2023 SUBARU OUTBACK Complaints

Passenger side a-pillar trim has come loose exposing airbag mechanism. Dealer unable to repair and indicates part was installed incorrectly at the factory. Awaiting new part to see if this can be corrected.

The contact owns a 2023 Subaru Outback. The contact stated while driving at slow speeds on three separate occasions, a rock struck the front windshield causing the windshield to crack. While driving at unknown speeds in the fog, the Apple car play safety feature disengaged. The contact was unable to use the driver's assist. The eye safety center disabled message was displayed. The vehicle was taken to a glass repair facility and the windshield was replaced. The local dealer was contacted, and the contact was informed that the safety features might disengage under various weather conditions. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was contacted but no assistance was provided. The failure mileage was approximately 2,200.

My car's battery died when I was on vacation. A friend of mine tried to jump start with his car and he couldn't. Then a roadside service jump started the car. After the jump start I was told to drive the car around so that it can charge the battery. The car did two unexpected things: 1- The steering was jittery and sometimes moving to the opposite direction that I was turning. This issue has been confirmed by the dealership. 2- When I was at a traffic light, my foot was on the brake, both traction control and brake warning lights came on and the car moved couple of inches forwards while my foot was firmly on the brake. This happened more than once to me but did not happen at the dealership. And the car didn't hold the charge at all after driving for more than 30 minutes. Meanwhile the car got towed to Subaru dealership (EastSide Subaru in Seattle) and they replaced the battery as a fix. But they did not provide any information about why all those issues happened and how to avoid them in the future. My concern is this, a brand-new car shouldn't have lost all its power in the first place. If it did, it should have charged itself with driving after jump-start and it should have been safe to drive even on low battery. Subaru advertises heavily to be the 'adventure' vehicle, image all what I explained happened to you on top of a mountain or remote places.

Spontaneous crack in front windshield, passenger side near edge of wiper blade, dealer says not covered by warranty, had not been inspected yet. Have pictures

While driving at a high rate of speed on a remote road, using cruise control, my vehicle suddenly braked/decelerated for no reason. Could have been the automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, or forward collision warning. The first time it happened, a warning bell sounded, red lights flashed, and the vehicle decelerated VERY rapidly. It happened again about 6 weeks later, but the second time there was no audio or visual warning, the vehicle just decelerated rapidly. If there had been a vehicle behind my vehicle I might have been rear-ended because there was nothing on the road in front of me to warrant rapid deceleration. Also, on both occasions, the deceleration was swift enough to cause items in the vehicle to dislodge.

I'm a first time Subaru owner but am now challenging my decision to buy a Subaru. While driving at night on dark roads in Pennsylvania, it was quite obvious and strange that the top half of the windshield was black while the bottom half was clear showing the lights on the road. This was quite annoying and disruptive while driving; We did not notice such on a well-lit road. I googled and found out that many Subaru owners experienced the same issue. I've been driving for over 55 years and have never experienced such an issue. I called the dealer and he never heard of such but did read the comments on the web link I shared with him. It's truly unsafe and disturbing while driving on darker roads. Please advise as I'm considering trading in this wonderful car, taking a loss, and buying something that doesn't disturb me while driving at night. I don't need a potential accident at this point of my life. Safety first... I've attached the url to those comments from other Subaru owners. https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Discussion-t83408_ds1044301

We were driving on a highway at 60 mph with a hard case roof carrier when our sun roof exploded and shattering all the glass.

I get passenger air bag OFF indication although the passenger is an adult. Dealer claims that there is no issue, the car is less than one week old. I asked if they would escalate the problem to Subaru corporate so that they will address this issue but they refused.

When the headlamp selector is in Automatic Mode, automatic high beams are also enabled by default. The issue is that the automatic high beam headlamps do not function well at all. They defeat the high beam selection if any ambient light is detected and are far too sensitive. As a result, if there are streetlights, city lights, or even snow on the ground, the high beam headlamps cannot be turned on while in the automatic mode. It’s got to be pitch dark, and even then it takes some time for the high beams to come on after selecting them with the switch. This presents an Immediate safety concern in the inability to use high beam headlamps. The owner’s manual (p 574) says this feature can be disabled, but Subaru refuses to change this setting citing legal requirements and safety concerns (that one may use the high beams to blind oncoming traffic). Their proposed solution is to temporarily disable the system on every drive by turning the headlamp selector from Auto to ON, however this is only a workaround and does not solve the underlying safety issue. If a driver has not previously thought to change the headlamp selector to ON, their high beams are likely unavailable for use. I’ve attached the response from Subaru North America. I’ve had several conversations with Premier Surbau of Fremont, most recently with Devin in Service, who has said they refuse to modify the setting.

Sunroof spontaneously exploded. Temperatures were around 50 degrees, no cars around me at the time and as far as I can tell, nothing could have hit the window at least at that moment. I had been driving for about 1 hour and no sudden changes in temperature or pressure. It sounded very much like an explosion when it happened. Thankfully, the inside slide cover was closed when this happened. If the slide window cover had been opened, It could easily have caused an accident as some of the glass would have fallen on the driver. Also, the breaking window resulted in a shower of glass over the car roof and would have hit cars behind me if present. At the time, I had less than 3000 miles on the car and the car was less than 6 months old. The window has since been replaced. If you look at the profile of the car from the side, the sunroof seems to be more sloping downward than on some other cars. My understanding is that sunroofs are made from tempered glass. It would seem that safety glass would be a better option at least in terms of the protection they might offer in preventing the dramatic shower of broken glass that happened in my case.