My Daughter is visiting friends in Carova the first week of June. Is an Outback sufficient to get her there?

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If she airs down and is experienced at beach driving, I'd assess her chances as 50% at best. If she were doing it in today's beach conditions as shown in Beach Farmer's post, I'd say no way.

I saw a story a while back about one of the boys who carried tourists and residents up and down Hatteras Island in the 1930s, before roads and in 2-wheel drive cars. And he would occasionally get stuck. But he had passengers who could get out and push!

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Outback can definitely make it. Air down the tires, try to avoid high tide. I think the questions is how experienced is your daughter driving on the beach/in soft sand.

My wife shuttled by daughter back and forth for Senior week a couple years ago in her outback and didn't have any problems.

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When we owned it we took our AWD Honda CRV out on the sand using ORV Ramp 4 across from the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center. We made it out to where the fisherman are and turned around. All was well until we bottomed out a short distance from Hwy 12. We were driving in tracks and a Cherokee coming at us cut in front of us causing me to stop and bottomed out. A kind soul stopped and gave us a push.

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The ground clearance would make me a little nervous…but I’ve seen smaller cars (stupidly) make it..

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I’ve made it down a ramp or two on Hatteras in a Mazda CX-5, but all the way up to Carova? I wouldn’t roll the dice on that.

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For what it's worth - a Jeep Cherokee presents virtually the same ground clearance (just shy of 9") as an Outback. The Limited is actually less. An F150 is only a few inches more.

The Subie Outback is actually pretty darn capable.

The "gotta have lockers/4WD/be lifted/etc" mantra has, my opinion, really gotten overblown...but the new "looks cool" lo profile tire/wheel packages certainly benefit from the off road tech. As some have said, back in the day, 2WD pick ups sporting 15" rims w 185 tires @ 10psi got us everywhere

Oh, somebody mentioned a 3 pedal Trooper...one of the best sand vehicles I've ever driven.

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For what it's worth - a Jeep Cherokee presents virtually the same ground clearance (just shy of 9") as an Outback. The Limited is actually less. An F150 is only a few inches more.

The Forester and the Outback have a ground clearance of 8.7". That's not bad, but you'd want to be careful of the depth of the ruts you pick.. Bellying the vehicle can make for a difficult recovery without a good tow cable. Or a wrecker with a winch.

While Subaru offers the best full-time AWD in the business, there's still something to be said for a locker.

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My 1983 Subaru 4WD wagon drove the beach frequently back in the day. In this picture you can see it towed a 14' V-Hull out to the Point. You may also notice the ski rack rod holders on the roof. It got around fine as long as you kept your foot into it in the ruts and ramps.

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

Your trunks are quite a bit shorter than what the ladies were allowed to wear when I was in high school. :-)

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

Your trunks are quite a bit shorter than what the ladies were allowed to wear when I was in high school. :-)

The original OP baggies were vogue in the mid eighties. Ask HOI, she’ll know.

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

Your trunks are quite a bit shorter than what the ladies were allowed to wear when I was in high school. :-)

The original OP baggies were vogue in the mid eighties. Ask HOI, she’ll know.

Is she still on here? I thought she said she had enough of it.
BTW subarus are great as long as the driver knows what they are doing.They have a legitimate power sharing 4x4 system and not some AWD that will just get you stuck further off the road than 2WD.

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A friend of ours has a cottage on Ocracoke and used a Forester for a year or two. After the 3rd tow off the beach she bought a new Jeep. It's the oldest story on the beach - it worked fine until it didn't.

I'd already owned a new 2001 Forester Limited for a short while, so I already knew the limitations of systems that shifted power from front to back and even side to side - sometimes they're too slow and they are usually unpredictable when they start hunting for traction. My limited even had limited slip on the rear axle.

Fwiw, I had a new 1986 Subaru GL wagon I kept for 14 years. This was the older body with 85 hp an a 5-speed - pre-Outback. It had p-time 4wd with hi/lo range, a factory steel skid plate, factory armored exhaust, 3-position manually adjustable rear shocks and 13" white spoke wheels. It came with 185/70-13 tires on it so they had a little more footprint than the tires that came on the other models. Using 14 or 15 psi worked wonderfully except for those rare occasions I'd have to go to 10 psi to get over some of the mostly pea gravel ramp approaches on the northern beaches. Finally the salt got to it and the front subframe members rusted through.

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The Outback is capable of making it in the right conditions the question is the driver capable. An inexperienced driver can just as easily get stuck in a 4x4 with high clearance as they could in an Outback.

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The Outback is capable of making it in the right conditions the question is the driver capable. An inexperienced driver can just as easily get stuck in a 4x4 with high clearance as they could in an Outback.

This.

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The right conditions. Well heck, how does anyone know what the conditions are a mile or three up the beach? Better? Worse? Drop a wheel or two axle deep into powder filled potholes and it doesn't matter if the rest of the beach is right or not.

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You’re right,you never know what the sand will be like a mile away, this underscores the need for experience. Is she experienced in beach driving, has she been on that stretch of beach before?

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

In my early 20's I had a Subaru Brat. I could take that almost anywhere. I had it on the beaches from MA to NC

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

In my early 20's I had a Subaru Brat. I could take that almost anywhere. I had it on the beaches from MA to NC

And that 1983 wagon I had was one heck of a ski car too! I used to drive on the center un-plowed lane going up the steep grades in Vermont. Great car!

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The addition of 14 inch wheels made a world of difference when it came to ground clearance. I peddled this thing around for a few years until it just got too uncomfortable to drive long distances in it. (Getting old sucks.....lol)

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Love that color!

The addition of 14 inch wheels made a world of difference when it came to ground clearance. I peddled this thing around for a few years until it just got too uncomfortable to drive long distances in it. (Getting old sucks.....lol)

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Here it is again, at The Point. Bigger fish, no boat.

In my early 20's I had a Subaru Brat. I could take that almost anywhere. I had it on the beaches from MA to NC

Ha> I also had a Subaru Brat. It had the 2 seats in the truck bed and I attached rod holders to the seats and I was the sight around ramp 4! Let air down and had to keep in 1st gear with the motor wound tight and could go most anywhere. A big problem getting going again if for some reason we had to stop in soft sand! My daughters loved to ride in those rear seats. Good Memories!

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I don’t really know about the Outback, but I did just drive down the 4wd beach today (I have a jeep). Overall it wasn’t too bad, although there were definitely places where the sand was deeper and clearance could be an issue. Looking at it, that’s sort of where I think the problems would be

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