[JimRatliff]

I've learned and adapted a bit. Our second house is up in the Catskills. What I didn't realize before was how often LKA was turning itself off on the two lane roads (like cresting a hill with a turn over the brow, or down with a turn at the bottom). Now that I'm learning, the visual feedback from the combination screen is really an awesome design for displaying information. Too bad it's not on a heads up display so it is more visible without looking at the dash.

LKA behaves completely differently once I get off the back country roads.

I also very much like that it asks me (nicely, of course) to keep my hands on the wheel when I am 'evaluating.

 

[MamaBear5]

I turned off the LKA right after I purchased the car, as I found it too much for me. But I kept the LDW on for some time. Recently I also turned that off, and at the same time, the steering seems a little tighter to me. I'm not sure if that is a coincidence or just the car breakig in. I have just over 2,000 miles on the car.

 

[JimRatliff]

Several months of "re"learning to drive with all of the assists provided by the Ascent.

Initially, my wife and I found the steering twitchy. I now believe that was 2 things.
1. I think we were frequently turning the steering wheel just as SubieQ (our Ascent) would auto-correct, so we were getting different amounts of movement for what we thought was the same amount of steering input. We are now much more familiar of the feel when the Ascent assists with the steering.
2. Our second house is in the Catskills of upstate New York, and I didn't understand the display screens well enough to realize how often Eyesight was losing sight of the road, which led to a different feel because no steering correction was happening at all.

At this point, I'm truly impressed at what a great job the Eyesight programmers did of providing feedback of what was going on, and rolling hills with turns at the bottom or top are problematic. Straighter roads aren't a problem, but it makes me aware of how far "all manufacturers" really have to go in order to achieve truly autonomous cars.

 

[TheLex]

The first thing I noticed when I picked up the Ascent is the steering is super light and it was twitchy as **** on the freeway. It's very quick to go off center, unlike my other vehicles which are slow on center and get progressively faster as you get away from center.

Before you say "he doesn't know how to drive an SUV", I daily drive a 2017 Ford F450 dually. This thing is 22' long and 8' wide, and 9500 lbs. It takes up most of the lane with precious little room to spare. My outboard rear mirror housings each have 2 mirrors - one to see the traffic to the side and rear, and the other pointed at the outboard rear tire on that side. This is so I can see exactly how far I am from the line. I drove over 6000 miles pulling a 12k lb fifth wheel over all sorts of roads and kept the over 20k lb combo between the lines with no issues.

The truck has variable steering which is wonderful at keeping a straight line. It's slower on center and quicker as you go off center. In parking lots the steering effort lightens up considerably, which makes it easy to maneuver this big beast of a truck.

And yes, tire pressure makes a big difference. The truck comes with commercial rated tires which are spec'd at 110 psi. I run them at 90 psi front and 80 psi rear, otherwise I get all sorts of wandering due to the commercial tires tracking the grooves and ripples/defects in the pavement.

I've also owned a big Chevy Tahoe, Subaru Outback, and currently also own a Honda Odyssey, Merc SL, Porsche 997.2 GTS, and a Mini Cooper S. None of those vehicles wander like the Ascent.

Now I will say that the LKA plays a big role in this. The LKA is default off, unless you hit the little button. Because the steering is so light and so quick on center, it's very easy to get off the very center of the lane, and if LKA is on, then it wants to push you back to the center. So you get this squirmy, twitchy, wandering effect.

Turn off the LKA and the squirmy, twitchy wandering goes away. But the steering is still super light and can wander off center track easily.

I have NOT checked the tire pressures yet as I just picked up the Ascent. I'm going to check it with cold tire pressure tomorrow. I bet the pressure is high. I'm sure adjusting it down to 35 psi will help, but it won't change the effect of the super light electric steering.

 

[Soca]

Fast forward 1800 miles after the original post and I’m used to it, wasn’t the LKA (which I usually keep off), nor the tire pressure.

The steering is just twitchy. No other way to describe it.

 

[GHP1]

The first thing I noticed when I picked up the Ascent is the steering is super light and it was twitchy as **** on the freeway. It's very quick to go off center, unlike my other vehicles which are slow on center and get progressively faster as you get away from center.

Before you say "he doesn't know how to drive an SUV", I daily drive a 2017 Ford F450 dually. This thing is 22' long and 8' wide, and 9500 lbs. It takes up most of the lane with precious little room to spare. My outboard rear mirror housings each have 2 mirrors - one to see the traffic to the side and rear, and the other pointed at the outboard rear tire on that side. This is so I can see exactly how far I am from the line. I drove over 6000 miles pulling a 12k lb fifth wheel over all sorts of roads and kept the over 20k lb combo between the lines with no issues.

The truck has variable steering which is wonderful at keeping a straight line. It's slower on center and quicker as you go off center. In parking lots the steering effort lightens up considerably, which makes it easy to maneuver this big beast of a truck.

And yes, tire pressure makes a big difference. The truck comes with commercial rated tires which are spec'd at 110 psi. I run them at 90 psi front and 80 psi rear, otherwise I get all sorts of wandering due to the commercial tires tracking the grooves and ripples/defects in the pavement.

I've also owned a big Chevy Tahoe, Subaru Outback, and currently also own a Honda Odyssey, Merc SL, Porsche 997.2 GTS, and a Mini Cooper S. None of those vehicles wander like the Ascent.

Now I will say that the LKA plays a big role in this. The LKA is default off, unless you hit the little button. Because the steering is so light and so quick on center, it's very easy to get off the very center of the lane, and if LKA is on, then it wants to push you back to the center. So you get this squirmy, twitchy, wandering effect.

Turn off the LKA and the squirmy, twitchy wandering goes away. But the steering is still super light and can wander off center track easily.

I have NOT checked the tire pressures yet as I just picked up the Ascent. I'm going to check it with cold tire pressure tomorrow. I bet the pressure is high. I'm sure adjusting it down to 35 psi will help, but it won't change the effect of the super light electric steering.

I run 35 psi all around in my Premium. My wife loves the lite steering around town and in parking situations. When I drive on the highway LKA is off and will agree it is to twitchy and makes the cars steering feel vague and uncertain but off my car tracks straight and it feels good with no wandering. Perhaps the 20 inch tires come into play, tire pressure and incorrect alignment settings from the factory

 

[Extinct Auk]

I just completed a 1600 km trip on my Ascent Premier (Canada) and didn't notice anything unusual with the steering, even when compared to my previous vehicle, a 2008 RX 350.

The Ascent performed very well in all sorts of conditions during the trip (dry pavement, wet pavement, snow covered and off road briefly (on purpose)).

 

[bmr]

Before buying I've test drove 4 Ascent limiteds and 3 premiums. Felt steering twitchy on at least 3 vehicles. It could be tire pressure...usually they are set to 50 psi and dealer ignores to reset them to correct pressure. Or could be build date, they might have fixed in latest versions.

 

[counciltucky]

My wife complains about driving on the interstate to work. We just got back from 900 mile trip and I have to agree with her. It is consistently twitchy and doesn't like me to ride the line at all. I am afraid I have to turn off LKA which is a shame because that was a selling factor for me. I checked my tire pressure and they are all at 34.8psi. It also consistently pulls to the right.

 

[Carl Abrams]

It also consistently pulls to the right.

Your dealership should be able to do an alignment to correct that. Note that many times our new cars actually do require an alignment, even though they're fresh off the train and truck. (Lots of bouncing goes on with the shipping process.) But most of them don't, which is why they don't do an alignment automatically with the PDI process. My service department has told me in the past that Subaru will pay for one alignment on new cars due to pulling - couldn't hurt to have that checked.

 

[GaryInMI]

Having just driven my Limited 3,000 miles cross country I haven't noticed any of the twitchiness or not tracking streight. In fact my car tracks so streight that Eyesite keeps yelling at me to keep my hands on the steering wheel because I've exceeded the time with no steering inputs. This actually started to get annoying because it happened literally a hundred times on the arrow streight interstates in the southwest.

I personally like the light steering having hands badly deformed by arthritis. I didn't experience any of the hand pain I've had on other trips after a day of driving. I'm able to grip the wheel with less force and don't try to fight the LKA, just go with it.

 

[Soca]

Having just driven my Limited 3,000 miles cross country I haven't noticed any of the twitchiness or not tracking streight. In fact my car tracks so streight that Eyesite keeps yelling at me to keep my hands on the steering wheel because I've exceeded the time with no steering inputs. This actually started to get annoying because it happened literally a hundred times on the arrow streight interstates in the southwest.

I personally like the light steering having hands badly deformed by arthritis. I didn't experience any of the hand pain I've had on other trips after a day of driving. I'm able to grip the wheel with less force and don't try to fight the LKA, just go with it.

Mine definitely tracks straight, my main observation is small movements on the steering wheel translates to larger movements on the wheel than I'm used to. Almost like it detects 1mm of left right movement and translates into 6-12'' of instant movement at highway speeds requiring lots of corrections.

kinda like this

https://media.giphy.com/media/l41m6SxaTvCehO9xu/giphy.gif

On my S2000 it was proportional to the steering inputs. More like 10mm movement of the wheel equals 6-12'' of linear movement at highway speeds.

Almost like turning on a light switch and having it go to full brightness (Ascent) vs a soft start dimmer going from 0 to full brightness

 

[Kevin Williams]

Fast forward 1800 miles after the original post and I’m used to it, wasn’t the LKA (which I usually keep off), nor the tire pressure.

The steering is just twitchy. No other way to describe it.

Heh, I'd call it responsive!

And I'd much rather this than the alternative. I rented a 2017 Ford Expedition XLT when we went to Hawaii. There is a 5 degree dead spot in the center and then once the steering engages it feels like molasses! :tango_face_surprise

The Ascent definitely only takes small inputs, so if you were used to something like the Ford it would definitely feel twitchy, but to me it feels more like a sports car steering, immediately responsive!

 

[TheLex]

Regarding tire pressures, I just checked mine at they were at 40 PSI cold. They're supposed to be 35 PSI, so I'll see if this helps.

Yesterday I took drove it in 38 degree weather and the steering seemed better so obviously the lower pressure (due to lower ambient temperatures) does help. When I first picked it up, the temps were in the 60's.

 

[Wildcrd76]

I had the same experience as everyone in regards to the Ascent feeling like it was going all over the place on the freeway at high speeds. Fast forward now to 1700 miles and it suddenly seemed to stop. It's not the LKA because I didn't have it on during most of those miles. My theory is that it was the torque vectoring system and electronic power steering. Since the Ascent is a learning car, it did not know the pattern that you drive in and was most likely set to a conservative setting during the break in period. So people who tend to be more aggressive drivers or tend to speed more would get unstable torque vectoring as it was trying to compensate for the drivers actions. But around 1000 miles (Break in period) it all of a sudden stopped and is now very responsive. As far as the tightness in steering from LKA, I feel that as well and contribute it to the electronic power steering control of LKA to turn the wheel to swerve back. When I turn it off, I can feel it let go and loosen. Definitely check your tires if you haven't. My tire pressures were all over the place ranging from 32 psi to 45 psi. I normally set mine to about 35 psi. The tires themselves can make a difference. The ziex tires that come stock are softer than performance tires. So if you upgraded your tires, that could be the problem. My last car had the S rated ziex which were awesome at control, but produced a little harsher ride and more road noise. The stocks are H rated tires, so the side walls are softer and absorb more vibration. FYI do not go over 100 mph on the stocks, they will disintegrate at around 109 mph if you drive them longer than 10 minutes at that speed.

 

[JDT]

We've had our Touring for 2 weeks now and I was having difficulty keeping it from wandering, especially at highway speeds. I finally checked the tire pressures and all were right at 40 psi. The door sticker says 33 so I lowered them. Amazing the difference that made in the handling. Not near as much wandering and the ride is a little better. You would think this would be on the dealer's pre-delivery check list.

 

[TSiWRX]

Now that I've finally had the vehicle for a few longer trips.....


I've yet to notice any untoward "manual" behavior of this Subaru, versus any of our immediate family's other Subarus ( 11th since 2005 - we're adding #12 with my wife's WRX next month, for which I've already satisfied the deposit/down payment ).



For anyone experiencing issues, I would encourage a first-line self-check of tire pressures and a quick inspection of your tire carcass, progressing to alignment and suspension check (go back to the dealership for this, if you just got the vehicle, new, and escalate to Subaru corporate if the dealership cannot correct to your satisfaction).



Oh the highway, I've come to love Lane Keep Assist...this is to the point that I can safely install the clip-on sunglasses over my prescription eyewear.



On higher speed secondary/country roads as well as on city/suburban streets, the LKA can produce a bit of "ghost in the machine" feeling....but hey, we're not supposed to be using this technology assist in this manner, anyway.

 

[RobertD]

The Ascent definitely only takes small inputs, so if you were used to something like the Ford it would definitely feel twitchy, but to me it feels more like a sports car steering, immediately responsive!

I definitely agree with you on this. I went from a 12 year old 300k+ mile GMC crew cad and 8’ bed and I am having to learn how to drive the Ascent. I also think a very long wheel base truck like mine takes more steering input to make corrections. After spending that much time with that truck my driving habits adapted to it. My Ascent felt rather twitchy at first but after 3k miles I notice that the brain between the steering wheel and the seat is reprogramming and it is much better now.

 

[JDT]

I definitely agree with you on this. I went from a 12 year old 300k+ mile GMC crew cad and 8’ bed and I am having to learn how to drive the Ascent. I also think a very long wheel base truck like mine takes more steering input to make corrections. After spending that much time with that truck my driving habits adapted to it. My Ascent felt rather twitchy at first but after 3k miles I notice that the brain between the steering wheel and the seat is reprogramming and it is much better now.

Now I understand my problem adapting to the steering on our new Ascent. Besides the tire pressure issue my somewhat daily driver is a 2017 Ford F350 diesel dually. My Ford is big and cumbersome but pulls our fifth wheel with little effort. The Ascent is quick and nimble and hauls the grandkids with even less effort. Two different animals so I've got to quit comparing one to the other and just adapt, which is getting more difficult the older I get.

 

[TheLex]

I too have multiple vehicles. I will say though, that the Ascent by far, has the lightest steering.

My 2017 F450 dually tows a fifth wheel. I took that heavyweight combo on a 6000 drive this summer and never experienced the same issues as the Ascent. The only downside to the F450 is it comes with 19.5" wheels and tires. The tires are commercial rated for medium duty trucks. So when I encounter broken pavement and and uneven pavement, the truck tires will want to "follow" the jagged pavement. I've had to air the tires down from the recommended 110 PSI down to 90 PSI front and 80 PSI rear. That helped to solve some of the tracking issues. I can easily drive this thing all day long.

My Porsche Carrera GTS has lighting quick steering but it is not super light and does not wander. It's not my preferred long distance vehicle however due to the harder ride.

My Mercedes SL has typical heavy German steering. It's probably that way for high speed runs on Da Autobahn.

Our Honda Odyssey has wonky front wheel drive steering. By that I mean it's your typical front biased yaw-feeling steering. It's not feather light though, and we've taken it on many thousands of miles road trips with no issues. I can drive that thing all day long and not worry about the tracking or wandering.

The Mini Cooper S is another front wheel drive beast. Like the Odyssey, I can feel a strong front wheel bias but it has the addition complication of strong torque steer if you nail the throttle while turning. It's a great around town car, but feels tiny when I get it out on the freeway.

The Outback we just got rid of had steering on the lighter side, but nowhere as light as the Ascent. I found it to be a competent handler but the severe lack of power was its biggest shortcoming. It tracked well on the freeway and was easy to drive long distances.

I recently checked the tire pressures on the Ascent since it's brand new. Pressures were high - around 40 PSI. So I aired the tires down to the recommended 35 PSI. The result was there was significantly less wandering. The too light steering persists however. The combination of very light steering along with a fairly quick off center steering ratio, means one has to be really pay attention on the freeway. It's obviously not a vehicle designed for high speed autobahns, since in that situation a vehicle with twitchy steering could be dangerous. It works ok on American roads, but you just have to expend more effort.

I need to start thinning our herd of vehicles this spring lol.