Four problems related to wiper have been reported for the 2009 Subaru Forester. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2009 Subaru Forester based on all problems reported for the 2009 Forester.
The rear window spontaneously cracked/shattered. When entering the car the rear window was in one piece. I put the car in reverse and when I took my foot off the brake a chunk of my window fell in. The pattern around the cracked window appears as a cluster of thermal breaks. I have looked and there are more Subaru's reported with this issue as well which has to deal with how the car DE-frosts the glass.
The function of the radio and windshield wipers is intermittent. Upon start these devices do not appear to have electrical power and do not function. I suspect there are other items that do not work either, but I have not confirmed them. They both function properly when the engine is restarted. This has happened on 2 occasions over a 1 week period. This is a safety issue since in a rainstorm, the visibility would be nil. Otherwise the vehicle functions normally.
This vehicle has a tire pressure monitoring system (tpms) that is faulty and unnecessary. When the tires are at the correct amount of pressure the tpms light appears on the instrument panel during cold weather and will not turn off. If you want it to go away you have to pay a technician to reset it. I have been told that the manufacturer made it so it cannot be disabled. As I stated it is faulty and unnecessary and people should not have to continually pay to have it reset or replaced. As well I own a 2008 impreza with the same issue. The windshield defrost/wiper situation is also a serious issue! either the defrost does not heat the windshield enough for the wipers to clear the windshield or the wiper arms are not strong enough to apply enough pressure to clear the windshield. In rain and snow conditions the windshield is very hard to see through and quite frankly dangerous. I have spoken to many people with this model vehicle covering many generations with very few to very high miles and this appears to be an issue with all generations of this model.
The contact owns a 2009 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that various electrical systems, such as some warning indicators, wipers, and the defroster, ceased to function. The failures occurred without warning and would correct themselves once the vehicle was manually restarted. The failures occurred on five occasions. Autonation Subaru in spokane valley, wa could not replicate the failure. The manufacturer was notified. The failure mileage was approximately 120,000.