Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Summer 2006

TECHNOLOGIES In your driving experience, have you ever had to swerve to avoid something that suddenly appeared? Did you hit your brakes very hard? Were you able to accomplish these seemingly simple maneuvers without spinning or skidding? If so, you’ve used some of your vehicle’s active safety features. You use them any time you drive, to one degree or another. When discussing safety, we tend to focus on seatbelts and airbags, but there are dozens of systems and hundreds of details that contribute to your safety in a Subaru. The automobile industry generally divides vehicular safety systems into two types – active safety and passive safety. Active safety features help you to avoid an accident. Passive safety features help protect vehicle occupants should an accident occur. The 2006 Subaru vehicles have both. Reprinted from Subaru Drive magazine (Spring, 2006) with permission from Subaru of America, Inc. ACTIVE ACCIDENT AVOIDANCE Control is one of the most important aspects of driving a vehicle. Steering, braking, cornering, shifting, accelerating – these all contribute to how you control the vehicle. When you’re in control, you determine how closely you follow the vehicle in front of you, when and how you come to a stop, when and where you make turns and hundreds of other driving decisions. Sometimes decisions are made in a split second – emergency braking, for example. That’s a clear case of active safety. Consider how these Subaru active safety features play a part in accident avoidance. Notice, too, how their functions interconnect. Steering Your vehicle’s steering system is one of the most obvious active safety features. Precise rack-and-pinion steering systems are standard in every Subaru vehicle. Response is immediate, and changes in direction are direct. Braking Another obvious active safety feature is braking. Most Subaru vehicles have four-wheel-disc brakes, which cool quicker than drum brakes to reduce brake fade. As a result, the brakes will function better. Disc brakes also function better than drum brakes after driving through high water. Subaru vehicles are all equipped with 4-channel/4-sensor/ 4-wheel Anti-lock Brake Systems (ABS) – most models also include Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD). ABS helps to prevent wheels from locking up under emergency braking. This active safety feature is not intended to shorten braking distances, but rather to allow steering control. A skidding front wheel provides no directional control – it just slides forward. A rolling front wheel lets the driver steer away from trouble. EBD can variably adjust brake-force between the front and rear wheels using wheel sensors to detect passenger and cargo load. Most of the braking is usually done by the front wheels to take advantage of the forward weight shift – for greater control. The greater the load inside the cabin, the greater the amount of braking that can be realized at the rear wheels. By shifting more brake-force to the rear, EBD helps maintain optimal stopping distance, even when the vehicle is weighed down. SUBARU BOXER and symmetrical full-time All-Wheel Drive All Subaru vehicles have horizontally-opposed (boxer) engines that are fuel efﬁcient, powerful and low in emissions. Horizontallyopposed engines have a ﬂatter proﬁle than in-line or V-type engines. That helps to lower the vehicles’ centre of gravity, which has positive effects on handling and resistance to rolling over. Subaru is one of only two vehicle manufacturers that build boxertype engines for the Canadian market; the other is Porsche. 11

Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Summer 2006 | Page 11