Subaru Wilderness rock crawling - Part 1 - Hidden Falls Off Road Adventure Park

2022 Outback Wilderness
Ironman4x4 ATS kit
Bfgoodrich KO2 245/65/17
20psi front 18psi rear
Rallitek rock sliders 20-22 kit
Optional Oem front, trans. and diff skid
Superior Suspension hitch skid
Thule Aero Rails
Thule Roof Basket with Extension
93 octane (for those curious)
Location is near Marble Falls, Texas. Off-road Adventure park.
Xmode Snow/Dirt engaged entire time
Well not too much talking in this video, just engine, tires, and dirt. I went out for a 2 day trip and during the coldest night so far here in Texas, I know it's colder everywhere else but 20° is about as cold as it gets here. First day was sleet and snow flurries with no real rain so the trails stayed pretty dusty and loose. My buddy in the 4x4 06 tundra was all stock with stock size Ko2 as well. I did everything he did in 4low but with a little more effort. Happy with How the Subaru handled. it definitely could use a rear locker (which I saw rallitek is just now selling) but the system did its job. It could definitely do a better job in snow/dirt mode stopping the free spinning tire a little quicker to divert the power. Day 2/Part 2 will be uploaded soon. Thanks for watching, hope y'all enjoyed seeing what the little wagon can do.

[@mallkrawlerz620]

I wouldn’t consider this rock crawling but I’m def happy to see someone challenging their wilderness.

[@BaronBoar]

I think it is relative to the vehicle. For a Tacoma or 4Runner or Jeep this isn't rock crawling.

[@RSTi12Blue]

Next time, tell spotter to use rocks as steps to allow your car to go over rock shelve easier without smash your wheel onto the shelve.

[@jasondonnelly6966]

You had all the tools there to make this all very easy with the rocks and traction boards. All you needed was an experienced spotter and you would have walked right up that.

[@juanthorndikevaldez4318]

Great video , what tires were you using ?

[@joseacevedo6128]

would be cool to know if any xmode was use and when. Cool to see how it performed though.

[@martinr8278]

I agree with Jason Donnelly comment. 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆. Wilderness is a pretty capable little beast off road. I have seen some better spotters though in other vids. Overall looked like a lot of fun. I bet you also saw loads of Toyota ravs out there on the same trail, yeah? Nice roof rack btw

[@cv6473]

Did you try or consider getting the Torq locker for it?

[@kcrush1]

I recently purchased a green OBW. Do you think the Ironman ATS kit is a good upgrade? It states that its a 2” lift but in reality it’s only a 1.2” over the stock height. I’m interested in your opinion of that kit over other lift kit options? Thank you in advance.

[@setoman1]

How many tires have you punctured? 😅

[@JonDZ_Adventuring]

The transmission speed stall is crazy! Thanks for sharing 😃. Looks like a chill trail, once you use the right amount of momentum, you’ll be golden. Maybe look into a torq locker or Cusco LSD.

[@MAGAmerican]

You don’t need a locker… this guy has NO CLUE how to drive off-road. The spotter has NO CLUE either. This car is HIGHLY capable in competent hands.👍🏼

[@JonDZ_Adventuring]

@@MAGAmerican gens 1 to 3 are even more capable in competent hands 👍

[@mandingo9471]

Torq Masters doesn't have a locker available for the Forester Wilderness diffs. They're currently in the process of developing and modifying their R160 one bolts. Long story short, the differential style is one bolt but the axle splines are 5 bolt. If you want to install a locker you'll need to machine spacers and install a 5 bolt locker. Most folks don't know this information.

[@crosstrekxtplease8454]

Yeah stacking rocks without a diff lock is scary stuff.. love my subie until it comes to that

[@mallkrawlerz620]

I’d like to drive this thing properly

[@CAZALOBO]

Great video. If you were in deep snow and mud you would have better results imo. More throttle and power less wheel breaking and more wheel spin would of helped the front tires get you through. I have the same Outback and love it.

[@darthmaverick7379]

That front OEM skid plate is already dented as hell! Should've gone with the Primitive Racing skids.

[@chrystivasquez1360]

Later on I'll gets me one

[@Databyter]

Keep in mind that with Unibody frames as opposed to truck on frame types of construction, you WANT your skid to take the blow and deform so that it absorbes the blow and doesn't simply transmit it into the unibody. With Truck on frame the skids can be attacked to harder anchored points and act more like rock rails, so you WANT them to be hard and literally SKID. With Unibody you are actually trying to soften and absorbe a blow, the noise and vibration of which should be a clue to check your line. Better to abuse and deform your AWD Unibody Crossover "skid" plate, than to change the geometry of what it is mounted to. If it does not deform, and it's mounting location cannot bear the impact, you are just deforming an area of the unibody you can't see. You may marvel at your perfect skid plate, but you may regret your confidence down the road. I compare this to the hard bumpers of the past, to the designed to absorve and deform bumpers of today. You do not WANT a hard bumper today. You want a soft one that will dent and deform and slow down and absorbe impact. Much like bumpers, skid plates on crossover unibodies are almost universally misunderstood. There is a reason that Subaru will void a warranty of certain kinds of damage when seemingly superior skid plates are installed, but preserve those same protections when their own softer more designed to bend designs are employed. They do not want you to think that there are skid plates that can literally SKID you over obstacles without doing any damage to the plate or the car, because THERE AREN'T. You can probably improve on the OEM plates, but they do have the advantage of being realistic protections that are cheap and easy to replace at will. This is what I have on MY OWN WILDERNESS and I am not in the market for a primitive solution or similar for the reasons laid out above. I want my plate armor to get dented, make noise, etc. And I am glad that they are mounted in such a way that the brackets are designed to sway and absorbe force up to the point that the suspension can help move over an obstacle, but not to the point where the skid plate BECOMES the rock that is trying to tear a hole in your unibody under supports. Databyter

[@davesmith5092]

Really needs a rear locker. If subaru sold one from the factory these things would be awesome.

[@ianbudgetrc2574]

Ground clearances: Outback wilderness - 9.5 inches Ford f150 - 9 inches But the F150 can tackle more aggressive terrains due to higher raised front bumper, much higher than the Outback. Here's the thing about subarus: higher ground clearance doesn't mean more extreme offroading.. Nonetheless, I love Subaru Outback more than anything else. I will be having one in the future and I wouldn't do extreme offroading. I like it STOCK because it's already perfect for cross country travelling in any season and weather with the whole family.

[@dirtycommtroop]

100%. Its good for snow, mud, and clearing obstacles on more flat trails/roads.

[@MatthewHeiskell]

I have the Ironman suspension and 245/65R17 KO2 tires too. I know it is always steeper and rougher than it looks on video, but I think your swaybars were greatly hindering you. I was not seeing the travel and articulation that Ironman allows when the swaybars are disconnected, or in my case, deleted. It is super easy to get rid of the rear one. You won't notice a difference on the road, but you will get more wheel travel off road. The front one is more of a tradeoff. Steering response is decreased a bit, but you get additional traction and comfort off road since every wheel can move completely independently. You can just remove the sway bar end-links and rotate it up and out of the way and test drive it like that for a couple days. You can add a zip tie for extra security. I rolled like that for a week before I completely removed both of them. Good on ya for getting out there and banging on it!

[@Jshanks19]

Do you have a wilderness? I was thinking about the iron man.

[@MatthewHeiskell]

@@Jshanks19 No, I got my 19' Premium Forester before the wilderness existed. I love my Ironman suspension! Do you have a wilderness?

[@Jshanks19]

@@MatthewHeiskell yes, I traded in my 20 Foz sport.

[@chrystivasquez1360]

I was debating utnbolting the rear, definitely will about it next time. It's quick to get to also

[@MatthewHeiskell]

@@chrystivasquez1360 Un-bolt the front and rear. I think you can just remove one endlink from each side. Totally remove it. It will perform WAY better!

[@MattePurple1]

A stock Wilderness is like 9.5 inches. What does that Ironman kit put you at, 10--11?

[@DougVandegrift]

Did he have X mode on?

[@nismosr]

Why is the spotter not helping out ive seen a video of an oBW crawling and spotter are helping out putting pieces of rocks by the tires that needs its so the car can easily get a grip.

[@broinsocali]

We're you in X-Mode at all?

[@ScottMyers-l1z]

they probably don't even know what that is unfortunately.

[@treyboozer2572]

What's going on with the passenger side steer tire?

[@DANIELHERNANDEZ-cp2ym]

I don’t understand why the front right wheel does not turn (no grip) crawling the step if this vehicle is provided with Symetrical All Wheel Drive from the factory. If you were crawling with the X-Mode on, the transmission is supposed to send torque to that wheel as needed but it doesn’t seem to be doing it…

[@smellybearc7411]

That’s what I thought too. The car didn’t seem like it had X mode turned on. Also, not sure traction control was off either.

[@samlee1890]

This can’t be the geyser blue right. It looks so good. Irl geyser looked too bright.

[@danbryan5002]

😳🙂😂wearing a mask outside in your car in the mountains.

[@OjaysAdventures]

was the off roading before or after holding up a 7-11?

[@chrystivasquez1360]

Haha, took me a second to think about that one! When its around 20° in Southern Texas, it feels like I might as well be in antarctic... not used to that kinda cold. Happens like maybe once a year at most. 2 days later the high was 80

[@vilhelmstein2091]

Did you use deep snow and mud

[@zachv8286]

Great video, and nice to see the OBW make it up! Definitely getting into challenging terrain for the Outback. Which X-mode setting were you using? Did I hear correctly that this was close to 20 degrees?

[@chrystivasquez1360]

Snow/Dirt the whole time. And yes that day it was overcast and freezing for us southern Texans. It was below 30 that whole day and sleeting. Might be able to see it in the video.

[@FracturedNinja]

@@chrystivasquez1360 did you try deep snow and mud? Would have been interesting to see the result… I feel the gearing is much lower and throttle response/power is much higher in deep snow and mud.

[@chrystivasquez1360]

@@FracturedNinja you know I didn't even think about it. Next time I go I'll try it for sure.

[@FracturedNinja]

@@chrystivasquez1360 I would, I am going to make a post on the Subaru Wilderness Facebook page about this with some information I found here soon.

[@HomesteadOnThePreserve]

@@FracturedNinja When X-Mode is set to DSM the gearing is ALWAYS at it's lowest (4.44) If you set to DSM your journey could have been more impressive.

[@jonathanbrown1120]

Did you still have traction control on?

[@chrystivasquez1360]

I just put it in snow/Dirt mode

[@jonathanbrown1120]

@@chrystivasquez1360 if you go again you should try and turn off all traction control if you havent already and see how that goes.

[@SkilletsUSMC]

Why oh why can't Subaru just put a selectable 4WD transfer case and a granny gear on their cars? I want to love them so much but they just aren't quite there, performance wise.

[@thierryvanhoof5478]

Well this driver should have followed a workshop driving a Subaru wilderness.

[@kingofall9262]

I think people are just pushing this thing too it’s limit lol, I’m getting mine soon but won’t be doing anything this crazy

[@HomesteadOnThePreserve]

Just special ordered a Geyser Blue OBW yesterday! Happy trails my friend!

[@kingofall9262]

@@HomesteadOnThePreserve nice congratulation. I’m finally getting mine tomorrow.

[@TexasCorgiGun]

Good desición, it's not meant to do that.

[@PatriotSteve]

WHY?

[@kredoss14]

Damn cmon guys the car definitely need a lift at least 2-3 inch

[@Databyter]

My tires are about an inch taller than those on paper, and in reality because they sag less by design closer to an inch and a quarter. I wonder if there would be a perceptable difference in difficulty with such a small diameter difference. Also, were you aired down here? Airing down can really help a hard shelf become more of a suggestion as your tires wrap around it rather than becoming blocked by it. Great video, this is a capable vehicle, but one that requires different skills and techniques compared to a 4X4 Truck, Jeep, or Bronco. I'm anxious to take mine into some more challenging trails, but lately I've seen more and more trails locally closed off to vehicle travel so Im still looking for a relatively close and moderately difficult trail for my maiden voyage. I DO have deflators and pump and intend to use them religiously for any terrain approaching this difficulty level. If you air down I think you will see a dramatic improvement in traction and ability to climb steep angle shelves. One of the reasons I got larger tires was to increase the height of the sidewall so that airing down could be done more safely with more air volume and more clearance from the outside of the tire to the edge of the rim. Unfortunately newer Outbacks can not go smaller than 17" wheels, so the only way we can achieve higher sidewalls is by tire outer diameter. That extra half inch per side doesn't seem like much , but it is actually a lot for purposes of airing down. I still think the stock tires are pretty good. But if you were going to do this sort of thing a lot I would consider getting taller wider tires on wheels suited to them. I went with a 7.5 x 17 wheel that is lighter than stock to offset the added weight of my 245/65/17's and I purposely went with a purpose designed Crossover AT tire that is NOT an LT rated tire for load. This keeps the weight down but still gives me an aggresive AT tire that still provides crossover levels of superior load rating and speed rating while keeping out of the LT added weights of 15 lbs. heavier per tire as an average. Mine are only about 10 lbs. heavier and that is offset by the wheels being about 4 lbs lighter. The tire is a Falken Wildpeak Trail AT. And I can't wait to try them out on a trail like this. Databyter

[@AaronAdventurez]

Let’s do a subie event there!

[@chrystivasquez1360]

We should. Place is 280p acres and has a huge camp ground

[@chrystivasquez1360]

We should. Place is 2800 acres and huge camping area with store

[@AaronAdventurez]

@@chrystivasquez1360 what's your IG?

[@SpringMtnHiker]

Next time, air down the tires. You'll get better traction for these types of obstacles.

[@chrystivasquez1360]

I went to 18psi. I hear 10psi is about the lowest till you need beadlocks.

[@SpringMtnHiker]

@@chrystivasquez1360 I see. It looked like they weren't aired down in the video.

[@thierryvanhoof5478]

Was He driving in X mode ????

[@herambbarve]

i feel like he wasnt, there was too much wheelspin than x mode should allow

[@HomesteadOnThePreserve]

@@herambbarve He was in regular Xmode. If he went to DSM the tranny would have locked in at the lowest ratio of 4.44 and made things so much easier.

[@nizo6673]

Really hate that Subaru put a cvt in there wilderness vehicles

[@kellssheehan8578]

What’s with the mask?

[@anonymous..-]

Taliban bro.

[@unlockedsam1223]

This vehicle is absolutely not meant for this

[@danbrewer6367]

Yeah that’s not what the Wilderness was designed to do.

[@f5fstop]

Rock crawling....that's a good laugh. Try real rock crawling in Moab UT.

[@JinKazama92]

that looks way too underflated

[@bcmedic]

These guys need to learn how to drive and to spot.....

[@bubbalo3388]

Subaru should have a setting so all 4 wheels stay engaged. For scenarios like this, every little bit bit of traction helps and even more if you have limited wheel articulation. If you are stuck and the wheels keep spinning in the same spot repeaditly it can make the situation worse because it is digging in. And also not mentioning all the debris kick up and wearing if the tires. Sure AWD mode works good enough for most people in everyday driving in bad weather or the forest roads, but for a little more extreme (excluding rock climbing) the Wilderness should have the ability to engage all four wheels if needed. With a feature like that it would make the Wilderness a beast. Pretty much for now one can slap on some larger profile A/T tires on a non Wilderness model and gain some height and traction in improvement in off the beaten path performance and it will basically be like the Wilderness I'm that area. Yeah sure you can argue the Wilderness has different gearing and an extra mode, but did it help it here? No. So by adding a feature to engage all 4 wheels would set the Wilderness apart. I am rethinking getting the Outback Wilderness now and getting the Touring instead and replacing the tires when they wear out for A/T tires. The Touring would be more comfortable for everyday driving, long trips and also off the beaten path with the cooling seats, adjustable leg support and soft leather. Not saying the Wilderness is a bad option, just that it could be better.

[@chrystivasquez1360]

I didn't do any videos there, but I think I might have an old one where I went up a rocky hill on normal and then tried the snow/Dirt. The car would not climb it on normal. Kept spinning and traction would turn on. First I turned off traction and it just made some ruts like said. Once I put it on snow/Dirt, it would stop the wheel that was spinning and apply it to the one with traction. It does try to act like a locker but definitely not one. It needs more power or a low gear would be sweet. I would have to bump it over or keep momentum, and that's a quick way to bottom out on those rocky trails I was doing. It did good. But could always be better. I got the wagon for more offroad worth trails for camping. I couldn't find a bronco so this will do for now. I'm gonna enjoy it while I have it! Thanks for the feedback!

[@bubbalo3388]

@@chrystivasquez1360 yeah thought about getting a Crosstrek at first but no storage space. Looking at possibly an Outback now. Wife want's more car like, so a Bronco isn't an option for us. Haha.

[@DylanCarGuy]

@@bubbalo3388 sounds like we have the same wife 😂 mine wanted a bronco, but we sprung for a Forester wilderness instead

[@JamieUtah]

You can clearly see the car sending power to both the front and back wheels. The problem with subies isn't the AWD it's the transmission refusing to send power to the wheels period when there is too much torque on the system. It doesn't need diff lockers, it needs low range.

[@bikecrew1736]

Horrible spotter. Outback can do much better if just angle it differently

[@antoniomarroquin3649]

Definitely a bad driver .

[@chrystivasquez1360]

I'm getting my practice in with the outback. Cvt definitely makes it more difficult. Be nice to have a 5 speed and even better if it had a low gear 😆

[@smellybearc7411]

@@chrystivasquez1360 Wonder if the paddle shifters would help. I personally don’t have experience with it, but some people claim the paddle shifters help when off-roading. Also, which x mode are you in? Did you turn traction control off?

[@kenxkou]

こいつ！犯人か？

[@Waterman1000]

Don’t buy a silly WOKE SUBARU car!! 🤮👎🏼If you want to go off-road with real power and capability, drive a solid 4X4 truck! 💪🏼👍🏼

[@johnarneson5057]

What’s with the mask?