2022 Subaru Outback

While day driving on a clearly marked interstate in slightly hazy weather from fires, the car suddenly, unprompted, steered to the left without any warning or any indicators going off. This caused the car traveling at highway speed to crash into a barrier wall, drive half way up before driver could regain control of the steering and then spun out across 4 lanes of traffic. Driver said cars lane assist was on and it was ping ponging for a moment before it suddenly steered to the left unprompted causing the crash. A witness behind stated they saw the car behave the same as did the two passengers in the car.

The car has been to the dealership five times for electrical/computer issues. First the main dash UI computer screen would occassionally lock up and freeze shutting all safety systems off. (cruise control, lane holding, blind spot warning, etc.) Then the battery failure issues started - basically four times the car when parked and sitting overnight for approximately one week - will not start and the battery is completely dead. This is a know Subaru issue with earlier models and even involved a class action lawsuit. Subaru has not fixed the issue in newer model cars and continues to deny it is an issue. This is gross negligence by continuing to make unsafe cars with the same flaw and nof fixing the issue.

I've experienced problems with the center Infotainment screen about 2 months after purchasing a 2022 Outback Wilderness edition. It seems to happen when I use Apple CarPlay (as this is the only way I listen to music and must plug in my phone using the USB to start CarPlay). The Infotainment screen has a long lag time to respond to clicks on the center screen, will freeze, and crash the system suddenly. The most extreme effect of this is that when the Infotainment screen crashes/freezes, the EyeSight safety features of the car such as Lane Keeping Assistance, Blind Spot Warning, Forward Crash Warning also stop working. I'll see all of the dashboard signals and notifications on the dashboard screen indicating the features are disabled. Additionally, I'm unable to control the AC when the screen crash happens. This happens while the vehicle is in operation and the vehicle user manual doesn't provide any troubleshoot options. Sometimes the screen will remain on after I've turned the car off. I can only hope the screen will shut off and restart after I've completely shut the car off to "fix this". There have been many times I've had to keep driving without the Eyesight safety features or AC when the screen crashes. I've tried to update the Infotainment screen myself with the supposedly "over the air" updates Subaru offers. It says my system is up to date even though I've found online Subaru service bulletins saying there are new software versions released. At my first six month dealer service, I asked about released updates and the service manager denied the newest updates can be installed on my car (which is STILL less than a year old). I brought my vehicle to another subaru dealership with this issue and they said they are aware of it. The service manager also said that the software update only fixes about 20% of vehicles that have this issue and a full replacement of the center screen unit is likely needed. Why has the NHTSA not directed Subaru to issue a recall?

8/1/23 - the Electronic center console display as well as the display behind the steering wheel continually fails. The center console controls all electronics such as defroster, heater, and of the advance safety features. The display behind the steering wheel controls the odometer, speed etc. The inability to control any vehicle functions is a huge safety risk. For example, the defroster can not be accessed not controlled. If you had an immediate need for this, you would have to stop driving immediately. No advanced safety features can be accessed, you have no idea of your speed, the list goes on. We have brought the car in twice and had a software update but the problem persists. We left the car for a week and were told it was fine but the next day the issue persisted. The display screen will come and go which is completely unacceptable from a safety standpoint. The Subaru forums seem to indicate this is a widespread problem that Subaru has yet to address or come up with a viable solution. We have the records to back up all of these assertions as well as video of the failures of the display screen once returned to us.

SafeLite is Unable to calibrate vehicle EyeSight after non-OEM windshield replacement. Yes the vehicle is available for inspection upon request. The vehicle has not been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others. There have been two attempts to calibrate the vehicle EyeSight by SafeLite. The dealer says the EyeSight with a non-OEM windshield can not be properly calibrated. According to Subaru, the 2022 model requires that OEM glass be used for windshield replacements on models that are equipped with the EyeSight Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS). Lane detection works randomly, periodically there a warning beep showing a vehicle icon between two bars and the word "Off" . In addition to the alarms, the Vehicle Dynamics Control (VDC) keeps nudging the steering wheel causing the vehicle to swerve. None of the front safe driving features of the vehicle can be trusted. The steering nudging problem doesn't happen when the VDC is turned off. The VDC defaults to on. To safely drive the vehicle the VDC needs to be manually turned off each time the car is started. No the problem has not been confirmed by a dealer or independent service center. I assume the vehicle logs have a record of the warnings.

I have videos. I have been having major issues with a lot of aspects of the car. However, the most concerning is the obstacle detection going off randomly when there is NOTHING in front of the car, and the other major issue is that the lane assist feature keeps pulling the car out of the lane I am in. Randomly throughout a cruise control drive, the car will pull towards an inner lane. I fight with the car to keep it in the correct lane. If I relax my grip even slightly, the car pulls me into the other lanes of traffic. I am finding that it is most determined to pull me out of my lane when there are cars in the lane next to the one I’m driving. In other words, it never tries to pull me off the road. It always tries to pull me into other lanes of traffic. I’ve been driving the car for 6 months. It’s been doing this since the first month.

Vehicle navigation system crashes with a black screen once or twice a day. While the system is rebooting, navigation, Eyesight and Reverse Automatic Braking are disabled. Needless to say, this is very distracting and especially bad since Eyesight is required to avoid a collision. This has happened multiple times over the 11 months that I've owned the vehicle.