability, livability, appreciability. Again, probably not

a word either, but you will enjoy the turbocharged engine much more than the regular engine.

Yep. I'm with you on the limited XT. I think that's the one to go. But, you know, this just

remind the audience, keep it, you know, this is, we have a, so kind of our first impressions

of the Outback. We have a full road test video, takes an even deeper dive and

check out consumerreports.org for more updates as we wrap up our testing and, you know, overall

Outback pretty favorable, pretty positive. Whether or not the styling works for you,

it's a different issue. That's a personal choice. Definitely a personal choice. It's not up to you,

right? They wore up to me. You wouldn't have those squared off wheel wells. God. Anyhow,

let's move on to our audience questions, which we love. Please keep them coming. Text 30 second

videos. Just go to talkingcarsaticloud.com. That's talkingcarsaticloud.com. If we use your question

on the podcast, we'll send you a groovy t-shirt, some kind of auto test swag. So keep them coming.

And we have one. This is Robert from Phoenix, Arizona, who writes,

I have a 2023 Mercedes EQS 450 plus electric SUV. And I'm looking for replacement tires.

Is it always recommended to use EV dedicated tires? Or can I use any tire that fits my car's

specification? Mike Monticello, do we have a tire expert anywhere? It's not me. Near,

right here. Right here. I think you guys can answer this actually. Right here.

Right, Pislakowski. Tires, man. What do you got for Robert?

So the answer is his question. No, you can put any tire on that vehicle that, as long as you

satisfy the requirements, speed rating, load, and size. Make sure you have the right size on there.

We actually did a little experiment last year. Last year? Let me strike a time. Maybe two years

ago. Last year. We tested an array of replacement tires on a Tesla Model 3. And we found, guess what,

tires just like, these replacement EV tires are just like all the other replacement tires we test

to compromise. The chances are the tire that comes on their vehicle, OE from the factory,

on an EV, are going to be probably the most low rolling resistance because they're trying to get

that range up, get the efficiency, right? However, you give up some things with that. We found the

Tesla that we tested on, the OE tire, wasn't as good in the snow, winter traction, hydroplaning,

because the tread's shallower. It was a smoother, lower rolling resistance tire to get that efficiency

up. So still a great tire on the car. It was fine. But we put replacement EV tires and even regular

replacement tires that you'd put on a Camry. That satisfied the requirements. And the results

were actually quite mixed. The regular replacement tire actually did quite well. Up to all your

winter traction, even the braking distances were great. And you only really, our projections

only showed us losing maybe 10, 15 miles of range with some of these tires. So if you can

handle that, a little bit of loss, but you'll gain all this other stuff potentially. So the

answer is question. Yeah, you can put anything on there. I'd say take a look at our ratings

and see what you're... What's important to you? What's important to you? Did you live up north

and you're worried about snow traction? Yeah, if you live down south and you're not, the OE tire

might be just fine. So do you think EV-specific tires are a marketing thing or they really

are specific to EVs? They're doing things to help these tires be better EV tires. However,

our findings show that there was a lot of marketing involved in that because, like I said,

we took a regular replacement car tire, a General RT-45, slapped it on that Model 3 and we lost a

little range and it did everything else very, very well. So it did some things better than the OE

tire that had come on the car. Yes, but the OE tire did have tremendous dry and wet grip.

But when it came to hydroplaning and snow traction, stuff like that, it fell a little

short because just the way these tires were built, low rolling resistance tires will have

less mass to them. So they have a shallower tread. You know, literally an old brand new tire on the

car coming from the factory will have a little bit less tread than maybe a replacement one would.

Then you run into you lose some tread wear there too. So again, there's so many factors to this

but if he matches the loads and the size and everything, he can put anything else on there,

but there will be some trade-offs depending. Load rating being very important because EVs

are quite heavy. Oh no, that's yeah, they are heavier. So yeah, in almost all cases now they'll

be an XL load range. So yeah, it's, there's no perfect answer but it depends on your priorities

really is what it comes down to. Right, but to me it sounds like there's no difference between

replacing your regular internal combustion engine tire and an EV tire because like a regular gas

car, you're going to make some compromises. You might get a better ride but you might get

worse fuel economy or might get better fuel economy but less grip. So there's always compromises

and EV replacement tires are the same. You're dealing with the same compromises.

You're still getting those compromises and honestly you're going to spend a fair amount of money on

from what I've seen that they were quite expensive. The old tire. Yeah, so it's funny actually

a little anecdote story from here. We had a 450 plus SUV and John Ibbison in the shop was like,

hey we need tires for this thing. There's only two available because it was a 21 inch wheel which

this Mercedes comes with three different sizes I believe one of them the 21 which is not a common

size and the replacement OE tires were these kind of unique European style summer tires with low

rolling resistance. They were like $450 a piece and we couldn't even get our hands on them and we

needed this car to drive around. So we ended up putting some replacement tires that we tested

some driving cross-line at twos and the car was great. We could drive it in the winter,

we're no issues and we saved some money too believe it or not even buying a premium tire

like a mission. So it's worth looking around, take a look at our ratings and just understand

that there can be a compromise and the OE tire that came on the car likely is the most efficient

but you might give up other things and I'm not sure if there's driving range. Yeah, exactly. I'm

not sure if he's happy with the rest of the performance and whatnot but yeah. Well, Ryan

Pislakowski like Monticello the excellence of execution and that and that will do.

That will do it for this episode which was conducted by Dave super producer Abrams and

expertly added by Andrew. I still play hockey Belize and of course Anatoly the great Shumski

as always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics that we discussed

and just a reminder keep your questions coming go to Talking Cars at iCloud.com and also since we

have to buy all these tires for Ryan a reminder that CR is a non-profit organization we have a

donate button on our YouTube page so please consider helping us out so we can keep on Talking Cars.

Thanks so much for tuning in we'll see you next week.

2026 Subaru Outback Premium & Touring XT

About this episode

CVT

rev hunting

simulated upshifts

surging moments

turbo lag

manual leg extenders

two-way lumbar support

four-way manual front passenger seat

Forester

sunroof

Subaru Outback Premium

Napa leather

Leatherette upholstery

sidewall

compliance

wind noise

Renault Wind

NVH

physical climate controls

center screen climate controls

portrait oriented touchscreen

physical controls

tachometer

hybrid option

Toyota

wheel wells

options

Mercedes EQS 450 plus

General RT-45

tread wear

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