Too many unnecessary repairs. The 2015 Subaru Forester is the worst car I've ever owned.
After purchasing this car and early on, Frequently the ignition key wouldn't turn as the steering wheel lock was interfering with it. I had to jam the wheel left & right several times to free up the lock. I was told this would go away but it never has. Here it is with over 170,000 miles and the steering wheel still has to be jammed left & right to free up that locking mechanism.
June 2017, the factory battery died. Apparently an undersized battery was installed. It only had 390 cold cranking amps but Subaru specs required 590 amps. I called Subaru and they said to just buy a battery and they'd reimburse me. Since the factory warranty didn't cover this, I expected an argument. Obviously they intentionally installed an undersized battery.
In August 2017 with only 52,086 miles, the factory clutch died and had to be replaced ($1,124). I forget how much Subaru wanted to charge for a new clutch but I went to my mechanic (Atlee Auto) and they were around $500 cheaper.
That same month, a factory recall for oil consumption came out. There wasn't any charge but Subaru ended up replacing every seal & gasket on the engine at only 52,952 miles. I'm still replacing a quart of oil every 3,000 miles but they refused another repair on that.
In December 2022, at 150,038 miles, the clutch slave cylinder was leaking and I had Atlee replace it ($256). Unfortunately it was leaking onto the clutch but they weren't sure how it would affect the clutch. Over the next few weeks, shifting was getting difficult and I eventually lost 1st & 6th gears. In January 2023, 150,887 miles, the clutch was replaced ($1,907).
I've been driving manual transmissions for 50 yrs and have never replaced a clutch and most of those cars had over 100,000 miles. My last two cars were a 1987 Jeep Comanche pickup and a 1995 Jeep Cherokee. They had 307,000 and 417,000 miles and the clutches were the only parts never replaced.
Considering Subaru's advertising claims that they have excellent quality one would think they'd at least reimburse some of these unnecessary repairs even if the repairs weren't performed by Subaru. Outside the warranty period, having a dealer do repairs such as these, one would be an idiot to want to pay their overpriced repairs.
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