What 591 owners told NHTSA about the 2020 Subaru Forester

Car shuts off while stopped at light. This has happened 3 times. I have taken it to Subaru service provider and keep being told nothing is wrong. Car must be put into park and restarted to work. It is unsafe. There are multiple reports online ([XXX] and [XXX] ) of people reporting the same issue. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

NHTSA ODI 11608337

A week after my routine oil changed at 31K, the check engine light along with flashing "s" pop up. The next day the check engine disappeared. I was some what happy and continue to drive car as normal for 2 days, then check engine light came back again and this time is staying for good. I just can't believed that 4 years old car is having this issue. I've owned so many cars prior to this 2020 Subaru Forester, never once that those cars have problems like this one. I feel that i'm at risk driving without no eyesight or collision prevention warning.. when the check engine comes on, those two things are disable. After a long research and reading about so many people with same issues, i feel that they should be a recalling to fix the thermal valve control.

NHTSA ODI 11606639

Eyesight pre-collision braking feature and pre-collision throttle management feature malfunctioned and caused the 2020 Forester to accelerate unexpectedly and lurch forward while I was manually braking and slowing to come to a complete stop behind two other vehicles stopped at a steady red light. See class action lawsuit Weston, et al. v. Subaru of America, Inc., et al. In US District Court Case No. [XXX] which alleges that the vehicle contains certain defects that caused sudden and unintended acceleration without driver input; acceleration while manually braking; and that these defects created a safety risk, because they severely affected the driver's ability to control the car's speed, acceleration, and deceleration, and increase the risk of a collision, which did in fact occur. The defective car was completely totaled and towed to a salvage yard by the police and the insurance company. Defect malfunction caused a collision which resulted in property damage and personal injury to three vehicles and three people. I mentioned the defect to my insurance company at the time of the accident. I do not know if they chose to follow up and inspect the vehicle. The problem occurred twice before ( not resulting in property damage or injury) and I took it to my Subaru dealer both times and they claim that they could not find anything wrong, but oddly did not note that they checked for the problem which I brought to their attention on the written summary/invoice for my service visit. See the class action lawsuit- this is apparently the typical dealer non-response to the problem. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

NHTSA ODI 11599272

The contact owns a 2020 Subaru Forester. The contact stated while driving 70 MPH, the vehicle failed to accelerate and then stalled. The driver was able to pull over safely. There were no warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, who determined that the failure was due to the thermal control valve and produced DTC codes: P2682 and P26A. The mechanic replaced the cooling gasket and coolant control valve and added coolant. The local dealer was contacted, but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was contacted and assisted with the repair. The approximate failure mileage was 52,395.

NHTSA ODI 11598271

P2682 Engine overheating and engine gauge flashing red due to a recall related to the engine coolant bypass valve. The vehicle stopped and required a tow for $417 to the nearest Subaru dealership to repair. After towing to the dealership they charged 31% of parts to labor and would not eliminate or discount the invoice.

NHTSA ODI 11597562

Within one month the same thing happened. I turn on the car and the eyesight warning light is on (eyesight feature disabled), flashing "S" drive is on, "break" light is on, and check engine light is on. Due to this cruise control isn't working. My plan was to take it to a mechanic/dealership that Monday. By Monday morning, after about 15 minutes of driving, all warning signs disappeared. This exact thing happened a few weeks later (this morning). I started googling issues and seems like this is an issue for many customers and is just a malfunctioning Thermo Control Valve, no actual problem. What do I do about this? This is much less important - but also seems like a quality issue, at drivers side, the seat cover is starting to crack, looking like this is car is over 10 years old, we've had it for less than 4 years and this shouldn't be happening on a car of this caliber. Photos attached

NHTSA ODI 11596105

I picked-up my new 2020 Subaru Forester on January 2, 2020. Within two years the battery became too weak to start the engine. Since then, I've had to repeatedly charge the battery. Now a battery maintainer is constantly connected to the battery. I've seen online reports that multiple late model Subarus have had battery issues, and that Subaru of America voluntarily replaced batteries and addressed related electrical issues for some of its customers. Subaru of America has all of my contact information, but I was never informed of their voluntary fix of the battery issue. Due to the fact that I wasn't contacted about the battery failure issue, do I now have any recourse? Many late model Subarus have an automatic engine stop/start feature. I've read reports of Subarus not restarting in traffic, I therefore do not feel safe driving my 2020 Subaru Forester. Why didn't this dangerous problem trigger an NHTSA recall?

NHTSA ODI 11594133

CHECK ENGINE, FORWARD COLLISION WARNING, FLASHING "S"DRIVE, NO EYESIGHT, AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING WARNING LIGHTS, ALL CAME ON AT ONCE AND STAYING ON. POSSIBLE THERMO CONTROL VALVE ISSUE - NEEDS A RECALL!

NHTSA ODI 11594248

Collided with a deer that was running across the freeway. Driving legal speed. Impact to front driver's side. Impact seemed relatively minor. No passenger injury. Odd that the airbags didn't deploy. Able to coast to the shoulder. Steam coming from radiator. That dissipated quickly. Had my sister call 911. Took pics of the front as well as the deer fur stuck to the car. About 2 minutes went by and I returned to the front to assess the extent of the damage. Car totaled. As I was assessing, I noted flames starting at the engine compartment firewall, almost directly centered between right and left sides. Vehicle eventually became fully engulfed. Seems like that fire shouldn't have started a full 5 minutes after the engine had been shut off. Advised to report by State Farm as the loss prevention person also thought it was unusual, as did OSP and fire. Said they'd never seen a car burst into flames after a deer strike.

NHTSA ODI 11593235

The contact owns a 2020 Subaru Forester. The contact stated while driving at 60 MPH, a deer jumped in the roadway causing damage to the front driver-side engine compartment. No air bags had deployed. The contact had managed to pull onto the side of the road. The contact stated she and the front passenger exited the vehicle safely when shortly afterward a fire started in the front driver-side engine compartment. No injury was sustained. A police report was filed but was unavailable. The local dealer was not contacted, and the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The vehicle was towed to a tow lot where it was then taken by the insurance company. The contact stated the insurance company had the vehicle in their possession for an investigation. The origin of the fire was unknown. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 23,000.

NHTSA ODI 11593129

In a three year period I have had to replace my windshield for cracks causing visibility issues. Each of these cracks have appeared for no apparent reason.

NHTSA ODI 11589926

On Monday, 5/13/24, I got in my car and there was a crack across the windshield that was not there earlier in the day. It seems to have spontaneously cracked for no known reason.

NHTSA ODI 11589535

2020 SUBARU FORESTER JUST HAD A CHECK ENGINE LIGHT APPEAR. THE ENGINE MALFUNCTION CODE IS P26A3, WHICH IS A DEFECTIVE THERMOSTATIC CONTROL VALVE. THIS MALFUNCTION ALSO AFFECTS THE VEHICLE MANUFACTURERS ADVANCED DRIVER ASSITANCE SYSTEMS SUCH AS: "EYESIGHT" BLIND SPOT MONITORING, LANE KEEP ASSIST, ETC. VEHICLE ONLY HAS 51,000 MILES ON IT.

NHTSA ODI 11589544

A crack in my windshield appeared during the 15 minutes my 2020 Subaru Forester was in parking lot while I was in a store. The ambient temperature was in the 70's, the car was facing away from the sun, and the windows were ventilating the inside. The crack starts at the passenger corner in the area of the defroster and runs all the way from the weatherstripping at an angle and length that it is directly in the field of view of the passenger. On a few occasions while driving since the incident I have heard expansion type crack sounds.

NHTSA ODI 11589149

The contact owns a 2020 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that while driving 40–45 MPH in the rain, the lower left corner of the front windshield cracked without impact. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 46,000.

NHTSA ODI 11588830

I bought a 2020 Subaru in March of 2020. I had reported an issue with the seat to the dealer Orange Coast Subaru and they had failed to diagnose or repair the issue. The issue was brought up to them several times and they only came to the car and looked quickly at the seat and told me it is fine without any in debt diagnostics. Looking and sitting in a seat wasn't in any shape or form diagnostics of the seat. Nobody looked under the seat or did a inspection beyond just looking and seating on it. Over the years the seat became woobly, unstable, it has cracked. I went for another issue to another dealer this time, Timmons of Long Beach, and paid a diagnostics fee to be told the frame needs to be replaced and it is a safety issue and has to be done asap. I had reached out to Subaru who advised the car is out of warranty. I pointed back to that the issue was reported to them and they said if it was not diagnosed as a failure then then it is unrelated to the issue found now. The seat is unsafe and it can result to injuries to myself and my son. Subaru doesn't want to take responsibility for it. The car has never been in an accident.

NHTSA ODI 11588701

The thermo valve leaked into connector, causing engine to shut down abruptly to prevent overheating. This happened at 70 mph on interstate highway in traffic. Part was replaced with modified thermo valve later. Barely able to coast to narrow shoulder flanked by deep ditch, with vehicle very close to interstate traffic, so much so that exit from vehicle ill-advised. After towing, vehicle was serviced by Subaru dealer. At time of part failure many warning lights & messages appeared, but not before the event.

NHTSA ODI 11585787

Multiple dashboard lights are on including starlink, eyesight, check engine, thermostat, and a blinking s. A quick Google search shows that this exact combination is a known issue. Safety concern is that all the accident prevention systems are down leaving me at risk.

NHTSA ODI 11585603

I was driving to work and many of my warning lights suddenly came on. This includes my check engine light, my lane assist light, my auto collision braking, my eye sight disabled and my cool engine light keeps going on and off. My cabin heating also isn’t working. There is no reason for this happening other than my thermo control valve failing.

NHTSA ODI 11585614

While driving temperature light, check engine light, all ADAS lights came on as inoperable (cameras, warning, ABS, BSD/RCTA), no heat (including defrost) available to defrost or for cabin. Appointment 3/13 replaced thermo control valve assembly , coolant bypass valve, intake gaskets, fuel line, coolant, total charges $2070. Luckily had extended warranty I bought, that I had to make a claim on. Dangerous to drive (no camera based safety features available, no defrost for the snowy weather, no emergency braking or other collision safety features on, this affected the entire 'eyesight' system). The engine also had no thermo control regulation during this time, affecting not just then, but possible future performance and early aging due to disregulation.

NHTSA ODI 11585356

The windshield developed a spontaneous crack, starting at the base of the right passenger windshield wiper and traveling in a line up toward the middle in a slanted line. There is no spike, no rock hit, nothing to have caused this. I believe it is a stress fracture as reported by others who have Subarus with eyesight technology. I have an appointment with the Subaru Dealer tomorrow morning. This appeared suddenly and must have happened overnight as it was not there yesterday but it was there when I got into the car this morning. The car was parked overnight.

NHTSA ODI 11585119

I purchased a 2020 Subaru Forester in 2020. Last week, the Check Engine light came on and it was due to the thermo control valve that need replaced. My car was outside of warranty at 70k miles and Subaru’s customer advocacy office will not reimburse despite this being a faulty defect for many 2018-21 Foresters. There is a class action lawsuit filed but I’m still out $1900. There should be a recall and I should not be paying for this manufacturer defect.

NHTSA ODI 11580521

Fourth windshield crack in 4 years. Enough. Please do a recall of this model.

NHTSA ODI 11579906

The thermo control valve on vehicle failed on 2020 Subaru Forester which is causing vehicle to loose acceleration, multiple errors codes displaying on the vehicle instrument dash panel and no heat in the vehicle (see attached photo for reference). The failure of this device could cause a vehicle fire depending on what position/ and or state the thermo valve failed in. There needs to be a manufacturer recall on this particular part as there is numerous amounts of complaints and issues. Subaru needs to make it right with the customer. we need to drive safe vehicles on the road.

NHTSA ODI 11578808

The contact owns a 2020 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that while driving at 60 MPH, the hood was independently unlatched and opened. The light indicating that the hood was opened illuminated. The contact stated that he pulled to the shoulder of the road and closed the hood. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired by an independent mechanic or dealer. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 36,000.

NHTSA ODI 11578432