This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
I backed out of a parking space, put my foot on the brake and shifted into Drive to finish maneuvering out of the space. Although I didn't remove my foot from the brake, my Forester immediately accelerated at extremely high speed, striking the two cars parked next to me, and seriously damaging both. Rather than slowing down after hitting the other two vehicles, my car continued to speed up, only coming to a stop when it hit, head-on, a cement barrier surrounding the lot. My car hit with such force that every airbag in it deployed, and its front end was totally destroyed. No one was in the other two cars; I suffered minor injuries.
While driving my vehicle on my daily trip to work, I experience sudden power loss. My interior lights began to blink erratically, as my vehicle loss power and caused me to panic, as I was entering the highway. Some highways have no shoulders, so as quickly as I entered the highway, I pulled off took the next exit. I went into a shopping center, to see what the issue was. I noticed that my radio and my air conditioning loss illumination. I turned the car off, opened the hood. I did not see anything of significance, I started the car up again, now the radio would not even start nor did the air conditioning. I phoned the Subaru dealer, to be told that this happens often! What, I thought to myself? I asked them if this was a well-known problem, why this has not become part of a recall, or why the dealership not contact Subaru of America, to work with their customer base and remedy the issue. I was told, that all that is done in the "diagnostic process", any codes are cleared, and this should get you back on the road. Are you kidding me, this is truly any motorist's nightmare. Losing power on a major highway, any road at night, or on a turn will literally bring catastrophic consequences to us Subaru owners, but all other motorists as well.
This 2016 Subaru Forester PCV Valve does not regulate the combustion system properly, this allows oil to enter this chamber. It causes loss of power and acceleration when driving. Hazardous driving conditions can cause accidents. crankcase ventilation issues engine oil system issues
My 2016 Subaru Forester is having acceleration and possibly fuel propulsion issues. It stays in low gear, high RPM when accelerating. This happened after a Yellowstone week long road trip from San Leandro, CA. The MPG has dropped from 24mpg to 12mpg and has been at Hayward Subaru since 8/15/2023. They have not provided a known issue. Still trying to figure out what is wrong. There was a low oil warning light on the way home and we stopped for an oil change in West Sacramento within 15 miles of the light coming on. The issue has been happening since the oil change. Only oil change and air filter replacement done on 8/8/2023. Thought maybe its a fuel injector issue. Still at dealership. We did fill the fuel tank with 85 octane in Elko, NV once.
- San Leandro, CA, USA
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Subaru Forester 2016. Sitting at red light with foot on brake. Car lunged forward. Was able to brake and stop it however it did continue to acceletate briefly.
parked in angle space and turned off car. went into store for about 15 minutes. got in car and started it. heard a noise sounding like a car revving engine and looked behind me to see if it was another vehicle. realized it was my car. tried to push foot on accelerator but it was all the way to floor and would not come up. immediately put foot on brake and turned off car. looked at floor mat and found that was not the issue. waited about 30 seconds and turned car back on and found that the accelerator was not all the way to the floor like before. It ran like it always has. drove 10 minutes back home with no issue. when home, went in house for 15 minutes; came back out and started it and ran like normal. i then searched the issue and discovered SEVERAL complaints about this issue. Thankful that I didn't run into a building as anyone else (there was a man walking into a house DIRECTLY in front of where I was parked.....I would have hit him if i had put the car in drive.) No warning lights or anything else visible on car. no issue prior. not been inspected by anyone else or the dealer at this time. Not reported to police department or insurance company. I am NOT an elderly person and I KNOW I did not accidentally do anything wrong when this issue occurred. purchased this subaru in 2018 as they are highly rated as far as safety goes and very dependable. I am extremely disappointed that there has NOT been a recall on this issue. Do people have to die before subaru will issue recall"!"! I was planning to trade in for a newer Subaru but am definitely hesitant to do so at this time. I drive with my young grandchildren in vehicle and am even hesitant to do that in the future. PLEASE, Subaru, issue a recall for this issue.
Engine oil and coolant were mixing. This caused coolant to drain and engine overheat. Resulted in several blown gaskets. Yes, available for inspection upon request. My safety was put at risk because of engine overheat while driving on highway. Problem has been evaluated by a car repair shop. Vehicle has been inspected by car repair shop, but not by manufacturer, police, or insurance. Red engine overheat warning light turned on only as the overheat occurred; no yellow check engine light turned on prior to overheating.
Check engine light, service emissions, dash lights blinking and loss of power!!! I was pulling out into a busy intersection and warning lights started to flash and i lost power to cylinder #2 (per the technician at Van Subaru, he told me the alternator was sending bad info to the computer) and i was almost T-BONED as i limped through the intersection.
Since 2018 we starting noticing random power loss and every time we took vehicle to dealership for maintenance, they could never find an issue. The loss of power began at random as well went up hills. It felt as if there was something blocking the engine from preforming as intended. Maybe poor air flow or turbo lag. We would let go of accelerator because it felt as if the car was going to stall. This power lag or loss would last 5-10 minutes. Then more issues appeared during 2018-2022. The issues were always at random. Issues we witnessed were: loss of power (poor air flow/ bad compression), car seemed to want to stall at stops, weird metal clacking (which we were able to record), bopping car at stops (as a manual car would before stalling). A code was never available for dealership to know the problem at hand. Over the past years we continued to take in the vehicle for the issues we experienced. The dealership never found the root of the problem. The problem continued until 2022 and now the car is inoperable. 400 miles out of warranty and Subaru does not want to fix this issue that had been happening since 2018. I have been waiting for Subaru of America to contact me since 7/22/22. I could never get an answer from case worker. Subaru wants us to pay out of pocket roughly 4500 and then maybe they cover the rest.
Our Subaru Forester is slow to respond on acceleration and then surges quickly. This problem just started to surface. Our concern is when stepping down on the accelerator the car is very slow to react and then surges forward quickly, creating a serious concern over a potential accident. On August 17, 2022 I was reversing up my driveway to the garage and as I depressed the accelerator the car failed to respond. I was reluctant to depress the pedal further over concern it might suddenly surge backward too fast. What was concerning is that the accelerator did not respond as normal. August 18th, I started the car, drove out of the garage and onto the street. When I stepped onto the accelerator the car showed no response, then suddenly without warning surged forward at high speed, catching me off guard. I stepped on the brake and the car immediately stopped. I carefully tried to drive forward, again the car surged forward. I drove back into the garage. Our neighbor-??s nephew took it for a drive and experience the same unexpected surge of acceleration. It was towed to the Subaru Dealership. The Dealership has consistently maintained our Forester since purchased. I asked if the car had surged and the Service Advisor shared that the technician had noticed an irregularity in acceleration. However, Diagnostic tests found nothing. The shop manager said he put almost 40 miles on it but found nothing. The service adviser called and suggested we come in and ride with the shop manager, which we did. He test drove it for a few miles and the acceleration appeared normal. He did say after the test drive that he sensed something irregular about the acceleration when leaving a stop sign. We asked they keep the car and test the car after sitting over the weekend. I asked service advisor and the shop manager if he had ever heard of a Subaru with this issue of being slow to respond on acceleration and then surging quickly. They both said they had never heard of this issue
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Forester. The contact stated while driving approximately 80 MPH, the vehicle lost motive power. There were unknown warning lights illuminated. The contact was able to pull over safely and restart the vehicle. The failure reoccurred several times. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer and diagnosed; however, the cause of the failure was not determined. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 70,000.
Was Backing up and car started excelling and the throttle stuck hitting 2 cars It was out of control I got it in drive and it took off forward running full throttle up over the pavers around a tree and ran up on the side of a BMW which was sitting on the side of The hostess paved driveway coming down the side of the car My car was on 2 wheels. Came off the BMW and slammed into a tree trunk which stopped it. I got out of my car in disbelief. It happened on private property and We did call the police. But since it happened on private property They did not come but told us to get each others info for insurance Purposes
While driving on highway using cruise control at 70 mph my car suddenly stalled -??. I was able to get to apron of road, but my steering locked and I had no brakes.. I could put car into neutral but had to -??jam-?? it into park, trying to get it to stop rolling. It would not restart. I had it towed to an auto repair center as there was no Subaru dealer in the area. Because I had kept trying to restart it, my battery was dead. They recharged my battery and the car then started. I took it to a Subaru dealer where I was told they could find nothing wrong -??. Except I needed a new battery. This was NOT the reason that my car suddeney lost power ! It had happen once before while on the highway but I was able to restart it at that time. This could have caused a serious accident and I worry that it will happen again. I warning was indicated prior to episode. I have receipts from auto repair shop (In Lincoln, Illinois) and Subaru dealer ( in Columbia Missouri)
Car turns itself off soon after starting when you try and put it into gear. Even after a tune up the car just stalls out when starting or low idle while sitting at light
Context: We were driving on the freeway at ~30-40mph when the car in front suddenly braked and stopped. We hit the breaks at the same time that the automatic brakes kicked in. The car stopped, as needed. Issue: After stopping, we pressed the accelerator to start the car moving again but the car revved instead of accelerating. We pulled off/slowly drifted to the side of the road and turned the car off and then back on before the accelerator started to function. This seemed like an engine problem. Safety risk: During this incident we were stopped on the freeway with no way to accelerate, which was very dangerous. We were lucky to be next to the shoulder lane. Otherwise, we would have been stuck in the middle of a freeway with a speed limit of 60mph. Inspection by Subaru result: "FOUND NORMAL OPERATION ON TEST DRIVE. NO CURRENT CODES OR RELATED HISTORY CODES. LIKELY A TEMPRARY FAULT UNDER EXTREME CONDITION. PLEASE MONITOR".
Forester accelerates too fast on going from stop to moving to normal speed. The cars does not accelerate smoothly. Too much power on a light touch to soft acieration. If on light snow it spins the wheels. Going from idle on a turn in snow it spins the tires. All actions are from a stop or no acceleration to placing light pressure on the accelerator.from a stop the cars jumps ahead with accereration.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Albany, NY, USA