2019 Subaru Forester forward collision avoidance problems

“The contact owns a 2019 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that while driving at 30 MPH with the adaptive cruise control engaged, the vehicle accelerated independently. The contact depressed the brake pedal; however, the engine revved loudly, the vehicle continued to accelerate and collided with the rear of a minivan. The contact was able to steer the vehicle to the side of the bridge and stopped the vehicle. The side air bags deployed after the crash. No injuries were reported. A police report was not filed. The vehicle was towed to a tow yard by the Port Authority Police. The dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The contact retained legal counsel. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 80,000.”

“Engine lost power and was misfiring while many warning symbols appeared on the dash. There was a divider separating the lanes. The car coasted to almost to a stop, but the engine chugged enough to slowly turn left at the first opening in the divider and just barely made it off the main road. The engine stopped. I restarted it several times. The engine was misfiring barely running. The electric brake was applied on its own. The car did not respond to moving the shift selector out of park, so the car was immobilized. I put the 4-way flashers on and called AAA. There seemed to be no way for me to move it out of park or release the electronic parking brake. AAA could not respond quickly and suggested I call the police to divert traffic around my car for safety which I did. The tow truck operator was able to disengage the wheels and was able to flatbed it to the nearest repair shop. This being Saturday 1/3/26 it wasn't until Tuesday the repair shop determined the car would not run long enough to provide a reliable diagnosis due to the multiple trouble codes coming up on the computer analysis. I had the car towed to the nearest Subaru dealership who replaced the…”

“The contact owns a 2019 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that while driving approximately 70 MPH, the Forward Collision Avoidance system activated, and the vehicle immediately decelerated to 56 MPH. The failure was intermittent but had occurred several times over 5 years. The contact had to manually turn off the Forward Collision Avoidance system to avoid the failure. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who was unable to determine the cause of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not informed of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown.”

“While I was driving on a major road, the car appeared to sense an issue and automatically started to brake. While I was a road with 55mph drivers, my car was forcing me to stop. May warning light appeared; Eyesight Issue, Check Engine, Brake and many others. I was able to disengage the crash prevention manually and continue to drive. When I took it to my mechanic, he told me all the codes went to a Technical Service Bulletin for the Thermo Control Valve. He reset the codes and told me to take it to Subaru for an under warranty repair. Once I left the mechanic, I was travelling home and the car had the same issues, again while driving on a very busy road. This time I could not disengage the system, and I struggled to get the car over to the left shoulder. It was very narrow, and not safe. I ended up having to have the car towed to the dealer. The dealer did fix the car, under warranty. However, twice I was caught on busy roads in a very dangerous situation. I am very glad that I was not injured, nor those that came to rescue me. But this should not have happened. The Technical Service Bulletin was issued on April of 2024 and I had no idea.”

“During severe stop/go, thick, holiday traffic on I-495 (DC Beltway), during daylight hours, once AGAIN (this has happened several times before), the auto engine shutoff feature catastrophically malfunctioned, turning the car off, and simultaneously, activated the entirety of the dashboard to flash on/off, causing nearly every indicator light to come on, and then had difficulty restarting. This has been brought to Subaru's attention multiple times and they essentially have washed their hands of it and stating since they can't duplicate it, it essentially must not be occurring and they cannot repair it.”

“Auto start/stop shut off engine at drive thru line. Locked up brakes and could not get it to unlock and restart car. It has happened on a number of occasions. After multiple attempts trying and letting it sit for a couple of hours, somehow got it to unlock and start. Thank goodness we haven’t gotten into an accident”