The Subaru Ascent, is a terrific upgrade from our Subaru Outback 2.5. We really liked the Outback, but always mindful of the hitch weight, and engine temps when climbing in summer weather. 

The Acent climbs mountain pass’s with ease. Rpm stay around 3,000 when climbing under tow or without the trailer. Most often we find ourselves needing to watch our speed as you can find yourself at 70 without realizing. We prefer to tow at 60 to 63 mph and keep Rpm around 1,500 when on the flats.
Out trip to Glacier we Averaged 16.3 mpg. This included all types of driving while under tow including multiple mountain passes.

This car has good cargo space, that we filled for this trip as well as traveling with a canoe. We did not do that with the Outback over Hitch capacity concerns. With the Outback we could monitor engine temps when climbing. The Ascent only has a dumb engine temp gauge on the dash. So we where unable to see engine temps when climbing mountain passes. So in closing, we are at just over 4,000 miles and really are glade we upgraded.

Thanks for finding this old post, I was not that fast. By the way, this table has worked well for tying flies, a stand up bar counter. “we have joked about getting some fold up bar chairs for cocktails”,  and a utility table when doing all kinds of stuff
all the items for this are at Lowe’s .

@Homebodyatheart if your car has RAB (Reverse Asist Backing) it does not like the trailer back there. You can temporarily disable it on you camera screen. But it is slow to turn off. Also if you keep the brake pedal pressure it will not engage and stop the car every time you try to back up. They need an off switch when you tow. Hope they come up with a fix for this.

@lkc001 Here is another use for the table