u/GigabitISDN

I'm considering a job at 393 Walnut St, which is the Strawberry Square tower at the corner of Fourth & Walnut. The job has a lot going for it but I'm curious about the office interior. What's the inside like? Has it been renovated recently or is it still basically an early-80s cubicle farm?

I have never set foot in that building other than the Strawberry Square atrium. A friend worked in the other tower about ten years ago and said it was pretty grim.

I just got the notice today of a new software release. Installed without any problems, took roughly 15-20 minutes. It warns you not to shut off the engine during the update. Once it was done, it tells you to shut down and walk away for at least 10 minutes.

Is there any resource online where I can see what was covered by this update?

EDIT: This is in my 26 Touring.

Hi New Zealanders!

My wife and I visited your beautiful country back in October 2024. If anyone remembers, I was the one asking if we're really supposed to drive through herds of sheep we may encounter on the road (the car rental video made it sound like this was a thing that just happened all the time). Our trip was amazing. We mainly stayed in Auckland CBD (QT and Horizon, both beautiful and relatively cheap by US standards) but we made a few day trips out to places like Karangahake Gorge, Waiheke Island, and an overnight trip up to Matakana.

Your food is amazing and your coffee is life changing! I tell people here in the US we have a Starbucks and Dunkin on every corner, but in Auckland it's an independent coffee shop instead. You have like 3 Starbucks in all of Auckland CBD; I have 3 Starbucks within walking distance of my office. Drip coffee is the norm here, but after we got back we went out and bought an espresso machine. I actually had a local (here) barista yell at me for ordering a long black. "Coffee drinks are all standardized," she confidently said. "You can't just make up names and expect people to make them."

The weather was absolutely perfect, BTW. We found some great brewpubs along the way, had a bartender explain that "8 wire" is like our duct tape (fixes everything), met so many dogs, and saw so many beautiful landscapes. I managed to only get on the wrong side of the road once, and it was in the CBD, and fortunately aside from getting a very confused look from one delivery driver, nobody got hurt. My bad.

We loved it and we'll be back in another year or so. We're planning on exploring the south island this time but honestly even if we repeated everything exactly the same, it would be an amazing trip.

But I have a favor to ask.

On our drive up to Matakana, we drove a western route (16?). Along the way we stopped at every cafe or interesting thing we came across. One of those was a cafe in Helensville. Looking at my geo-tagged photos, it is called Mr. Bon Bakery & Cafe. I don't know if it's the same owner / employees as when we were there, but that's 100% the location. We ordered several pies from the very nice woman who was working there and they were delicious.

During our time there I was having a hard time understanding her. It's not her fault; I have substantial hearing loss and I struggle a lot with accents, and she had a strong one. We were able to place the order and we paid and thanked her. At some point she eagerly asked a question. I didn't understand her even after asking her to repeat herself, and I don't remember what I thought it was. What I remember is saying something like "haha, no thanks" and watching her face drop. It's my default reaction when I've already had to ask someone to repeat themselves and my hearing aids aren't helping. For all I know, she might as well have asked "would you like to learn my family recipe and also meet a puppy?".

I feel a little bad about that. If anyone happens to be in that area, would you mind stopping by and ... I don't know, buying an extra pie or something? Eat it, donate it, whatever. Maybe tell her the American couple that dropped in almost two years ago loved their pies so much we couldn't stop talking about them. I very much doubt she remembers us but it would make me feel better if someone stopped in and was kind to her.

I've had my Touring NA for exactly one month now and short version, I'm happy. I love the redesign and it really does drive like a luxury car. Just a few things I want to point out.

I kept hearing my iPhone's "mic activated" sound while driving, complete with the front speakers dropping out for a second or two. I tore into all the settings on my iPhone trying to figure out what kept turning on the mic. It was maddening. Then I realized the nav system has a bunch of warnings like "bridge ahead", "railroad ahead", "curve ahead", "speed change ahead", "pinecone ahead", etc that trigger CONSTANTLY. For reasons not known to any rational person, Subaru chose to use the exact same sound as the iPhone's "speech to text" sound. So if that's happening to you, go into your map settings (not your vehicle settings) and disable all the notifications.

The MOLLE framework isn't. If all you use are single strap pouches, it's fine. If you want to use multi-strap pouches, including the official Subaru pouches, it's a problem. The holes aren't spaced correctly for MOLLE gear so you're going to have to be a little creative.

Drive quality is overall very refined, comfortable, and quiet. It really handles like a luxury car. It is a huge upgrade from the Forester, and I loved my Forester. The 360 cam implementation is light years better than what the Forester had, and in fact the whole infotainment system is a massive upgrade. There is no comparison.

There is one serious safety issue that I'm going to officially complain to Subaru about. The driver distraction mitigation system has a flaw where if you're driving into bright sun but your eyes are shaded (like if you're using your sunvisor), the car loses track of your eyes and you start getting the "KEEP EYES ON ROAD" warning. This keeps going until the illumination on your face evens out. What concerns me is that after three levels of aural / visual warnings, the car starts brake checking you, thinking you might be dozing off. That's actually a really good way to handle it if the driver is actually falling asleep. But in this case, it could wind up just brake checking the guy behind me. This has happened several times already, and it's not like I can just rearrange the interstate to not hit that long curve into the sun during my afternoon drive home.

The L2 handsfree driving assist is ... okay. I'd give it a C+. It's fine for straight, level, well-marked highways. It's better in stop-and-go rush-hour interstate traffic than my Forester was. It actually does reduce fatigue quite a bit.

I took it for an extended test along I-80, US-322, and I-76 in Pennsylvania. The car will drop back to manual steering if the road markings are bad or the road has been realigned due to construction. It will not work in tunnels. You'll get a warning like "unsuitable road" or "low sensor confidence".

The big problem is curves. It hates curves. On US-322, the system dropped out more times between State College and Harrisburg than I could count. Not every curve, but many. On I-76, it dropped out between I-83 and I-283, and again between I-83 and US-11. No part of that road is described as anything other than "gentle". The long straight section west of US-11 was fine but it quit repeatedly between the twin tunnels and Bedford. It was always the same error. "Handsfree unavailable: sharp curved road".

It also doesn't handle crosswinds and buffeting very well. It will aggressively recenter the car to the point that it looks like you're drunkenly swerving around in your lane. I now switch it off every time I'm passing / being passed by a larger vehicle. I had at least one driver who was passing me back off because of how badly the Outback was bouncing around in the lane.

I'd buy the car again but I would probably drop down to the Limited or possibly even the Premium. I also wouldn't have wasted money on the MOLLE rack. IMHO the advanced driver features are in need of some serious refinement and are not worth the price premium right now. I think all of these issues can be tackled with a software fix so hopefully Subaru has something in the works, but as of today, those features are not quite fully baked.

EDIT: How could I have forgotten this. The "driver fatigue" alert is ridiculous. I need to revisit the settings to see if there's a way to get it to chill out but there are days when it just triggers constantly. I mean constantly. Every 3-5 minutes it goes off and blanks my screen until I hit decline.

I just bought the official Subaru MOLLE cargo rack for my brand new 26 Touring. It looks great! I also bought the official Subaru 3-pack pouch because I got a steal on all three ($40) from the dealer.

Unfortunately, the spacing is all wrong. The 3-strap can’t use all three straps because of how the rack holes are spaced. Same with the two strap bottle holders I tried, and same with my MOLLE first aid kit.

Some of my smaller pouches fit fine, and the Subaru bottle holder and cell phone pack fit fine. But it’s not a well-thought-out design at all.

EDIT: I got the title wrong. The pouches seem fine, it's the official Subaru MOLLE rack that's the problem.

I took one for a spin and I loved it. 375 HP off the line is one thing but that bottomless torque on the interstate is amazing. Handling was excellent on some twisty rural roads. Road noise was on par with my Forester, minus the engine of course. Cabin design and comfort was somewhere between "fine" and "good".

I'm not buying it for the fuel savings, though that will be nice on my daily commute. I'm buying it because I want an Outback-ish vehicle without having to choose between struggling or guzzling. The AC outlet in the back is also genuinely useful for me.

The range is fine for 90% of my driving, and for longer trips, it looks like the per-mile cost for fast charging is roughly on par with the XT's per-mile cost for gas.

So for those of you who bought it, are you happy? Anything that annoys you? Would you buy it again?

Another user posted a link to the map data Subaru is using, and we have pretty good road eligibility in my area. I'm in the market for a new SUV so I took one out last week.

I noticed that during our drive on the interstate, the car was ping-ponging quite a bit in the lane while using handsfree assist. We all noticed it physically and visually. You could feel the car hunting (swaying?) for the entire six miles we had it on. It didn't cross the line, but it was close enough that several times I thought I'd have to jump in and take over. The sway was noticed by other drivers, too; one that was passing me on the left at a pretty good clip slowed down to match my speed before passing after the Outback drifted over towards his lane. Can't say I blame him.

When using standard lane keep / lane centering on a non-handsfree segment, the car was fine. Solid as a rock in the center of the lane.

This was a brand new Outback Touring at a dealership. No other pull, vibration, wobble, or anything else indicative of alignment or tire issues.

Has anyone else experienced this?