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I love my new Forester, but it has one quirk. The throttle mapping is extremely agressive at tip-in.

This means that when I fart onto the gas pedal, it revs up to 2k.

Launching at anything less than 1500 revs is like hitting a 2 inch target at 1000 yards. With a Mosin Nagant rifle from 1938.

So, I either launch at 15-1600 or nearly stall at idle when taking off. In fact, I have stalled this car about 4 times since I bought it 2.5 months ago, which is more than I've stalled any other car in the last 3 years.

This isn't just me, and this is a common complaint about the mapping. Even the CVT owners notice the overly agressive jumpiness off the line.

Launching at anything Ober 1000-1100 bothers me, so I'm just venting my frustration. I'm 3800 miles into the car and haven't gotten completely used to it yet and feel like a noob on some days, despite close to 200 miles of manual experience under my belt, which includes many cars and all sorts of DBW setups.

I could not imagine learning on this car. That probably would have turned me off manuals forever.

But, I still love the car. In the end, I'll just get used to thee quirk.

Edit. Stalled it just today when I was over thinking all of this. It died in a weird way and wouldn't start for good 10 seconds. Very weird - I think it actually got flooded a bit when it died.

Also, the agressive tip in isn't an issue if I always wanted to do spirited launches off the line. But alas, I often start out easy for the first second or so until the clutch engages, and then feed in healthy throttle.

Having written all that, I'm off to ride my motorcycle, with a good old cable-driven throttle and clutch. At least it does what I say, when I say it.

Must be that all Foresters are like that.


(What was that other guy thinking, picking the wet lane against an AWD vehicle?)

No wonder the forester felt fast to me... I tested it out in my accord and the accord doesn't seem to have the same problem. I used the gas pedal as a bass drum pedal to play along to a song and it didn't seem to affect the throttle Imput too much. Granted, I was only pushing it it maybe half an inch or so...

AHTOXA wrote: With a Mosin Nagant rifle from 1938.

Rifle is fine.

ColJessip wrote:

AHTOXA wrote: With a Mosin Nagant rifle from 1938.

Rifle is fine.

Tony, if the launch is so aggressive, can you just no gas launch briefly every time then get on the gas pedal? AKA modify your style slightly?

Squint wrote:

ColJessip wrote:

AHTOXA wrote: With a Mosin Nagant rifle from 1938.

Rifle is fine.

Tony, if the launch is so aggressive, can you just no gas launch briefly every time then get on the gas pedal? AKA modify your style slightly?

Yeah, I've been trying various methods to see what works best as I get acclimated with this thing.

These motors idle at 500 RPM, so not a whole lot of wiggle room for a no-gas launch, although engine does have decent torque.

Truth be told, my OCD has been kicking hard the last few days and I tend to over-analyze and obsess about everything when this happens. It's been triggered primarily by work stress.

AHTOXA wrote:...despite close to 200 miles of manual experience under my belt...

You're missing quite a few zeros there

On the topic's note, I am having an opposite problem. After almost a decade of driving rev-happy 4 and 6 cylinder Japanese cars, this ginormous V8 beast has a gas pedal that is not quite as responsive. Which means I am constantly launching at or even below idle. Not an issue for a 415HP LS3 of course, but still.

six wrote:

AHTOXA wrote:...despite close to 200 miles of manual experience under my belt...

You're missing quite a few zeros there

That's just the part under his belt.

AHTOXA wrote:... when I fart onto the gas pedal ...

Uhhh. Why don't you just no-gas launch? I do that the majority of the time in my Sonic and even the 1.4L with no spool can do that.

You test drove the car when you bought it? And it drove like this? And you still bought it?

Or maybe its not designed for dudes of your stature? I know I hate driving Hondas because its like they design the throttle/brake sensitivity for someone's grandmother, just way too sensitive. I mean I can slam **** to the floor just fine I don't need a light throttle/brake.

SonicHKS wrote:Uhhh. Why don't you just no-gas launch? I do that the majority of the time in my Sonic and even the 1.4L with no spool can do that.

You test drove the car when you bought it? And it drove like this? And you still bought it?

Or maybe its not designed for dudes of your stature? I know I hate driving Hondas because its like they design the throttle/brake sensitivity for someone's grandmother, just way too sensitive. I mean I can slam **** to the floor just fine I don't need a light throttle/brake.

he has a forester now, bye bye sonic. also, who notices all of a car's "character flaws" on a test drive?? i test drove my accord 2-3 times and drove it over 100 miles before getting it, and i don't think i noticed any of its quirks.

potownrob wrote:

SonicHKS wrote:Uhhh. Why don't you just no-gas launch? I do that the majority of the time in my Sonic and even the 1.4L with no spool can do that.

You test drove the car when you bought it? And it drove like this? And you still bought it?

Or maybe its not designed for dudes of your stature? I know I hate driving Hondas because its like they design the throttle/brake sensitivity for someone's grandmother, just way too sensitive. I mean I can slam **** to the floor just fine I don't need a light throttle/brake.

he has a forester now, bye bye sonic. also, who notices all of a car's "character flaws" on a test drive?? i test drove my accord 2-3 times and drove it over 100 miles before getting it, and i don't think i noticed any of its quirks.

Somehow, I think most people would notice the issue he's complaining about, unless all he did was hoon the test drive. Like seriously, if I test drove a car and had issues launching I wouldn't buy it.

Rope-Pusher wrote:

six wrote:

AHTOXA wrote:...despite close to 200 miles of manual experience under my belt...

You're missing quite a few zeros there

That's just the part under his belt.

ROFL

SonicHKS wrote:
Somehow, I think most people would notice the issue he's complaining about, unless all he did was hoon the test drive. Like seriously, if I test drove a car and had issues launching I wouldn't buy it.

Very nice

SonicHKS wrote:Somehow, I think most people would notice the issue he's complaining about, unless all he did was hoon the test drive. Like seriously, if I test drove a car and had issues launching I wouldn't buy it.

Some people probably do only hoon on test drives, figuring if it does well hooning then it will do fine in normal driving.

Then there's me, sometimes I get all polite and don't want to beat on someone else's car, and if it's brand new then I don't want to hoon before it's broken in...