I’m a big fan of the current Subaru WRX. It’s the distilled essence of a modern sport compact—fun, relatively practical, and still affordable—and has enough personality to overcome its somewhat ho-hum design. It’s the kind of car you can reliably throw at both your daily grind and your enthusiast hobbies without worrying that it might leave you stranded. If I woke up tomorrow morning and found myself 15 years younger, I’d probably buy one.
This wasn’t always the case, as prior examples did nothing for me. Years ago, a GR STI (the hatchback) and a brand-new 991 Porsche Carrera S overlapped briefly in my road test schedule. When I posted a photo of my driveway on social media, a neighbor asked me if he was crazy for being “more interested” in the STI.
John, brother, I say this with all the love in the world: Yes.
My affection for Subaru’s sport compact blossomed with the 2022 redesign. I’ve owned my share of sporty get-around cars; a 2008 Mazdaspeed3 and a 2016 Fiesta ST being the most memorable—but no matter how many WRXs or STIs I drove, it just never really clicked until Subaru stuck the millennial-bait cladding on the fenders. Just kidding.
What really changed is that the WRX finally feels less like a tractor with a turbocharger on it, and more like an actual car you don’t mind driving. That applies even more to the 2024-2026 model years. Why? The tS. That’s what this 2025 tester is. Yeah, technically it’s a year old and no longer relevant to the “new” car discussion, but the most significant thing Subaru changed for 2026 was the price tag.
The tS is the closest thing we get to an STI. It’s right there in the name; tS means “tuned by STI.” The tS retains the stock WRX’s 271-horsepower boxer-four, but you get the GT model’s adaptive dampers and Recaro seats without giving up a clutch pedal. It’s not quite as full-featured as the cushier GT, admittedly, but the latter is equipped exclusively with an automatic transmission.
This particular tS was delivered with an option that doesn’t normally appear on the window sticker: a set of winter tires that instantly transforms the WRX from a jack of all trades into a master of fun.
I don’t think I’ve driven a car with Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4s before, but Tire Rack seemed to prefer them over their Dunlop and Pirelli equivalents. I didn’t see a dry road the entire time I had the tS, so I can only speak to their snow-holding abilities, which are excellent.
We had a snowy midwinter here in Southeast Michigan. With several consecutive blasts of powder and no opportunities to melt in between, the Detroit metro had between 8 and 18 inches of snow on the ground the week I had the Subaru, effectively transforming the world into one big playground. It helps that Wayne County is littered with disused parking lots built for an era when malls and big-box stores reigned.
Putting snow tires on a WRX is like enabling developer mode in real life; the normal guardrails no longer apply. I don’t mean that literally, of course, but a good set of winter tires can feel borderline physics-defying, inviting you to shut off the WRX’s nannies and let the rooster tails fall where they may. This fluffy stuff doesn’t like sticking to fenders; you need to put some heat in the tires if you’re trying to look the part.
Roundy-round tomfoolery aside, the WRX really is shockingly approachable. While prevailing wisdom holds that all-wheel drive improves a car’s handling in low-traction conditions, that’s more myth than reality. AWD gives you another tool to exploit the grip you already do (or don’t) have, and while the WRX may lack the STI’s trick center differential, it still gives you plenty to work with on the street. Consequently, the WRX’s limits come and go with little drama. If anything, it feels a little too buttoned down at times—like this platform is just begging for another 100 horsepower so you can really see where the limits are.
Now that I’m done glazing the donut-maker, I need to point out a few glaring negatives. Chief among them is the WRX’s dated infotainment. There’s not much to say about it at this point. It looks old. It acts old. It is old. There’s also too much locked behind it. Subaru knows that; we’ve seen the company’s latest effort in the Outback; it’s a massive upgrade that can’t come to the little sport compact soon enough. I hope it’s due for a mid-cycle update pretty soon.
As a certified non-fanboy, I also think this here ‘ru sounds like ‘doo. Sorry, but the boxer’s inherent boxeriness doesn’t tickle me the way it does the faithful, and I find the WRX’s note both subdued and lacking any real emotion. STI offers an accessory exhaust that gives it a little more boom, but some find it drone-y and off-putting. I’m not among them.
I have other gripes, too. The tS has some accents that liven up what is otherwise a sea of black (and mostly hard) plastic in the cabin; there’s not much pizzazz. And if you’re the type to get hung up on transmission ratios, the WRX’s almost-performatively short first gear might be a source of some background annoyance.
While trying to identify why I’ve just come around on the WRX, it occurred to me that I’ve probably been thinking about this all wrong. The car didn’t change so much as I did over the years, though it did gain something it lacked previously: poise. Maybe we both did?
Shame about the cladding, though. Maybe get it in black?
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