We spent two nights evaluating the 2025 Subaru Forester Touring’s LED projector headlights on rural two-lanes, a divided highway, and an empty airstrip. Here’s how its low/high beam reach, cutoff quality, cornering illumination, auto high-beam logic, and oncoming glare stack up.
Test car: 2025 Forester Touring with LED projectors, Steering Responsive Headlights (SRH), and High Beam Assist (HBA). Tire pressures set to 35/33 psi (F/R), two occupants, ~150 lb cargo. Headlamp aim verified on a flat pad per SAE guidelines. Ambient 57°F, dry, no wind.
Measurements were taken with a calibrated lux meter and marked distances out to 250 m on a closed course. Low beam reach is strong for the class. Down-road illumination to the 1.0 lux threshold measured ~95 m centerline and ~65 m at the right shoulder, with usable spill beyond. Beam width at 50 m spans roughly 22 m, covering lane plus shoulder.
The cutoff is crisp with a gentle right-hand upsweep, limiting stray light while illuminating signs. Foreground fill is moderate—not so bright that it compromises distance vision—and the hot spot sits slightly left-of-center, aiding lane centering without dazzling. High beams extend visibility convincingly. We recorded ~210 m to 1.0 lux on-axis, with 50 m center intensity of 24–26 lux and solid lateral spread that lights both verges on narrow roads.
Return-to-low-beam leaves a well-defined edge, so you don’t feel “night blind” after dimming. Pitch sensitivity is average; with two adults and cargo, aim remained stable, but a heavy rear load will nudge the hot spot upward since there’s no dynamic leveling. Cornering illumination relies on SRH rather than separate cornering lamps. At steering angles of ~10–12 degrees, the projectors swivel appreciably, shifting the hot spot inward and pushing the right-side cutoff up the verge.
On a constant-radius 35 mph bend, inside-lane visibility improved an estimated 15–20 m versus fixed aim, helping you read apex and exit. At parking-lot speeds, the swivel still responds, though there’s a slight delay (well under a second) when unwinding the wheel. Auto high-beam behavior is mostly polished. It engages above ~20 mph and drops to low within ~0.6–0.8 s upon detecting oncoming headlights or leading taillamps, typically from 500–700 m (oncoming) and 300–400 m (same direction).
Urban lighting disables HBA promptly. We noted two edge cases: brief late dips over sharp crests and an occasional false dip from bright green highway signs. The stalk override is immediate, and the system resumes automatically after manual intervention. Glare to oncoming traffic is well controlled.
At a simulated opposing driver eye height (1.2 m) and 25 m lateral offset, low-beam spill measured 1.5–2.2 lux—comfortably within typical guideline targets—and we received no courtesy flashes during mixed traffic runs. Overall, the Forester’s lighting inspires confidence on rural routes and wet highways. Night-owls who carry heavy cargo should recheck headlight aim, and drivers on very twisty roads may prefer manual high-beam control, but for most scenarios this setup is among the better OEM executions in the segment.
