This may be the last time we have occasion to publish a road test on the B9 Tribeca. The existing model is about to be replaced, and the IM Group which imports Subarus (and Daihatsus and Isuzus) into the UK has not, at the time of writing, decided whether or not to include the new model in its line-up.The reason for this is that sales in this country have been rather disappointing. As I've said before, I don't think the name helps; although Subaru is a Japanese company, it doesn't sell this car in its home market. It's built in the US, primarily for American customers who will immediately realise that Tribeca is an upmarket region of New York. That piece of information is much less widely known over here, so the name doesn't have anything like the same associations.More importantly, though, there is no diesel, which immediately handicaps the Tribeca in the UK market. The new version won't have one either, even though Subaru will at last have its own diesel engine in production some time in 2008. It's technically possible that this unit could be fitted to the new Tribeca, but the chances of Subaru's American division going to the trouble of doing this are about the same as those of the US Treasury handing over its affairs to the Bank of England.To come back to the current situation, the Tribeca as it now stands comes in three forms, each of them fitted with Subaru's three-litre flat-six petrol engine. It produces 242bhp, so the straightline performance is pretty good, though you do have to rev it quite hard to reach anything like the full potential.Even if you don't do this, there is a big issue with fuel economy. The combined figure for the Tribeca is 23.0mpg, or a lot less than you might expect from a similar diesel-fuelled vehicle. Having driven the test car for over 2000 miles in little over a week, I found this a bit of chore, since the tank needed refilling every 300 miles or so. (On each occasion the trip computer happily informed me that I could now go 400 miles without stopping, but this was a cruel joke.)Although it uses a lot of fuel, the engine itself is a peach, and of course the fact that it sits horizontally (as all Subaru engines do) rather than vertically (as most other engines do) means that the Tribeca has a remarkably low centre of gravity, which is very good news for the handling.Handling is the key attribute of just about every car Subaru has made in the last 15 years, and although the bulk of the Tribeca makes it duller than the saloons and estates it's still impressive through the bends. That's when the roads are dry. In the wet the Tribeca has a big problem - it feels very uncertain, as if a major loss of grip isn't far away.I don't think this is an issue with the car itself, and I don't think there's anything wrong with the tyres either. I do feel, though, that there's a mismatch between the two, and that some other kind of rubber would have been a better choice.All this aside, the Tribeca is a particularly comfortable car, very well suited (and I speak from great personal experience here) to long motorway journeys, and quite relaxing over fast A-roads as long as it hasn't rained recently.The SE7 tested here is especially cossetting since it's the top-of-the-range model. The number 7 refers to the number of seats - there are seven as standard, including two "occasional" ones in a third row which is available only as an option on the lesser S5 and SE5 versions.The extra seats inevitably take up space that could otherwise be used for luggage. Maximum load capacity with the centre and back rows folded is 1495 litres, compared with a total possible 1671 litres in the five-seat cars. With all seats in place the luggage volume in the SE7 is just 128 litres, though in fairness it's unlikely that anyone would use a Tribeca to carry seven people and all their holiday baggage - the extra row would generally be used just for school runs and the like.Like the SE5, the SE7 comes with heated front seats, a memory function for the driver's seat and door mirrors, a tilt/slide sunroof, a reversing camera and DVD satellite navigation. To complete the package, the £2000 premium over the mid-range car also buys you a DVD entertainment system with headphones and remote control for rear-seat passengers, who can also control their own air-conditioning.The final point to make about the Tribeca is that, although it has never gone through the Euro NCAP crash test programme, it has scored very highly in similar surveys in the US and Australasia. I'm sorry to have to tell you that I did some impact testing of my own during this test when a couple of deer leapt out in front of me too late for me to take avoiding action.This can't have done the deer much good, but the Tribeca came out of it very well, all things considered. A set of clips holding the front wing to the bumper sheared in the collision, and by taking the force in this way they prevented any damage to the panels themselves - there were no dents in the metal and no marks on the paint. Nor was there any sign of bits of deer, which I hope was a good sign.None of the above means that I would willingly hurl myself in front of an oncoming Tribeca, but it does suggest that the car would do reasonably well (at least for an SUV) in the unfortunate event of a low-speed pedestrian impact.
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