2019 SUBARU FORESTER Complaints

All of a sudden, the eyesight and collision prevention stopped working, the check engine light came on, the blue light thermostat indicator came on. We had no heat. The flashing "S" (sportsmode indicator) came on. We were driving on the highway and still over an hour from home. It was snowing, we could not adequately clear the windshield of fog so our visibility was severely compromised. We lost all Eye Sight capability which meant that we were vulnerable if there was ever a crash or an obstruction in the roadway.

The engine cuts out and stalls while turning through an intersection (with danger of being rear ended) or driving through parking lots at low speed. The car will zoom forward right after that, usually while in a parking lot nearly hitting pedestrians on several occasions! This issue is a frequent occurrence becoming more dangerous the past 2 years. We have our car serviced at the Subaru dealership in Prescott, AZ and have told them about this. They tell us the same thing when we tell them what it does, they say "NO IT DOESN'T".

Starlink notification to the dealership that there was a problem with the airbag system. The “seat bottom” that contained the the passenger detector sensor was defective and the entire airbag system is disabled.

The original battery does not support the CAN system and replacing the battery does resolve the issue. The system will shut off while stopped at a light to save fuel, and turn back on when you press on the brake or the gas. There is an error where the vehicle will try to start itself when you’re not even cranking it. This can be dangerous if the car shuts off at a light and won’t turn back on because the feature drains the battery. This needs to be a recall as Subaru is aware of the issue and implemented a new battery for the vehicles and want to charge double. Why should the consumer pay for something that the company is aware is a problem? And came up with a solution to the problem, but is trying to profit off of it instead of fixing their mistake?

On Friday, December 15, 2023 I started my car, Subaru Forester Touring 2019. After starting these lights came on the dashboard: check engine, flashing S drive, no eyesight, RAB off. I was reading online that there have been complaints to NHTSA similar to my problem ( NHTSA ID # 11490232, 12479843, 11511658, 11490977, 11479843, 11499756, 11480952, 11491752, 11474804) to name a few reports.This has never happenedbefore. The mileage on my car is about 54,400 miles at time of incident. It seems to me that there is a pattern here that needs to be resolved and the owners informed so they can get if fixed before it happens and causes safety problems for Subaru Forester owners. I am kindly asking your office to seriously look into this specific problem and help us, the consumers, to inform Subaru to fix these issues. I thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

The Eyesight feature went out and the heater went out and I took the car to a mechanic and he said it had a faulty thermo control valve that needs replacement.

I started my vehicle and the check engine light came on. In addition, my eye sight turned off and the letter S started blinking. I also had clicking noises when I turned the vehicle off. I read some forums and this is a thermo control valve problem that happens to many Subarus in 2019-2021 range. As I took the vehicle to check the codes, the heater did not work and the cold engine light kept coming on. The codes read P26A3. Other reports are: NHTSA 11490232; 12479843; 11511658; 11490977; 11479843; and many others. Apparently Subaru is aware this valve and has come out with a new replacement that costs a high dollar amount to change out.

On November 30th around 5:30 PM on [XXX] my wife struck and killed a 6 point buck. Thankfully a SC Highway officer was coming in the opposite direction saw the accident and aided my wife in getting out of the car as he had seen a fire in the engine compartment area. Shortly thereafter the car exploded and was engulfed in flames and totally destroyed. Neither the patrol officer nor the tow operator can remember an auto fire resulting from striking a deer. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

There are two problems: 1 after the car turns off after stopping to save fuel it will fail to restart automatically and must be put into park to manually restart; 2 the car will try to change lanes indicating that the safety related lane change is malfunctioning. I have to fight the car to maintain my lane.

Defective/failed thermal control valve. Valve failed while I was driving, resulting in safety systems (e.g., lane keep assist, pre-collision braking). Looking this up, this is a known issue to Subaru.