SUBARU Complaints

Incident Summary: On August 23, 2026, a multi-occupant injury event occurred during routine city braking due to an inherent occupant packaging design defect in the vehicle’s front seating and sun visor layout. The vehicle exhibits a static seat-to-visor clearance of 79 cm versus a standard median adult sitting height of 95 cm, result of negative 16cm headroom clearance. During normal city deceleration (0.2g–0.4g), seatbelt inertia reels remain unlatched under FMVSS 209 tolerances, allowing normal forward upper-torso pitch. This causes adult occupants' foreheads to strike the lower edge of the stowed sun visor, resulting in head impacts, neck strain, and concussion symptoms. A service representative at Capitol Subaru personally observed the hazard during intake. Subaru Quality Assurance inspected the vehicle but closed the file by relate it to quality issue as claiming no "part manufacturing defects" exist, while ignoring the negative physical clearance envelope as saftey issue. Subaru's recommended workaround—sliding the seat back and make seat lean backward—does not eliminate visor contact during forward torso pitch and severely compromises rear-cabin legroom, causing physical leg entrapment and impact injuries to rear passengers during this same deceleration event. On the driver side, sliding rearward prevents safe operational reach to the brake and accelerator pedals, even with these saftey issue highlighted to Subaru, they keep insist to slide seat back to clear the sunvisor even with been notified multiple times that doing so, the driver cannot press the pedal and sterring wheel or reach to the control panel.

On our long driveway, the car strongly accelerated with no gas pressure. I firmly pushed the brake and brought it to a stop. Upon lifting the brake again, it immediately accelerated entirely on its own with no use of the gas pedal. Heavy braking stopped it again. The same exact thing happened a few more times, the only way to prevent runaway acceleration was to forcefully apply the brakes. We safely parked the car. This experience was extremely alarming. Had we not been in our driveway and on the street, we could have been in a serious accident. The SUV was totally out of our control.

While the vehicle was stationary and off, the rear windshield shattered and fell in the vehicle for the second time in just over 3 weeks.

Subaru of America has a Bulletin out that changes the front suspension arms for both front ends. The dealership made this correction and now the front end rattles like there are loose parts. Dealership says they don’t hear it. Won’t investigate more unless I pay them a diagnostic fee. If Subaru of America knows this vehicle has a faulty part that causes the calipers to clamp down too hard thus warping the rotors! Dealership & SOA need to advertise this Bulletin as a recall.

Car stalls when it shouldn't i.e. when stopped at traffic light Transmission Control Module (TCM) Software Issue

The large LCD screen infront the shifter just goes blank. Been to the dealer the reload the operating system to no avail.

On 9/2/2016, my 2019 Subaru Forester was involved in a right-front collision. During the collision, the driver's frontal airbag did not deploy. Actually none of the airbags deployed. As a result, the driver's chest and upper abdomen struck the steering wheel.And sustained significant bruising and other injuries and required evaluation and treatment at an emergency department. The vehicle has substantial damage and may be considered a total loss. I am reporting this because the driver's frontal airbag did not deploy during an injury-producing collision. Actually  no airbags deployed. I would like NHTSA to document the incident and determine whether the airbag/SRS system may have malfunctioned or whether there may be a safety defect affecting this vehicle or other vehicles of the same type. I can provide photographs of the vehicle and damage, medical documentation, the crash/police report if available, the vehicle identification number (VIN), mileage, and additional information about the collision if needed. I am not making a determination about why the airbag failed to deploy; I am requesting that NHTSA investigate the circumstances and determine whether a safety defect may be involved.

Since the battery replacement settlement I've had 3 batteries die from my car being off, the latest battery replacement was 3/2026. I can't tell what my milage is since the battery is so dead that none of the displays turn on when I hit the start button

Drivers side door, interior automatic door lock switch spins and makes a clicking sound when you just start go forward.

Subaru has a known problem/design with their LED daytime running lamps on the Ascent model. Dealerships are seeing a high failure rate of these LED lights, and it is always with the left side headlamp assembly. The LED strip quits working. In my case my car has about 42,000 miles on it with estimated 1,500 hours of operation. LED lights are designed to last a minimum of 30,000 and up to 100,000 hours. I see these models all the time with their left daytime lamps out. These lamps are provided for safety reasons and to bring visibility to other drivers. Even Subaru dealer's state that this is a known problem and always the left headlight assembly. FYI, the whole assembly needs to be replaced, and the price range is around $1,300.00. I have reached out to Subaru, and they simply state vehicle is out of warranty, and they will not do anything about it. I say this is a known imbedded issue due to engineering, quality control etc. and each delivered vehicle is more than likely going to experience this issue which again I perceive as a safety issue. Again, LED lights are used because of their long-life expectancy. But in Subaru's case, their lights are designed to fail much sooner than one should reasonably expect. Subaru needs to do the right thing and stand behind these faulty lights and return the vehicle to the level of safety it was intended to offer. However, the only way they are possibly going to consider this if the NHTSB gets involved. I have provided a phot of my car showing the lights. One is lit and one is not.