Subaru Forester vs Hyundai Venue

What's the difference?

The MY26 Subaru Forester packs plenty of punch in terms of standard features, a roomy and functional interior and overall driveability. Sure, it’s not the most exciting vehicle to drive on- or off-road but to get stuck on that is to miss the point entirely. This is a decent all-rounder with a solid background and an AWD system that long ago set the gold standard for vehicles of this type.

In a tough mid-size SUV market segment aimed more at those intent on driving through car parks rather than adventuring through national parks, the Forester offers greater versatility than most and should not be ignored.

The Hyundai Venue Elite is a sweet-looking, compact SUV that should suit drivers who only need an A-to-B sort of car in the city. Or an empty nester who doesn’t want to feel flustered by any high-end tech and wants knobs and dials where they expect them to be.

Some elements of the safety set could be better though and that’s something to consider. However, for an urban landscape, you can practically fit it anywhere. With its engine specs, it's also happiest in the city - don't consider this a road trip car.

This Forester is 4655mm long (with a 2670mm wheelbase), 1830mm wide and 1730mm high.

The new generation retains more than enough of the previous Forester – blocky profile included – to remain clearly recognisable.

Traditionalists may chafe at the slicker, more citified appearance of this Forester over previous generations but the overall package is inoffensive enough to not elicit any howls of outrage from passers-by on the street.

The Forester’s interior maintains a similar cabin look and feel as before but with a 11.6-inch portrait-oriented multimedia touchscreen dominating up front, a mix of physical and on-screen buttons, as well as soft-touch surfaces and durable plastics.

Cute is the adjective that comes to mind when you look at the Venue’s compact styling. And it is compact with its wee 4040mm length. The benefits of its dimensions means that you should be able to tuck this away in most garages or apartment car spots!

The Venue does have a boxier shape than I ordinarily like but because it’s small, it manages to get away with it and still feel sharp.

Our model’s paintwork and roof colour has been finished in Atlas White but you can customise the Venue with a two-tone roof job (either black or white, depending on main body colour), to add some more personality.

You just lose the sunroof with that option, which I actually think adds a lot of oomph to the interior and stops it from looking too plain inside.

Speaking of, the interior is pleasing but simplistic.  There are a lot of traditional design elements from the gear shifter and handbrake to the easy-to-access buttons and dials. This is a no-fuss interior that is banking on having a no-fuss sort of driver.

There is some cool cred with the white painted metal accents around the air vents and gear shifter. Plus, the contrasting piping and stitching on the cloth seats adds some fun, too. 

The Forester is quite roomy for a mid-size SUV and this is the top-spec variant so there’s leather everywhere.

The interior layout is neat and tidy and lands firmly on the correct side of being practical and familiar, with all controls easy to locate and operate.

The touchscreen offers mostly simple intuitive functionality with infrequent need to cycle through numerous menus and sub-menus to access what you want.

The aforementioned mix of physical and on-screen buttons, as well as soft-touch surfaces and durable plastic are welcome here because, you know... real life.

The front seats offer ample support and the driver is able to dial-in their preferred position via power controls on the eight-way power-adjustable seat (with dual memory). The front passenger has an eight-way power-adjustable seat. Both seats are heated and ventilated.

The 60/40 split folding second-row seats aren’t too shabby either, in terms of comfort and amenities, with a fold-down arm-rest with cupholders and directional air vents etc.

Cargo volume is 496 litres (with rear seat in use) and 1174 litres (with the rear seat down, 1667 litres to ceiling.

The tailgate is powered and hands-free with a kick sensor (apparently). But I never tried that, instead opting for the tailgate-mounted button to open and close it.

It ain't a people mover. Period.

If you plan on having regular passengers and they’re tall, look elsewhere because they won’t find much comfort (especially in the back seat).

On the back seat, I barely fit with my 168cm (5’6”) height and had to accommodate my driving position by spreading the ol’ knees apart. So ladylike.

However, kudos to the clever high roofline because headroom isn’t an issue. The 170mm ground clearance also makes this a super easy car to get in and out of.

Front passengers definitely enjoy the most room and amenities but you will be jostling for the premium position on the armrest. The storage is good for this size SUV with a glovebox, middle console, two cupholders and a cute little storage shelf in front of the passenger.

There’s also a dedicated phone tray that has the wireless charging pad, a USB-A and C port plus a 12-volt port too.

The tech is simple to use and it was easy to get my iPhone connected to the Bluetooth and wired Apple CarPlay (there’s Android Auto, too for those users). The new-for-2023 4.2-inch digital instrument panel adds some pizzazz but unfortunately, isn’t customisable.

The boot is a solid size for this class at 355L. You can adjust the floor to sit a little lower and there is a space-saver spare tyre.

No Venue grade has a powered tailgate but honestly, you don’t need it.

Even though the Elite is the top model for the Venue line-up, it’s just $28,500 before on-road costs.

That puts it on par with the Mazda CX-3 in Maxx Sport guise, but about $4500 cheaper than the Toyota Yaris Cross Urban.

The Elite has an okay spec sheet but is a few items short of feeling like a top model should.

For example, this has wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, whereas the lower grades enjoy wireless.

This is a common trait in Hyundai and Kia products due to a quirk with the vehicle architecture. It also just makes do with halogen headlights but they stand out against the rest of the LEDs on the road.

However, the other standard equipment for the Elite still makes it a competitive player, like the tilt and slide sunroof, 17-inch alloy wheels, temporary space-saver spare tyre, steering wheel-mounted controls, tilt and telescopic steering wheel, 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system and wireless charging pad.

The Forester has the line-up’s 2.5-litre four-cylinder naturally aspirated boxer engine (producing 136kW at 5800rpm and 247Nm at 3700rpm) matched to a constantly variable transmission (CVT), which some people detest, and some people couldn’t give a rat’s whether it’s there or not.

Also onboard is Subaru’s all-wheel drive system, driving modes (including 'Normal', 'Deep snow/Mud', and 'Snow/Dirt') and 'X-Mode' “that constantly monitors the traction available to each wheel and centralises the control of key components including the engine, transmission, drivetrain and brakes to help manage slippery conditions”, according to Subaru.

All Venue grades share the same engine – a 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol drivetrain with a maximum output of 90kW and 151Nm of torque. Which sounds as gutless as it feels.

The six-speed auto transmission and under-powered engine can feel a bit rough on the open-road when you need to put your foot down.

Basically, you’re not going to do Daytona 500 in this. Think the odd bit of shopping, taking your small lap dog to get trimmed and going for a coffee with your friends. 

Official fuel consumption on the combined (urban/extra-urban) cycle for the Forester is 7.9L/100km and it uses 91RON 'standard' unleaded petrol at a minimum.

On this test, I recorded 8.1L/100km. But fuel consumption was as low as a dash-indicated 1.7L/100km while driving the Forester with adaptive cruise control engaged.

The Forester has a 63-litre fuel tank, so, going by our on-test fuel-use figures you could reasonably expect a driving range of almost 780km from a full tank. However, as with any vehicle, once you’ve loaded the Forester with any real-world burdens (e.g kids, dogs, camping gear, etc) you’ll soon see the fuel consumption increase.

It earns back some points with the fuel efficiency, especially considering how hard you have to drive this to wring out its power.

The official combined fuel figure is 7.2L/100km and I achieved the same according to the trip computer. Not too shabby but there are hybrid versions for the Venue’s rivals now - like the Yaris Cross - so it would be good to see one for this as well. 

It has a 45L fuel tank and based off the official combined figure, you should be able to get around a 625km driving range, which means you should be able to go a couple of weeks without filling up if you’re doing shorter commutes.

The Forester feels comfortable and composed on sealed surfaces and offers some degree of dynamism to the driving experience – so in line with previous generations.

It feels more refined, sharper to steer and more responsive than before. There’s ample visibility to the front but a substantial B pillar obscures the driver’s vision back over their right shoulder.

The Boxer engine and CVT work well together, power and torque outputs are more than adequate in this package, and that much-maligned transmission is not intrusive if the Forester is driven with care and common sense.

However, acceleration from a full stop is sluggish.

The suspension set-up – MacPherson struts up front and double wishbones at the rear – yields a firm but not jarring sense of ride and handling.

The 1662kg Forester proved nimble to manoeuvre around the Big Smoke, the suburbs and in the bush (more about that soon) with a neat 10.8m turning circle.

All-wheel drive vehicles are capable of tackling off-road adventures in their own right but, for safety’s sake, AWD drivers should avoid anything beyond well-maintained dirt tracks in dry weather. AWD cars are designed for use on bitumen roads with some dirt or light-duty off-road use.

And so it was with our test of this Forester. On-test off-road terrain equalled firm-packed sand and gravel/dirt bush tracks in dry weather, although we did drive through one shin-deep mudhole with no trouble.

The Forester has a listed 220mm of ground clearance, the suspension held up well over a brief stint on mild corrugations and Subaru AWD proved more than up to the task when things became a little trickier, providing improved grip and traction in slippery conditions that demanded to be driven at very low speeds.

If push comes to shove, it’s capable of more than light off-roading, but the Forester’s ground clearance and off-road angles ultimately limit its off-road capabilities.

The Forester’s 'all season' tyres – Falken Ziex Z001A A/S (225/55 R18 98V) – are fine for light to moderate off-roading but anything more difficult than that and you’ll need to get a set of more aggressive all-terrain tyres. It does have a full-sized spare onboard.

It has maximum towing capacities of 750kg (unbraked trailer), 1800kg (braked) and a maximum towball download of 180kg. GVM is 2223kg; GCM is 4023kg.

Some niggles: The driver awareness system is annoyingly over-reactive.

This is an urban dweller for sure. It’s happiest going under 70km/h but it handles that range very well. You have enough kick to cross traffic without too much fuss and the steering feels direct.

Those feelings disappear on the open road where it’s a struggle to maintain your speed and the engine complains so loudly, I was nervous it was going to conk out.

The cabin also gets loud at higher speeds with wind and road noise, which just reaffirms that this is a city car. At lower speeds, it’s fairly quiet and you can chat without interruption.

There’s some roll when you tackle corners but once you get used to how to drive it, it won’t bother you. The ride comfort is good until you hit bumps and then, you probably feel more connected to the road than you might like but it’s short lived because of the short wheelbase.

I really like the 10.2m turning circle and compact size - it made navigating around tight city streets an absolute breeze. Parking? Hurrah for a small car. I got into spaces that would ordinarily elude me. I just would have liked a clear reversing camera, it’s a bit blurry for a top-spec model.

This little SUV has some good safety features that come as standard, like: blind-spot monitoring, auto emergency braking (AEB) with forward collision warning - car, pedestrian and cyclist detection (operational from 5.0 – 60km/h), rear cross-traffic alert, rear parking sensors, driver attention warning, check rear occupant alert, lane keeping aid, rear view camera with dynamic guidelines and tyre pressure monitoring.

However, the Venue was awarded a four-star ANCAP safety rating back in 2019. It missed out on that extra star because of the forward collision system, which had a lower ability to avoid rear-end impacts with vehicles in front. That dropped the Safety Assist and Vulnerable Road User scores down to just 62 per cent. That’s something to consider for the sort of traffic you’d get in an urban setting.

It only has six airbags but that does include curtain airbags covering the back row.

The MY26 Subaru range is covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, five-year/75,000km capped price servicing, and 12 months roadside assistance.

A service is required every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs soonest. After your free “1 Month Health Check and Chat”, cost per service is $347.95 (at the 15,000km/12 month mark), $520.45 (30,000km or 24 months), $393.10 (45,000km or 36 months), $679.30 (60,000km or 48 months) and $358.20 (75,000km or 60 months). Average over the five years is $459.80.

Subaru Australia has more than 140 dealerships across the country with a decent spread over metro and regional areas. Foresters may be serviced at those dealers or by approved mechanics.

Ongoing costs are great as the Venue comes with Hyundai’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which is a standard term for the class.

You can pre-purchase servicing plans for up to five-years or 75,000km (whichever occurs first). The five-year plan averages $315 per service, which is very competitive! 

Servicing intervals are reasonable at every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever comes first.