2022 Subaru BRZ review (inc. 0-100) Is it different enough from the old one
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00:00G'day, I'm Paul, I've been waiting a while to drive this.
00:03It is the Subaru BRZ, it of course shares a platform with the Toyota 86, or 8-6 depending
00:09on which part of the world you're from.
00:11This is an interesting car because in a world where we're moving to EV and everything's
00:16got an auto or a CVT of some description, this is a rear-wheel drive manual sports car,
00:22and I think this is very rare, especially today.
00:25So, this competes with things like the Toyota 86 because it kind of shares the platform
00:28with it, the Mazda MX-5, and it doesn't really have any other competitors outside of that
00:33because the rest are kind of just front-wheel drive hot hatches, so it is kind of in a world
00:37of its own.
00:38In Australia, this top spec here, the S variant, is priced at a little over $40,000 for the
00:43six-speed manual that we have here, but if that's too expensive, the entire range kicks
00:47off at a little under $39,000, so the S just gives you a couple of extra sort of bells
00:51and whistles.
00:52Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead
00:54to other parts of the review, you can use the timecodes on the screen, or if you're
00:58on YouTube, scroll down, we have some chapters down there for you, and if you haven't done
01:01so already, subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon, so you can find out every single
01:05time I get attacked by flies.
01:09Let's talk exterior design.
01:10So, you've got seven external colours to pick from, and they are all free of charge.
01:15What do you reckon about this design?
01:16I think it is just the perfect evolution from the old car, so this doesn't sit on a brand
01:21new platform, it's kind of just a modified version of the existing platform, so beneath
01:25the skin it's fairly similar.
01:27In terms of the dimensions, it has changed a little bit, so it's 25mm longer than the
01:30outgoing model, sits 15mm lower, and the wheelbase is 5mm longer as well, so a couple of little
01:36tweaks there, but outside of that it's mainly the same.
01:38Over here you've got a set of LED headlights with the washers built into there, down here
01:43you've got cooling for that little 2.4 litre engine, and of course Subaru badge.
01:47This is the only non-all wheel drive Subaru on sale, the rest of Subaru's models are all
01:52wheel drive, so because of that shared platform they've gone down the path of just adopting
01:55whatever Toyota has come up with with Subaru's engine.
01:59Around the side here we have a set of 18 inch alloy wheels, love that design, so pretty
02:05basic and straightforward, it's got like a graphite finish to it, and I think it just
02:09stands out really nicely, especially here with the blue colour.
02:12Now a lot of you jumped up and down when I said Michelins were no good in the wet, what
02:16I meant to say was Michelins are no good in the wet until they're warm, and it's the same
02:20story here, this morning it was raining and there was just no traction at all, the second
02:23they got a little warmer it was far better, so this runs on a set of Michelin Pilot Sport
02:274 tyres.
02:28Michelins are my pick of the performance tyre bunch because they really do offer everything
02:32from entry level sports tyre right through to proper sort of R-compound tyres, so yeah,
02:37big fan of those.
02:38Now around the back here you have a set of air vents that come in through the back of
02:42that wheel.
02:43Up the top here you've got a body coloured top to the wing mirror, there is no indicator
02:46built into there, it sits right up the front of the car there and that lights up when you
02:49pop the indicator on.
02:51It's pretty short, like look at me, I'm 185ish centimetres tall and you can see where the
02:55car sits, so when you do get inside this, make sure you don't have back problems because
02:59it is quite low to the ground.
03:01So around the back I quite like this design as well, so it's just so beautifully proportioned,
03:05it sticks out nicely at the rear there, Toyota and Subaru really have just gone to a lot
03:09of effort to give this a really sporty demeanour out on the road.
03:12You've got a set of twin exhaust pipes down the bottom here, and because it was raining
03:15this morning the car is a little bit dirty, but behind there you can see BRZ or BRZ depending
03:19on where you're from, another Subaru logo and then Subaru lettering.
03:23This button here opens the boot, so with one push of that it cracks open and then that's
03:26where your camera is located with a brake light built into there and a shark fin aerial
03:31at the top.
03:32Now let me know what you think about the design, do you think this styling change for the BRZ
03:37or BRZ at the 86 is good or do you think they could have done a little bit more?
03:42Really keen for your feedback down there.
03:43So we're inside the BRZ, let's start off with the keys.
03:46So you've got lock, unlock, boot, Subaru logo is your unlock button and then it's blank
03:53on the back.
03:54This looks like every other Subaru key but it is a proximity sensing key, so you leave
03:57that in your pocket, grab the door handle and then once you're inside you have a push
04:01button start here.
04:02So on the design front, look, this car was never really about setting a new standard
04:08in luxury sports cars, it really was all about just keeping it simple and that is exactly
04:13what they've done here and that is also why pretty much every surface is hard and scratchy
04:19and I think that if you're going to be using this as a track car or even as a daily you
04:22probably don't care all that much.
04:24They have updated the infotainment system so it has a Subaru infotainment system that
04:29works quite well and I'll get to that in a second but the rest of this is all sort of
04:32pretty straightforward.
04:33What I am excited to play with while we go for a drive are the gauge cluster ahead of
04:38the driver here, you can configure a few little different things there so we'll have a play
04:41with that later on.
04:42So what about your touch points?
04:44So that centre section which opens up is quite soft and then on the door it's quite soft
04:48as well.
04:49How soft are those points?
04:50Well we've got our gyrometer, we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin, if you want
04:53to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link
04:57in the description.
04:58Build quality, so let's give this a little shake.
05:01It all actually feels really nice and solid.
05:04Hey tell me, if you owned the previous version of the BRZ or the 86, what has build quality
05:09been like?
05:10Has it been good to live with?
05:11Let me know down there.
05:12And finally, door test.
05:17That sounds pretty good.
05:18OK, let's talk infotainment.
05:21One of the things that I really didn't like about the old 86 and the BRZ was the infotainment
05:25system, it was like an ancient Toyota unit.
05:28This finally has the same infotainment system you'll find on a new Subaru today.
05:32So you're getting an 8-inch infotainment screen, so it's a colour touchscreen and then you
05:36have shortcut buttons on either side.
05:39In terms of your navigation, there is satellite navigation built into the actual head unit
05:44itself, or alternatively you can use smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and
05:48Android Auto.
05:49Both of those are wired, so you can see Apple CarPlay there.
05:52Full screen integration, nice and quick as well.
05:55And this is what Android Auto looks like.
05:58So again, full screen integration and pretty decent setup.
06:03Slightly laggy as you scroll up and down there, but for the most part that looks good.
06:06On the radio front, you have AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio, and that's all plumbed
06:12through a six-speaker sound system.
06:14Sound system is okay, it's not going to set the world on fire, so you might have to get
06:17an aftermarket one if you do love your music.
06:20Now let's talk about the screen ahead of the driver.
06:22So I know the old BRZ had a screen there ahead of the driver, but I think I like the look
06:27of this one a little bit better.
06:28So you've got all your power and torque stuff, and I'll go over that when we go driving,
06:32but included in that screen on the left-hand side are things like your trip computer and
06:36then other settings that you can play with as well.
06:38And then on the right-hand side, you have your engine temperature, fuel, outside temperature.
06:41So they've kept it pretty simple, but there are a lot of settings in there you can configure
06:45if you are doing track days and that kind of thing.
06:48So I do like that they have given the driver a lot of opportunity to set it up the way
06:51they like it.
06:52Now what about your safety technology?
06:54It's a brand new car in 2022, unfortunately they have literally stripped this bear of
07:00safety technology and I just can't understand why.
07:04So the automatic comes with all the stuff you'd expect, but the manual on the other
07:07hand really doesn't.
07:08All it includes is blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror, rear cross traffic alert
07:13and a lane change assistant.
07:16Outside of that, there is nothing else here, so you don't get any autonomous emergency
07:19braking or any of the basic safety stuff that you get on virtually every other car today.
07:24And I think it is to do with the manual transmission, but the odd thing is you can get plenty of
07:27other cars that have manuals with all of that technology.
07:30So pretty disappointing that Subaru has not included that here as part of the BRZ.
07:35The disappointment kind of also continues to parking where here for Australia we don't
07:38get any front or rear parking sensors, all you get is a reverse view camera and there
07:44it is there.
07:45Quality is not too bad actually and then you have guidelines that move with the steering
07:48wheel too, but yeah it would be nice to have parking sensors and basic safety technology.
07:53Moving on to practicality and we'll start off with your connectivity options.
07:57So they're all in here, so let me just ditch that for a sec.
08:00You've got one auxiliary outlet for people who still have auxiliary devices, two USB-A
08:06ports and you might be asking yourself where is the 12 volt?
08:09Well the 12 volt is located here in the glove box, it's all the way up there.
08:12So there is one but it is kind of tucked away.
08:15Now what about storing your phone?
08:17Well there is no wireless phone charging but it can live over here in the cup holder pretty
08:21easily and then on the cup holder, it does not fit my little coffee and that means the
08:25lid's likely to come off.
08:27The other problem as well is while you're driving, if you want to get your drink, you
08:30got to go all the way back here to grab it and it is really just a silly position to
08:34have it but it kind of makes sense because you have a manual handbrake here instead of
08:39the electronic type, so it eats into all of your space.
08:42Anyway, in terms of the rest of our bottles, so that fits in there normally but no teeth
08:46so it does move around a little bit and then you have bottle storage here inside the door.
08:50I am curious to see if our big bottle fits in there because that is a giant cavity.
08:54Look at that, it does, that is pretty cool, so that is a very clever use of that space.
08:59Instead of having this up the top here, they've kind of lowered it down so you can get the
09:02bottle in without any dramas at all and then you also have a glove box as well, reasonably
09:06sized and like I mentioned, that's where you're going to find your 12-volt outlet.
09:09Now what about your comfort functions?
09:10Well you have dual zone automatic climate control, bumping yourself up to the S grade
09:15brings with it heated seats that you operate here.
09:18I do like these seats, they have a high back to them that really hugs you in nicely.
09:23The S pack brings the Alcantara sort of suede finish here and also a top the gauge cluster.
09:28I love the red stitching straight through the centre there as well, they are a really
09:32good seat.
09:33The other big bonus as well is that you can remove the headrest so you can have a helmet
09:36in the car without constantly whacking your head there.
09:39You can turn it around as well if you want to and that will support the helmet without
09:43pushing your head forward.
09:45Steering wheel offers just tilt and reach adjustment, it's all manual and then the seat
09:50controls are all entirely manual for both the driver and front passenger as well.
09:54And our reach test, well all of this stuff is very easy to reach while you're driving.
09:58Now let's talk about the second row.
10:00I'm going to climb in here.
10:03Now so you can hear all those noises, my knees creaking and stuff.
10:08Now this is made for petite people and I'm not petite, I do like petite fours but I'm
10:13not petite.
10:14So really realistically this is going to be a very occasional use second row.
10:20Even with my driver's seat pretty much all the way forward I wouldn't be able to drive
10:23in that position, I still can't fit back here.
10:26But you do get ISOFIX points and that means you can stick a child seat in here if you
10:30need to.
10:31And look, to be honest, Igor will be in here when we're doing our driving so he can fit
10:36in here uncomfortably but he still can and I think that means that if you do need to
10:40use it you can if you want to.
10:43Only two seats, nothing here in the second row except the driveline that runs down the
10:46centre of the car.
10:47Now let's talk about cargo space.
10:48So obviously this is not an SUV so you're not going to have a great deal of it.
10:52You have a little over 200 litres of cargo space there and that's partly thanks to this,
10:57it's a full-size spare tyre and look I'm not actually that concerned about the boot space.
11:03The fact that you actually get a full-size spare on an alloy wheel is pretty cool.
11:06I think if you did fit a space saver you could then have a flat floor if you wanted to but
11:10you do have little bits of storage off to the side for your tools and stuff like that.
11:14Yes, it is going to be hard to fit stuff into there as I'll demonstrate right now and outside
11:19of that as well you don't really have any other sort of creature comforts in there so
11:22laptop bag fits in and then our suitcase.
11:26This is around the size of a carry-on bag for the plane so you can see there it just
11:30sort of fits in and that will be able to close without any dramas at all.
11:34Now if you do need a little bit more space you can actually drop the second row so it
11:39means you obviously can't have any passengers in there, not that you can really fit any
11:42passengers anyway but it gives you a little bit more load space to you know put your other
11:46spare tyres in.
11:47So we've hit the road in the BRZ, let's start off with the engine.
11:54So it has been increased in terms of its size so it's gone from a 2 litre to a 2.4 litre
11:59and now it produces 170 kilowatts of power and 249 newton metres of torque so that's
12:05up 18 kilowatts and 39 newton metres of torque over the previous generation engine and that's
12:10a good thing because the previous one was, it was good but it just needed a little bit
12:15more as the rev band went around.
12:17It was really fun to drive above you know 3, 4, 5,000 rpm but it felt like it ran out
12:22of steam so with the 2.4 you've got a little bit more capacity to work with and a lot of
12:26people modified their cars anyway so it was kind of irrelevant how much it made out of
12:30the box, this just gives you a stronger set of internals to work with before you go do
12:34your modifications.
12:35So what does all that feel like behind the wheel, well given it hasn't changed a great
12:39deal over the last one in terms of the chassis, it actually feels really good.
12:43So I love the sonorous note these have, you can hear a little bit of that getting plumbed
12:48into the cabin through the speakers but for the most part it's actually quite a fun sounding
12:54engine and it's a lot more eager now so if we drop back to third here at that 4,000 rpm
12:59mark and punch it, it feels ready to move, it's really sort of wanting to get up and
13:05move a whole lot faster so really impressed with that.
13:07Now what's the gearbox like?
13:09So we don't really talk about gearboxes all that much in terms of the way that they feel
13:13but this is so nice, it's super notchy, there's no rev matching or anything else like that,
13:18you're doing it all yourself and it just feels really mechanical and just fun to drive with.
13:23Every input you make here has a direct correlation to what's going on under the bonnet so love
13:28the way that feels and I love how direct it all is.
13:31So Subaru claims a combined fuel economy of 9.5 litres per 100km, let's have a look at
13:36what we're doing here, 10.6, it's pretty awesome given we had some fun in the car this morning
13:41and 10.6 litres per 100km is such a nice figure for a car that you can have fun in, flog the
13:47absolute bejesus out of and then not have to cry every single time you fill it up at
13:53the petrol station.
13:54Now speaking of which down here with that trip computer is you've actually got some
13:57cool little applications, so you've got a torque and power band, as it sort of increases
14:01there you can see that moving, you've got a little G bubble, you've got a lap timer
14:05as well so it's a pretty cool setup that you have to play with there as standard.
14:09Now what's it like in terms of the ride, so no adaptive dampers or anything like that,
14:13we're going to crank this up just a little bit to highway speeds as we approach our sine
14:18waves here, we'll see how it copes with this.
14:21It's actually really good over those sine waves so that's great news there in terms
14:24of the suspension setup.
14:25You will have noticed I'm having to yell at you now, even at 100km an hour here it is
14:30super noisy at highway speeds, you can barely hear yourself think over that tyre roar, there
14:35is a little bit of wind noise coming into the cabin as well.
14:38Again not the end of the world when you look at this as an application, it is a sports
14:41car in that sense so I don't think it's going to be changing anyone's mind in terms of a
14:46purchase.
14:47So let's put it into sport mode, well it is in sport mode, the only thing you can do here
14:50is put it into track stability mode and we'll do that, dial up the speed a little bit here,
14:56drop back to second for our corner, the brakes feel really nice and confident, plough it
15:01through here, that feels great, quick gear shifts there as well, wow it really just hangs
15:13on doesn't it, that is really good.
15:18It is moving, I'm really shocked by this, despite being not all that powerful it is
15:26honking along nicely.
15:27And one of the big differences here compared to the old one is the available grip and traction
15:33that you have.
15:34The old one really was just constantly battling for traction before you got rid of those stock
15:39tyres, this on the other hand is just, really just ploughing on the speed and through these
15:45fast sweepers it has a degree of body roll but it doesn't unsettle the car even as you
15:51hit a bump mid corner so yeah really impressed with this and tell you what, I think if you
15:56strapped a turbo or a supercharger to this, this would be just another league of fun.
16:03Now Subaru doesn't have, well I can't find an official 0-100 time so we're just going
16:07to pop it up against our stopwatch, we'll see how it goes.
16:10So I've switched stability control off here, just to give us a little bit more, we'll slip
16:13off the line and we will see how it goes.
16:28Now what you won't have seen on the camera there because we've only used one shot of
16:32that, I couldn't see the rev gauge because our GoPro's in the way here but Igor who's
16:37crammed into the back there made a really good point, I can use the power band there
16:41to give us a better idea of when to shift because once you reach the end of the power
16:44band you're not really sort of making any more progress so that's what we did on that
16:48last run and it felt the best way to do it.
16:49So if you have bought a BRZ, don't use your tacho, use the power band instead.
16:54Now after we finished driving I was playing around with this screen here and you can actually
16:58set your own rev indicator so if you go into the rev menu you can adjust when the shift
17:05indicator comes up and you can even then associate a buzzer with it as well so yeah
17:09that's actually a really cool setup and it makes driving this harder even easier because
17:13you can dictate exactly when you should be shifting gears even if you can't see the speedo.
17:17So the new Subaru BRZ, look I'm a guy that loves a bit of power, a big old V8 or a fast
17:23EV or something like that but I tell you what I have had so much fun in that today.
17:27It's a big improvement over the old one in terms of power and torque delivery, it feels
17:30much punchier in the mid-range and it still retains all of those fun-to-drive characteristics
17:35except now it has actual tyres which is very handy, it is still really fun to drive and
17:40then when it gets wet it can just be this sort of fun little drifting machine as well.
17:44So I think if you do want a sporty car that isn't a front-wheel drive car, it just doesn't
17:49really put a foot wrong at all.
17:50I would get the manual, you're going to have to cop the fact that it doesn't have all of
17:53that safety technology, yes which is disappointing but the manual is the way to go, the auto
17:57is just a little bit pedestrian, you may as well just not bother with it.
18:01Now let me know what you reckon about this, have you bought one, what's it been like so
18:04far and is the ownership experience any good?
18:07I'm very keen to hear from you guys all the time.
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18:15But until next time, take it easy.