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Bought a brand new subaru Forester back in 2019 when I first started to drive it, the everything was pretty much perfect. Almost no teething issue except for a little sway, play on steering wheel, and lift gate jamming. No electronic or operational issues whatsoever. Maybe some minor ones with infotainment i.e apple car play not connecting. But otherwise everything worked great. The accelerator pedal responded flawlessly and steady and given a lot of power with not a lot of push. In fact it almost like driving a sports car acceleration wasn't slow at all.
That is until I took it for a first routine maintenance, than everything*went haywire*since. Radio went weird stopped working*on the drive back, lost all my presets, still happens now from time to time, Radio doesn't work on radio mode however I can hear radio in the background with CD player on. But the worst thing was how the car drove, I can hardly believe that was the same car I brought it in. The car delays almost a second when pressing the acceleration pedal and doesn't give nearly as much power as before merging up the freeway ramp. Also the car struggled to crank half the time which never happened before pre maintenance. After a long wait the dealership was able to fix the radio but claims they couldn't fix the other issues or that nothings wrong. Going up a steep hill slowly is very annoying as I push the paddle it delays and suddenly vrooms and repeats and others complain that I was pumping the paddle which I was not intentionally trying to*do that. Same with trying to go up a steep driveway.*
We were able to eliminate any other sources of problem i.e the air filter box, new oil too thick, etc. We noticed the biggest issue is the ECU as an independent mechanic and sometimes the dealership offers to reset it and it performs noticably better like when I drove it off the lot however after a few hundreds off miles it goes back to being crappy again. I be curious I got a lemon, or a virus or power surge went in during their first maintenance when they had to disconnect and reconnect the battery or update new software, or to address my tiny complaints on the infotainment system, which is why the radio malfunction occurred simutanously as bad acceleration pedal reponse. and whether selling this one and buying another Forester might resolve the issue? Everytime I get a loaner Forester from Subaru it reminds me of how the one I had behaved in the first six months before I took it in. But Subaru keeps making up excuses about it and the issue never gets truely resolved.
Are drive by wire cars these days all hit or miss with this issue. And all have varying degree of paddle throttle lag? I do know that computerized things can be quite unpredictable in terms of performance having owned varies computers and electronic devices in the past. The stuck paddle Toyota and other brands incidents coming to mind I anticipated that can happen with drive by wire vehicles. Yet Toyota as expected denied it blamed improperly secured the floor mats at first as user error.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
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It sounds like you got a lemon. We have a 2020 Outback and the only problem at all with it is that once in a while the EyeSight goes out due to the weather with snow or ice blocking a camera. Oh, and the navigation is nuts. We once asked for it to find the nearest Dutch Bros. Coffee place, and it called our dentist. Nothing at all affecting the drivability, though. Did you have the recalls done? Some are related.
The biggest and only "recall" I done on this was for the rear lift gate not raising, which originally the dealership insist it was due to the rear rubber mat pushing against it which was another cover up. And for a while the left rear door could not open more than 2 inches.
The worst thing that happened was the electrical system going haywire lights flashing everywhere and the rear speakers blew up and went silent.
It appears cars these days are overly computerized and vulnerable to bugs. I recently experienced the same thing with a 2022 Toyota Prius Prime I thought I would be stranded in the parking lot fortunately 10 minites later it ran again.
The infotainment on this Forester still sometimes lose the presets.
And the driver memory sometimes pushes the seat recline all the way forward which was not the way I set it. I be curious what happened though.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
Reputation: 57729
I'm actually surprised that there are so few problems with the electronics on the modern vehicle, with an average of 1,400-1,500, and as many as 3,000 semiconductor chips in EVs. Think about the exposure to vibration, moisture, and extreme temperature changes, and remembering the computer "blue screen of death" and other times when you have to reboot a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. For those it's more of an inconvenience, but you don't want to reboot your car on the freeway.
Well, my family got our first car with electronic controls in 1976 (it was just the ignition module at that time). Since then I've owned ten or so cars with electronic controls from that 1976 Nova through to my 2016 Subaru and 2017 Ford that I have now.
Despite all the worries and doomsaying ("Always carry an extra module!") in the 45 years or so I've dealt with automotive electronics, I really can't say I've ever experienced an actual electronics failure. I've had some ELECTRICAL failures due to loose connections, damaged wires, and such, and of course I've had MECHANICAL failures, but the ECM losing its mind? Nope.
First place I'd go in troubleshooting weird intermittent problems like you're describing, is chassis grounds. Any mechanic that doesn't start out with OBD codes and checking every ground connection needs to be fired.
Bought a brand new subaru Forester back in 2019 when I first started to drive it, the everything was pretty much perfect. Almost no teething issue except for a little sway, play on steering wheel, and lift gate jamming. No electronic or operational issues whatsoever. Maybe some minor ones with infotainment i.e apple car play not connecting. But otherwise everything worked great. The accelerator pedal responded flawlessly and steady and given a lot of power with not a lot of push. In fact it almost like driving a sports car acceleration wasn't slow at all.
That is until I took it for a first routine maintenance, than everything*went haywire*since. Radio went weird stopped working*on the drive back, lost all my presets, still happens now from time to time, Radio doesn't work on radio mode however I can hear radio in the background with CD player on. But the worst thing was how the car drove, I can hardly believe that was the same car I brought it in. The car delays almost a second when pressing the acceleration pedal and doesn't give nearly as much power as before merging up the freeway ramp. Also the car struggled to crank half the time which never happened before pre maintenance. After a long wait the dealership was able to fix the radio but claims they couldn't fix the other issues or that nothings wrong. Going up a steep hill slowly is very annoying as I push the paddle it delays and suddenly vrooms and repeats and others complain that I was pumping the paddle which I was not intentionally trying to*do that. Same with trying to go up a steep driveway.*
We were able to eliminate any other sources of problem i.e the air filter box, new oil too thick, etc. We noticed the biggest issue is the ECU as an independent mechanic and sometimes the dealership offers to reset it and it performs noticably better like when I drove it off the lot however after a few hundreds off miles it goes back to being crappy again. I be curious I got a lemon, or a virus or power surge went in during their first maintenance when they had to disconnect and reconnect the battery or update new software, or to address my tiny complaints on the infotainment system, which is why the radio malfunction occurred simutanously as bad acceleration pedal reponse. and whether selling this one and buying another Forester might resolve the issue? Everytime I get a loaner Forester from Subaru it reminds me of how the one I had behaved in the first six months before I took it in. But Subaru keeps making up excuses about it and the issue never gets truely resolved.
Are drive by wire cars these days all hit or miss with this issue. And all have varying degree of paddle throttle lag? I do know that computerized things can be quite unpredictable in terms of performance having owned varies computers and electronic devices in the past. The stuck paddle Toyota and other brands incidents coming to mind I anticipated that can happen with drive by wire vehicles. Yet Toyota as expected denied it blamed improperly secured the floor mats at first as user error.
shortest answer: cuz no one knows how to program.
longer answer: when some process ends and the code issues a "return", they got in trouble for always issuing "return();" or "return;" which prevents most trouble shooting as it does not indicate for which reason it ended - you publish the API which has all the possible ranges of inputs (pointers, memory locations, set ranges or even voltages and stuff)
So they now issue something like "return(rc)'" which has a non zero value accidentally cuz no one properly initializes memory like "int rc; int =0;" or "int rc=0;"
so it just happens to be whatever the bound memory location is at runtime.
so nowwwwwwww, the CAN bus has an error status on it and the controller, or entity, or the master is asking over and over and over "what?" or ignoring the return code, and the sender is waiting for an ACK that it was read, the caller just assumed it worked.
Very common on 2000's-2010's GM stuff. Glad to see that being unable to program is universal. as long as this error status is in flight, lower priority jobs, get delayed or deferred dispatching (not unlike linux - since that is the only OS programmers bother leaning and it SUCKS for interprocessor comms)
sell it and buy a 70's car with a v8 and a 4bbl. guarantee this wont happen.
Its interesting though the annoying throttle delay in modern day vehicles I noticed driving several of them both owned and rentals. For this one though I had the worst delay when pulling out to overtake even though the vehicle in front was traveling 45 in a 55 which was frustrating and a bit scary as gaps in traffic are few and short. Originally when I bought it the Forester accelerated flawlessly. The fuel economy also dropped by an average of 5 mpg from 24mpg to 19mpg driving the same condition ever since and I always hand calculated since these issued happened after first maintainance. Its frustrating for me all of a sudden I am getting the fuel economy of the discontinued XT turbo model despite the Forester not performaning as fast as before I took it in.
It appears they perform differently after something be done with them.
The ECU been resetted and it performs well for a while but it goes back again. Sometimes I can smell a large amount of unburnt fuel when starting. I am thinking the fuel injectors are injecting too much fuel at times.
Fortunately the incidents when the electrically system crashed was in the garage and once in the parking lot not too far but I almost had to call road service.
Nowadays I always make sure before I bring cars to the shop I always document that my electronics are working properly before I bring it in so if anything happens afterwards I can prove it.
Otherwise I really like the Subaru Forester I am thinking whether I should bite the bullet, sell it on carvana hopefully for a good rate since cars are still in short supply. Buy another Forester at Costco rate maybe a 2022 model if possible but unlikely which I see I could probably sell mine at the same rate I paid back in 2019. And hope this one wouldn't behave this way after its first maintainance.
I was reluctant to bring second car to first maintaince for this reason fortunately it came back fine however I did notice a slightly lower fuel economy and computer to hand calculation fuel economy differance. And the electronics crash happened after that maintainance. Unfortunately the issue is when things get more complicated they are more likely to give issues and more wiggle room for manufactures to lay blame on the consumers and sweep the issue under the rug.
Last edited by citizensadvocate; 04-04-2023 at 09:22 AM..
I be curious whether I can take advantage of the high resell values these days and switch to a new Forester that hopefully would not have this issue again?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
Reputation: 57729
Quote:
Originally Posted by citizensadvocate
I be curious whether I can take advantage of the high resell values these days and switch to a new Forester that hopefully would not have this issue again?
Subaru keeps sending me emails saying that I can trade it in on a new Outback and with the new payment only $50/month more than now. It's a 2020, though, with only 20,000 miles, so not interested. In your case, I doubt that your Forester will get any better over time, so it may be a good idea. I would not take it to the dealer where you bought it though.
I haven't read every word in this thread, but it sounds like you first had the problem after a visit to the dealer for service. Maybe they downloaded new software and didn't do it correctly.
I had a 2015 Forester (2.5L normally aspirated engine) and it was a good, solid mostly trouble-free car. But there were a few things I didn't like about it - not enough power; I didn't like the continuously variable transmission; and the brakes were terrible.
I traded it for an Audi SQ5 and am much happier with the performance and the vehicle all around and the gas mileage is very similar to the Forester. It was a lot more expensive but worth the additional expense to me.
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