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The 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness Has The Most Pathetic Skid Plate In The History Of Skid Plates
(www.theautopian.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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No, the plastic ones are aerodynamic cladding. This is a very thin metal skidplate pushpin attached to the plastic cladding. Completely useless in a situation that skid plates are meant for - sliding the car over obstacles that would otherwise rip apart the engine's or transmission's oil pan.
Considering that Subarus have a very bad departure angle (the engine way overhangs the front wheels unlike most cars), this skid plate will be scraped on things, and it should be bolted properly to the chassis, not push pinned into the aero cladding.
The whole wilderness edition trim really should be "poser edition" trim anyway. A ½" factory lift and a 0.2 final drive ratio change can't hide the fact that the CVT in these cars is less than worthless for any kind of actual offroading. Having a skid plate that's more of a pebble deflector is just par for the course when it comes to modern Subaru design.
Guess you can say these cars are marketed to people that would otherwise buy a giant SUV because off-road, then proceed to never actually off-road. Mall crawlers.
Subaru engines don’t really hang out front that far, they’re under 2 feet long from bell housing to the front pulley (H6s are 4-5 inches longer) but they tend to have deep sumps down low. Waaaay better than Audis.
VWs with EJ conversions often use short wide replacement sumps (more like Porsche uses). That would be the way to get more clearance, except these are just cars with a little lift.
While I think putting the skid plat on was silly, I think it’s better to have 30mpg cars dressed up as off-roaders driving around on the roads with me, than “real” off-roaders that suck at stopping, cornering, and accident avoidance.