Subaru Liberty 2010 News

Volvo, Subaru, Land Rover, Citroen and GM have issued safety recalls for some vehicles due to defective manufacturing issues.

Subaru has announced a host of cosmetic, handling and efficient technology changes to its Liberty line-up for 2013. Entry-level pricing has been sharpened by $2000 with the Liberty 2.5i sedan which loses leather and is now priced from $32,990. Power and torque improves on normally aspirated 2.5 litre variants, while fuel efficiency is also refined by up to 4.8 per cent, thanks to the new generation FB horizontally-opposed boxer engine, linked to the latest Lineartronic Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT). Subaru's award-winning EyeSight driver assist system is also introduced on additional Liberty variants, including the 2.5i Premium, despite a pricing reduction of $1500.  Liberty's revised all-wheel drive system improves precision in torque distribution between front and back wheels, benefiting handling and stability. The technical refinements, including suspension and handling, were tested on Australian roads. In addition to the new engine, automatic transmission and alloy wheel patterns, Liberty 2.5i with leather trim now adds factory-fitted satellite navigation and a new colour information display. Liberty sales are up 12 per cent year-to-date.  

The addition -- coming as part of the Exiga’s mid-life revision – puts another possie in the middle of the second row, taking the original six-seater up a notch.The passenger in the new spot gets a proper three-point lap-sash seatbelt – the absence of which was the reason Subaru did not offer the seven-seat option when the Exiga first arrived three years ago.There are now also three sets of child-seat anchor points in the middle row. Other changes to the Liberty Exiga include a new door mirror design on all models and new 17-in alloy wheels for the Premium spec versions.The price remains at current levels, starting from $37,990 for the 123kW/229NM 2.5-litre Liberty Exiga 2.5i and from $42,490 for the Premium spec that adds features such as leather, foglights and window tinting.“Liberty Exiga will now appeal to even more families that need the option of a seventh seat, in addition to the significant cargo volume it offers for load carrying, with the seats down in a variety of combinations,” Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior says. 

IT was two degrees in the Blue Mountains when Kate and Gerren Hawkins broke down in their "old Holden" a few years ago. That's when they decided they wanted a new and more reliable car. "We always liked Subaru and didn't consider any other car," says Kate, 29, a sales manager. So they bought a 2008 Liberty 2.5i Luxury Wagon to fit Gerren's musical equipment. "It was important to fit all his music gear and the seats fold down flat," she says. "It doesn't matter what you put in there, it always fits, so we hardly ever pay for delivery of things; we just pick it up ourselves. I also like Subaru's style. They have quite a sporty look without being a sports car and are quite rugged." Safety was also very important. Kate says they were aware that Subaru has a five-star safety rating and all-wheel drive for all its vehicles. "I used to snowboard a lot when I as younger and I know a car handles icy conditions better with all-wheel drive," she says. Now they have moved north to Queensland and traded snow for sand with planned trips to Stradbroke Island. They've also traded the Liberty for a new tangerine-coloured Subaru XV 2.0i-S with CVT which is due to arrive in the next few weeks. "Our trade-in price was just under what my payout figure was for the hire purchase which is pretty good given the state of the economy at the moment and how low second-hand car prices are," she says. "I thought we would get a second-hand car this time but there wasn't much difference in price so we went for the new one. We may as well get brand new and have all the warranties. Subarus don't seem to drop thousands of dollars in value the moment you drive out of the dealership." Kate says she was attracted to the new XV by a host of features such as "extra airbags and the look of the dashboard". "We bought the S model because it has the touch-screen satnav, digital radio, USB with iPod connectivity, Bluetooth stereo adjustments on the steering wheel and dual aircon which is really important for us as I'm always whinging it's too cold and my husband is always whinging that it's too hot so it will be handy when we do car trips together." Kate will mainly drive the car to work Monday to Friday with occasional weekend trips away to the beach, so fuel economy was important. "We are downsizing from a 2.5-litre engine to a two-litre engine with stop-start which we hope will make a difference," she says. "Even if it's saving just a little bit of petrol, it's also handy to get the extra mileage from the tank. "I hate filling up the tank. It's always a hassle. I'd rather drive around for two weeks than have to fill up every four days, even if it ends up costing much the same. You pull over when you have to, not when you want to."

He is - or was - Hirotaka Ono - a visionary who re-invented the Japanese brand and changed everything, from boosting the quality of its cars to creating the can-do attitude among senior managers that's essential for the success of any car company. Ono had a giant advantage because he was married to the daughter of company founder, Osama Suzuki.He was able to use his family connection to ramrod a range of changes which would have been impossible for anyone else, especially a 40-something revolutionary in a country which usually puts age and experience ahead of youth and enthusiasm. Even so, he still had to walk the walk on everything from design and driving enjoyment to bottom-line financial deals.The award winning Suzuki Swift is an Ono car, so too is the current Grand Vitara, as well as the Kizashi. His track record also includes the less-successful second-generation XL7, thankfully only sold in the USA, but everyone makes an occasional mistake. Ono died too early at the end of 2007, but not before he inspired the cars coming through Suzuki today and forecast the global financial crisis - as well as planning the way his company would react to the challenge."Thanks to Mr Ono we have learned what we can do. He inspired us," says Tak Hayasaki, managing director of Suzuki Australia. Hayasaki has his own challenges in trying to lift Suzuki's share of Australia's annual car sales from its current 2.4 per cent to around six per cent, but he knows he has the strongest lineup in the company's history.The Alto is too small for a lot of people, but a $12,990 driveway bottom line makes plenty of sense with six airbags, ABS and ESP, as well as alloy wheels. The Swift is getting very old but is still a good car, the Grand Vitara is a safe choice and the SX4 does a good enough job.Kizashi is the game-changer for Suzuki, the same as the first Mazda6 and Accord Euro were for Mazda and Honda, combining Euro-type driving enjoyment with Japanese quality.This week the company is adding an all-wheel drive car to the Kizashi line, the Sports, and believes it can boost its sales by 100 cars a month. That's 50 per cent of the current volume. It's a big call for a car which already goes head-to-head with Mazda6 and Euro and now faces up to the might of the Subaru Liberty, the car that convinced Australians about all-wheel drive.As he looks forward, with a new Swift before the end of the year - not   that you would pick it as all-new from pictures - Hayasaki knows where the credit goes. "I have to thankyou to Mr Ono for what he has given us. He proved that we can do it."

After leading the world on so many fronts - from quality to comfort and reliability - they have been hit badly by the global financial crisis.  Toyota and Honda and many of the others wound back dramatically at the onset of the GFC, not just on their production lines but also in their motorsport programs - F1 was the first casualty - and new-product development.We are now seeing the results in Australian showrooms, where the Corolla and Civic are now mid-pack in the small-car class and former pacesetters including the Mazda6, Honda Accord Euro and even the locally-made Camry are struggling against newer and better rivals.  They are fine for everyday transport, but not as impressive as they were just five years ago.Subaru has also cut costs and its latest styling work - particularly on the Liberty and Outback - reflects a desperate desire to win sales in the USA.  Contrast all of them against the Suzuki Kizashi, which comes from one of the few Japanese brands that held its nerve through the GFT. Suzuki has cut its production targets, and admits that extra Kizashi models are on the back-burner, but is going to do brilliantly well with the car.Toyota and Honda, in contrast, are relying on value-added deals to keep customers coming in Australia. They are recovering from the economic downturn but nowhere near as rapidly as some of their rivals  - particularly Hyundai.In Australia, many of our Japanese cars are now also actually built in Thailand. It's not a major drama, because the quality is much the same, but it shows how the battle to cut costs is influencing the Japanese makers. The Thai drive also shows that Japan Incorporated is now happy to produce bland transport modules instead of appealing cars, going for numbers first - in showrooms and on the balance sheet. It's a reasonable response to the GFC but is going to cause problems in coming years.Why? Because Australia is seeing so many classy European cars at more affordable prices - look at the Volkswagen Polo - and because Korean is coming up fast.  Hyundai is now doing a better job than Toyota at building Toyota-style cars, with adventurous styling, classy quality and great prices. It's latest, the i45 replacement for the dowdy Sonata, is really good on every front except its awful steering and lacklustre front suspension.The i45 is a Camry done better and, like the Kizashi, one of the stars of 2010. And it's not the end for Hyundai, which has all sorts of new models coming from the baby i20 to an overdue sporty car sometime in 2012.And that's whan the Japanese really could be in trouble. It's not because Hyundai has something new but because the Japanese wound their development programs back during the GFT and the results of that conservative risk management will not really be known until we see - or don't see - the work which should have been done over the past two years.Follow Paul Gover on Twitter!