Subaru Crosstrek tires

There are two ways to get a Crosstrek wrong before you touch a gauge. The front and rear want different pressures, and the Hybrid on its 18-inch wheels wants three psi more than the rest of the range. Then there is the third thing, which is that this car cares more about all four tires matching than almost anything else on the road.

The sizes Subaru fitted

This page covers the GT generation, 2018 to 2023, confirmed on the 2023 car. The 2024 redesign is not covered.

• P225/60R17 on Base, Premium and Sport. This is the volume fitment.
• 225/55R18 on the Hybrid.

One model, two sizes, because the Hybrid gets a larger wheel. That split matters more here than on most cars, because the two fitments also take different pressures. Crosstreks lead hard lives with roof boxes and bike racks on them, so the load index on any replacement is worth keeping rather than trading down. See finding your tire size.

Where the Crosstrek puts its placard

The driver-side door pillar. Subaru's own owner's quick guide says the tire pressure specifications are on the tire information placard on the driver's side door pillar.

Read that carefully, because it is not the door edge. The pillar is the upright post between the front and rear doors, beside your shoulder when the driver's door is open. Owners who learned the habit on a Toyota or a Honda scan the door edge, find nothing and go looking on the internet instead. On a Subaru, turn your head to the post. Our tire pressure placard guide lists which makes use which.

How to read it once you find it

1. Cold pressure, front.
2. Cold pressure, rear. On this car it is lower than the front, and that is deliberate.
3. The original tire size, which tells you which of the two fitments you have.
4. The spare, printed separately and normally at a much higher figure.

Cold means the car has been parked at least three hours, or driven under about a mile. A tire warms as it rolls and its pressure rises with it, so a reading taken at the end of a drive is high.

The verified pressures

Two independent pressure sources agree exactly, on both fitments:

• P225/60R17: 33 psi front, 32 psi rear.
• 225/55R18 on the Hybrid: 36 psi front, 35 psi rear.

Both fitments split front to rear, by one psi. The two fitments sit three psi apart from each other. So identify the wheel, then set each axle to its own number. A Hybrid set to the 33 front and 32 rear of the petrol car is three psi down on every corner, which is how a tire starts wearing at its shoulders and how fuel economy quietly gets worse.

Replacing fewer than four

This is the section that matters on a Subaru. Symmetrical all-wheel drive is standard, it is the strictest mainstream system on tire matching, and a single odd tire can damage the centre differential. A Crosstrek with one ruined tire is a four-tire conversation, or a shave-to-match job where the new tire is machined down to the others.

There is a number, and the attribution matters. Tire Rack's per-manufacturer matching table gives Subaru's requirement as a circumference difference of no more than 6 mm, a quarter of an inch, between tires. That figure is Tire Rack's, published in their guide to whether all four tires need to match on an all-wheel-drive vehicle. Subaru does not publish a numeric tolerance of its own that we could find, so anyone attributing the 6 mm directly to Subaru is going beyond the source.

Six millimetres of circumference is a very small amount of tread wear. In practice it means a Crosstrek that has done a season on a set of tires cannot simply take one new one. See how many tires and mixing tire brands. For a tread puncture, repair against replace is the first question, because a good repair keeps the matched set intact.

What changes on a mobile Crosstrek fitting

• Direct TPMS, with a sensor in each road wheel, so the work ends with a reset or a relearn.
• Two pressure targets and a front-to-rear split on both. We read the label on your car before inflating anything.
• Roof and rack loads are common on this car. We keep the load index on any replacement rather than matching the size alone.
• The label is on the pillar, not the door edge, so we open the door fully and look at the post.
• If only one tire is damaged, the matching conversation happens before we fit, not after.

What we do

We supply the tires and fit them where the car is parked. Pressure is set from your own door pillar placard, front and rear separately, the TPMS is reset or relearned where the car supports it, and the old tires leave with us. Pricing is on our mobile tire replacement page.

Questions people ask

• What psi does a Crosstrek take? 33 front and 32 rear on the 17-inch fitment, 36 front and 35 rear on the Hybrid's 18-inch. Both are corroborated by two sources.
• Where is the placard? The driver-side door pillar, the upright post beside your shoulder. Not the door edge.
• Do I really have to buy four? Often, yes. Tire Rack's matching table puts Subaru's limit at 6 mm of circumference difference, which very little wear will exceed.
• Is the 6 mm figure from Subaru? It is from Tire Rack. We could not find a numeric tolerance published by Subaru itself, so we cite the source we have.
• Can I set all four the same? No. Front and rear differ on both fitments on this car.