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.
2016 Subaru Forester 2.5 premium while driving there on the highway at approximately 70mph with 80 miles left per the vehicle the car 'stalled' acting like it went to neutral and provided no response to the accelerator being pushed. Consumer stated happened twice more while driving approx 70 mph and had to pull over, vehicle started shutting down. Car restarted approx 30 minutes later. Vehicle was taken to the dealer, consumer was told there were no issues.
2nd occurrence now of a sudden and complete loss of power while on highway at 80mph with no warning (see NHTSA id# 1131777). Low fuel warning light had just come on a few minutes earlier...same as last time. Thankfully had a shoulder to cost onto and let the vehicle sit. Tired to tart a couple times, but was like it was flooded with fuel. After :45 minutes of sitting...it reset itself and started again and we continued on our journey. This time road conditions were dry and clear.
My 2016 Subaru Forester has twice experienced a sudden engine stall while cruising at approx. 70 mph when the fuel was low. In both cases the low fuel warning light was not on and the vehicle showed fuel in the tank with fuel range of 70-100 miles. In both cases once the car was stopped it started again and ran normally until and after refueling. This has happened only at high speed which makes the condition especially dangerous in traffic. After the first incident (@ 42,000 mi.) I took the vehicle to a Subaru dealer who checked the vehicle and found no explanation. Of course the dealer was not able to duplicate the exact circumstance of the power failure. The vehicle is currently under examination from the second incident which occurred yesterday (@ 50,000 mi.). I do not know if this is a fuel pump problem but I have seen other posts that suggest that may be the cause.
The vehicle was maintained regularly in dealer's service center. It is a local commute vehicle and has less than 40000 miles. In Nov 2019, the vehicle was found out of alignment, four tires were worn out and two breaks were out too. All four tires and two breaks were replaced. In June 2020, I reported bad smell to the service center but nothing was found. In Sep 2020, bad smell was noticed again. The service center found oil leak in the engine front and back. The engine was opened and some parts were replaced. Service center also found the condenser was leaking and replaced it. In less than a year, three defects happened and two were rare but major defects. During this time, the car was only driven around 2000 miles. I reported to Subaru customer service. They just told me to keep an eye on it.
- Morganville, NJ, USA
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Please recall the 2016 Subaru Forester for failure of the accelerator at high speeds. Our 21-year-old daughter, a nursing student, took her 2016 Forester into grayson Subaru in knoxville, tn for a recall service on rear coil springs, oil change and tire rotation. Within an hour of leaving the service department she was driving 70 mph on the interstate when her "low fuel" warning light came on. According to the Subaru, that means 2.6 gallons of gas remain. Assuming 20 mpg, that means she could drive approximately 52 miles before running out of gas. Within a minute of the low fuel light coming on, the accelerator failed to work and all the warning lights came on the dash. While traveling at 70 mph on the interstate, she had to cross 3 lanes of traffic to pull over on the shoulder. Very shaken and crying, she called grayson Subaru and they sent a tow truck. After steve kachelrie of grayson's service department assessed the car, he concluded, "your daughter just ran out of gas. There is nothing we can do other than put gas in the tank." When I told him that the gas meter said she had 50 miles of driving to go before empty, he dismissed it and repeated that she "just ran out of gas." I researched the 2016 Subaru Forester on NHTSA.gov and found 20 reports of identical incidents of the car showing 50-70 miles to go before empty and the accelerator completely failing at high speeds on the interstate and all warning lights lighting up. When I told grayson service that was an unacceptable response, they referred me to the owner of the dealership, walter grayson. He agreed to fulfill Subaru's guarantee to pay us the trade-in value of the car, $14,800. The dealership sent us a check for the 2016 Subaru Forester and we purchased a new Toyota.
Sudden acceleration while parking. All low speed <5 mph. Car was in drive, braking, made a hard left turn then stopped. Car was shifted to reverse, moved 25 feet, brake and stopped. Car was shifted to drive (low), applied acceleration (light), hard right turn, brake applied, car accelerated, jumped curb, shifted car to park, turned off ignition. Restarted car, stability control light on, shift would not engage even with brake depressed. Remove shift lock cover (small button near shift) depressed release and move shift to neutral and then reverse to back off curb. Incident over, car functioned as designed at this point. Floor mats were not any where near pedals, mats were in the retainers to hold position. I am sure that my foot was on the brake at the time the acceleration occurred. It remained there even after the car was turned off because I looked at my passenger to see if she was ok and then looked at the position of my foot, still on brake. There were no codes flashing. I brake and accelerate with only my right foot. Checked to see if this is a problem and saw several reports and issued this one. Taking this to my dealer would be a waste of time, they always find nothing but the money in my wallet. This is Subaru number 6 for me.
Running in my 2016 Subaru Forester at 70 mph on crowded interstate highway in Texas and all power was lost. No warning, no warning lights, nothing...just lost all power and shot off while driving.. car rolled to a stop and then I had it towed. Restarted after a while and drove fine. Saw a lot of comments online for a current Subaru recall that has exactly the same symptoms, but for the 2019 year Forester. Subaru recall item: Wuw-08 and also notes as recall #: 19V856000 - engine and engine cooling:exhaust system:emission control:crankcase (PCV). Dealer doen't want to touch it sr ince it's a different model year. Could be very dangerous.
Around 75K miles, the "at temp" light began to appear when driving the car for more than 35-40 minutes on the highway at continuous speeds. No code was stored when it was brought to the dealership. I have pictures of this light being on numerous times. This happened between May 2019-August 2019 then the vehicle began to shudder when coming to a complete stop, with occasional stalls/shutdowns. No lights would come out during shudder or stall. This happened between May 2019-February 2020 at 98K, vehicle began to jerk and shudder during shifting, around 2500rpm upon acceleration. I had a transmission service/ cvt fluid change done at 90K at johnston's Subaru in middletown, NY. Transmission service was done 2/3/2020
Vehicle feels as though it is about to stall. This occurs sporadically when stopping or when under acceleration on the freeway. I have taken the vehicle into two separate dealerships, neither could diagnose a problem. However one did suggest it may be a PCV valve. This appears quite similar to the recent recall (19V856) which does not include this model year.
I was parking the car in a cvs parking lot on sunrise blvd ft. Lauderdale. I made a right turn into the lot and another right turn into the space on the right. It was a large space and the row of parking slots on the right side was completely empty so I went to drive the car into one of those. I made the turn into the space, driving very slowly, when the car suddenly made a loud noise and shot forward. I had done nothing to cause this. The car ran over the curb and into a cluster of shrubbery - about 7 feet wide. The car came to a stop inside the shrubbery but the engine was still going. It was the shrubbery that stopped the car. 08/ I was not injured at all. I tried to back up the car but it would not back up. Another driver who saw the incident came over to see if I was okay and helped me out of the passenger side of the vehicle since the driver's side was jammed up against the shrubbery. He could not back up the car either and instead drive the car forward through the shrubs and came around back into the parking lot. We called aaa and I waited for them.
On two different occasions 24 hours apart the car stalled (seemed to drop into neutral) at highway speeds ~80mph after greater than 1.5 hours of driving. The RPM jumped up and the car lost all acceleration despite pressing the accelerator. Once on the side of the road in park the engine died. Both times it failed to start again with multiple spaced out attempts over more than 2 hours. We had the vehicle towed to the nearest dealership and both times after being unloaded hours later it started with no issue and the dealers could find nothing wrong and sent us home. A very unsafe intermittent issue with no obvious cause or fix.
2 separate incidents of complete engine power loss while on highway at cruising speeds. First incident occurred while the vehicle was going about 70mph on a highway. We heard a loud bang then engine died and we lost all power to the car. There was a lot of smoke but we were able to coast it to the shoulder of the road. When we opened hood there was oil everywhere and a giant crack and hole in the engine. We had to tow it 170 miles home where it was in the shop 5 weeks getting fixed. After having the car only 3 weeks the second incident occurred where the car lost torque when trying to accelerate into oncoming traffic. It went up to 60 normally but then faltered and dropped down to 20mph. We went to the side of the road, turned off the car and started it back up and it was fine driving normally then did the same thing again. We drove it to the Subaru dealership and right in front of the dealer we heard a loud bang, tons of smoke, and as soon as we pulled up to Subaru we opened the hood and sure enough there was oil everywhere and a crack in the engine in what appears to be the same area. Extremely scary incidents.
The contact owned a 2016 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that the vehicle had been parked for approximately 5 minutes before the neighbor noticed flames coming from under the hood of the vehicle. Moments later, the vehicle was engulfed in flames. The nearby motor home and house also caught on fire and were destroyed along with the vehicle. The cause of the failure was not determined. The fire department was called to the scene to extinguish the flames. The cause of the failure was not determined. The local dealer was not notified. The manufacturer was informed of the failure. The VIN was not available. The failure mileage was 45,000.
I have had very similar issues to the gentleman whose NHTSA # is 11161972. On three occasions when I was driving on the highway at approximately 70 miles an hour and usually going up and incline, my engine would sputter and the car would die. All three times my car screen showed that I had between 60 and 80 miles left in my tank and my fuel gauge which show two clicks to the right of empty. The first time I thought it could be due to the fact that I needed gas in my car. At that point I contacted aaa and they brought me 2 gallons of gas to get me to the next exit to so that I can fill my tank. The second time I had moved over to the emergency lane as my car was dying. I had waited about 10 minutes while I was waiting on aaa again to show up when I decided to start my car and the engine started. I was literally 2/10 of a mile from the gas station so I headed in that direction to fill my tank. The third time as I was inclining on a hill in the fast lane, the engine suddenly died as I was driving about 70 miles an hour. Fortunately I thought fast and hit the emergency flashers as I had a semi right behind my car. This time I moved over into the left side emergency lane and waited about 10 minutes and my car started again. This seems to always happen when the car is showing between 60 and 90 miles of gas left in my tank and always with two clicks on the full gage. I am not sure as to why this is happening and have taken it to my Subaru dealership and they are unaware of any problems yet we're unable to re-create the problem when they tried to drive it. As someone who puts a lot of road miles on their car for work, this is a little bit scary as my travels are on the highway and not always in large cities. One thing that I have noticed is that the VIN number on NHTSA ticket # 11161972 matches mine exactly based on what is shown on your site. All hwy driving.
2 separate incidents of complete engine power loss while on highway at cruising speeds. Both in incidents occurred with low fuel about 1/8th tank (2-3 gallons) verified based on amount refilled to full. Fuel gauge was reading 2 bars (1/8) and low fuel light on but showing 70 miles of fuel remaining. Both incidents occurred at highway speeds going up very slight incline. Sudden non-response of accelerator pedal and subsequent deceleration as car was driven to shoulder. Engine shift down completely on its own while on side of road. In first incident on interstate 78W in pa, the car could not be immediately restarted until after approximately 40 minutes after tow truck arrived. The car was towed to local Subaru dealer and inspected but no root cause found or reported. The car was operated for another ~20,000 miles until second event on NJ garden state parkway South where engine lost all power and the car was coasted to the shoulder. After about 5-10 minutes the car was restarted and driven to nearest gas station and filled up, requiring 14.1 gallons. This event occurred on Nov 28th, 2018. As of this writing, this second event has not yet been communicated to Subaru yet was posted by me on an online forum in response to other users reporting similar engine issues at highway speed with similar low fuel conditions in order to effectively troubleshoot the issue. I am reporting the issue here because it seems my incidents are not unique and present serious safety hazards due to sudden loss of power at highway speeds.
I have an issue where the engine will flutter in idle and will almost skip as if it's not getting any gas. The flutter causes the car to shake, it has even caused the car to stall. When it stalled I had started the car, put it in drive, tapped the gas and the engine cut out and shut off. I brought the issue to the dealership, and they claimed nothing was wrong and they couldnt find any problems.
On five different occurrences while the cruise control was on and we were driving at around 70 miles an hour on an interstate, our car would electronically put itself in neutral, the automatic gear shifter would physically remain in drive, the RPM's would go up to about 5500 rpms, because the car was slowing down and the cruise control was on. We would pull over to the side of the interstate and the engine will shut off after about 30 seconds. Three of the five times, the car would start after sitting for about 15 minutes. The third time the battery died after trying to start it a few times while it was cold out. The fifth time the car left us stranded on the interstate for two hours while we waited for a tow truck. We have notified Subaru every time that the car would do this. On the third time it happened, Subaru had us remove the remote starter we had purchased and installed at best buy. After having best buy remove the remote started, I installed a dashcam behind the driver to record the driver, dashboard and the shifter because Subaru could not find any evidence of this issue happening. The fourth and fifth time happened while we were on a family vacation out of state. The car was left at a dealership out of state and four weeks after the incident they determined it was a faulty fuel pump. I was told on the phone that they were unable to test if the fuel pump they removed was in fact faulty. Subaru told me they had a technician drive it for 500 miles and they didn't experience the same issue. Incidents were at the following mileages - dates: 31190 - May 27th, 2017 34383 - August 27th, 2017 approximately 42300 - February 2nd, 2018 51778 - August 9th, 2018 52129 - August 14th, 2018
I was driving down a highway going up a bridge over the Mississippi river at about 65mph when a bunch of lights came on and my engine completely stopped. I could not accelerate at all and I had to switch from the left-hand lane to the right -hand lane to get onto the shoulder. This was an extremely unsafe condition.my car speed and went to 65 mph to about 0 mph in the matter of a minute. I do you see that many people on the internet have complained about the same type of incident happening. This needs to be addressed immediately by Subaru.my check engine light came on my emissions control light came on in my traction control light came on. Luckily I was able to safely get to the shoulder while 65 mph cars were zooming past me. I was able to restart my car and make it to the dealership. Hopefully they will be able to come up with a resolution for the issue that I am seeing. Unfortunately it seems like a lot of folks on the internet are having similar issues and they are not being addressed.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Orange Park, FL, USA