I picked up my new 2016 Forester Limited the other day. I let my 6'2" tall son drive it part way home, and immediately he noticed that with the driver's seat bottomed out and the rearview mirror tilted as far up as it would go, he could still only see out the bottom two thirds of the back window. My Forester does have the mirror package option, but not sure if that changes anything.
View 7 RepliesI am currently trying to decide between the 2015 Impreza Sport sedan and the 2015 Impreza Sport sedan with the technology option (eye sight, push button start, etc.)
View 1 RepliesI have a 1.5 year old Forester. I have rotated the tires twice now, and each time I notice some excessive tire noise after the rotation, for the next hundred miles or so. The tires look OK. Is this a sign that I need alignment? That is, the rotation is equalizing some uneven wear due to a misalignment?
View 19 RepliesI noticed something while riding as a passenger in my 1999 Subaru Forester lately. I was riding in the front passenger seat with the window down, and noticed a strange "spritzing" noise coming from the passenger side front of the vehicle. The sound is very brief, about a second in duration. I heard this repeat several times as we went down the road, and decided to time it. It turns out that this sound occurs exactly every 33 seconds while the car is in gear going down the road! It sounds like a pressure relief valve going off....but what could it be?
View 2 RepliesJust exploring on my touch screen, while under Setup and then under Vehicle you have the DRL option of {on or off }. But I don't see any difference with I select either one. Even if I switch on my DRL or headlights I see no change when I select on or off. What does it change?? I'm also not finding an answer in the owners manual. On my headlight switch I have these options... Off - DRL - Parking lights - Head lights> All my other Prius friends have an auto headlight that I somehow missed out on ....
View 7 RepliesI have a 2009 GX 470 and need to set up my easy exit (where seat goes back when car turned off and key comes out). I keep seeing posts that say got to the set up button and click on vehicle. I see a set up menu button but when I click that there is no vehicle option.
View 2 RepliesI have a 2004 Subaru Forester xs and the a/c goes out intermittently. I was told I need a new compressor clutch and that the whole compressor assembly will have to be replaced. I contacted another mechanic and he said that he would fix just the clutch but I should replace the whole thing. So, what do I HAVE to do? Are these prices in line? Can I get used parts or discounted parts?
View 2 RepliesI have an '06 Forester XT 2.5 turbo that has, what I can only describe as a stumble around 2500 rpm. The car's maintenance is always up-to-date, and never has anything under 91 octane run in it.This started out when you had the cruise set and now does it all the time whether or not the cruise is used. I've had it to 2 shops including a Subaru dealer that had it for a month and couldn't find the issue. We've been through injectors, coils, maf sensor, etc. to no avail. The trouble code that we're given is a misfire in cylinder 1. We discovered, while trying to find the issue, that there was only 30psi in that #1 cylinder and the valve guides were the issue. So the motor was pulled, heads planed, etc. and new guides installed. Also, put in a new timing belt, and so on, that is usually done when the motor is out.They have done a leak down test and compression tests as well. This is my wife's car and she absolutely love it, so I need to get this figured out.
View 2 RepliesI just bought this car for my daughter. It's in very good shape; runs like a top. But the gas mileage is a lousy 20 mpg. All of my trips are local (no stop and go stuff as we live in the country). A buddy of mine with the same car and similar driving habits says she gets 25-28 mpg. So far I have changed the oil, oil filter and air filter.This can't be the best I can expect, can it?!
View 10 RepliesAt 56,000+ miles on my 2006 Forester, I was horribly shocked to learn while having 60,000 maintenance done that my head gasket was leaking. inclusive of timing belt replacement required. I have read some discussions in this vein, but none regarding a car with this few miles on it. It does not seem right. I have had other issues with this car, my 2nd forester. I do not know what I should do.
View 12 RepliesI have a 2015 forester & the seats are not wide enough so my right leg rests on the front corner of the seat & after driving 70 miles my legs & back are hurting. I think the outback has seats 2 inches wider , that could work.
View 2 RepliesSometimes when the AC is on automatic control it will kick out of auto control into manual control and the fan will speed up. All this happens without touching anything. Dealer said it's working fine.
View 1 RepliesI have a 2003 Forester that has low air flow thru the vents if you try to use the AC or heater.
If you turn the speed from 1-4 you can hear the blower fan turning faster but the air coming out of the vents is very low. YOu can hardly feel it. I checked to see if there was a cabin filter and there was none.
Even though you can barely feel the air coming out, when on AC the air feels cold and when on heat it feels hot.
Sometimes the Subaru standard transmission just does not want to go into reverse. I don't see a pattern here, but when it happens I have to double clutch it, or hold the clutch peddle down and move from first to reverse.
View 3 RepliesI bought the car brand new in May of 2009. All was good until February of last year when the battery died. I kind of wrote it off as one of those things that's part of life in AK. But then the same thing happened in November - yes, it was cold again, but it died after I'd successfully started it and drove it to my husband's work. He was inside for maybe thirty minutes. Not wanting to waste gas, it turned the car off and listened to the radio. When hubby came back, I tried to start the car and ... nothing. We had to get it jumped. Hubby said I shouldn't have been listening to the radio with the engine off. Anyway, I had a service appointment at the dealership a few days later and mentioned that the battery died again. They checked it and said it was weak so they replaced it.
Now, of course, I'm super-paranoid about everything that could be draining the battery. I turn the lights off whenever I turn off the engine (even though that's supposed to be something the car does automatically), and only listen to the radio when I'm driving. I've made sure that there's nothing plugged in any of the power outlets, and I don't have anything that's aftermarket. Oh, and middle of last year the radio/CD player died too, and that had to be replaced. Don't know if it's linked, but it's still odd.
The only advice the dealership had was to drive it more. I guess I'm pretty severe on the car - work's maybe a fifteen minute drive (20 if it's snowing) and a fair few of my journeys are short ones, for a variety of reasons. Plus, it's Anchorage, AK. Severe driving's standard here. But I never had these issues with my other cars, and my driving patterns haven't changed at all. Could there be something that's draining the battery that I haven't thought of, or am I really stuck with driving around Anchorage aimlessly for at least 20 minutes each time I get in the car?
Okay, I've been trying to diagnose this problem for ages. Whenever I top off my tank with fuel, the garage smells of fuel until I use up about a quarter of the tank. The smell stays mostly outside of the car. So far I have replaced the drain filter (a few years ago), fuel filler neck, hose leading from the filler neck to the tank, and had the system pressure tested. I'm fairly certain it's not the tank because the car has been undercoated since new and my mechanic saw no signs of a leak when he replaced the rear crossmember recently. My next guess is either the gas cap, the charcoal filter, or some hose leading to/from the charcoal filter.
View 7 RepliesAfter having changed the oil in my 04 Forester multiple times, I must have lost my mind and drained the transmission fluid. I realized this when I started it back up and it wouldn't move. Clearly I put an oil filter on with engine oil around the seal. Should I do a tranny flush or can I just replace filter (with correct one) and fill with tranny fluid?
View 16 RepliesI have a 2003 Subaru forester w/ 148k and manual transmission. Recently I have notice two new symptoms, but am not sure if they are connected. First is some bluish exhaust just at startup. Second is a wining sound out of the front of the engine. It fluctuates in time with the rpm. When I pop the hood it sounds like it may by coming from the generator or AC unit which has a wired red powdery substance on it. The wining seem worse for the first 1/2 hr of driving.
View 7 RepliesOn my 2002 Subaru Forester (137,000 m), the check engine light came on. They diagnosed and repaired O2 sensor. About 300 miles later it came on again, this time they said the catalytic converter was cooked, and they blamed whatever caused the O2 sensor to fail (or the O2 sensor failure itself). After the repair (about $1300 and 30 miles later), I discovered that the engine oil was so low that it was not showing up on the dipstick (tho the oil light was not yet on). The shop (after admitting that they did not check the oil while it was in there) said it was related to catalytic converter failure. Does this make sense? I have only gone another 60 miles since the oil was refilled, but so far it looks OK. Should I be on the look-out for anything else?
View 16 RepliesI recently had the clutch replaced on my 2001 Subaru, now the clutch pedal is sticking, could this be related to the clutch replacement or is this something else? I didn't have such a great experience with the mechanic that did the work so I don't trust him to tell me truthfully whether it's possibly a warranty issue or not. The problem happens intermittently. I'll push down on the pedal and when I release it it will only come back up half way. If you tap it with you toe it pops right up. Doesn't seem to impact the functioning on the vehicle.
View 3 RepliesTook a 9 hour road trip and after an about an hour of driving we noticed AC slowly lost both cool temp and air flow (makes not different if AC button depressed or not). We could hear the fan but NO air was coming out - as time progressed the high setting on the fan made no noise at all. The vent did not blow any outside air either. There was about a gallon of water dripped from under the car when we reached our destination. The next 2 days, EVERYTHING returned to NORMAL during short trips around town. AC was cool but not cold. On the return road trip, again we slowly lost the AC - as we drove north to MA it got cold outside and when we tried the heat, it was the same problem - we could hear something like a fan but no air at all, heat or vent. No warmth when hand placed on vent and high fan setting made no noise.
The next day - a cold June morning - the heat works great - fan and all.This 2005 Subaru Forrester (100 thou miles - car fax ok) - was purchased from a used dealer last Nov and has been a never ending nightmare (including - but not limited too - the dealer replacing the engine post purchase) - we noticed that the AC was not working at the time of purchase and they signed a paper saying they would fix it - just took it in to the dealer last week to have them repair the AC and then we took the trip. Think all they did was replace the coolant and it blew cold when I left the dealer. I think this has been a problem from day one but could not really tell with the AC during the winter and did not take long trips in winter when using heat...sometimes I did question if the heat was working though.