general problems of the 2021 Subaru Forester

My Subaru has an auto start/stop. I was at a complete stop, making a left-hand turn, and my car completely shuts off with the following message: for safety, auto restart disabled; eyesight with a \ through the words, put car in park and restart vehicle. In the time it took me to put the car in park and restart, I was almost t-bone. This was terrifying. This had happened on previous occasion in stop and go traffic which is dangerous because my car has come to a complete stop without any warning to me where the driver behind me there are no warning symbols, warning lights, or any type of signal or symptoms to notify me that my car was going to stop completely. . Typically I remove my foot from the break, the car starts and then I put my foot on the gas pedal and the car moves forward. In the situations described above the car just stopped. It just flat out stopped. There’s never been any indication or signal to indicate the car is not going to restart the retailer replaced my battery and said it should help. I called the Subaru factory rep who was of no help. She said she is not a trained technician and all that she could offer to do was to contact the retailer. The dealer was not able to reproduce the problem. The retailer replaced the battery without any response about the safety issue. I asked if Subaru had a safety board I could report this too and the factory rep said no, but she will document it and they’ll do an internal review to see if we have any other similar issues reported, however, they will not contact me because they don’t talk to the public about these issues. I told her there are hundreds of these if not, thousands concerns online stating the same issue. The rep said she would document my concern. Documentation is good if there’s a fix but I’m concerned about the unnecessary death of a driver. The retailer also advised I could do the auto start override, I’m trying to make a point of how serious of a safety issue this problem can be. Thank you!.

Unintentional acceleration - 2 times within 4 days of each incident. 9/17/25 while stopped to pull into a parking lot my 2021 Subaru Forester accelerated as I was stopped. I had to slam on the brakes, take a deep breath and was shocked at the pull and speed the car wanted to go. 9/20/25 pulled into a parking spot, not moving and the car again pulled and accelerated. Again I slammed on the brakes to stop from crashing into other vehicles or whatever was in the vicinity the car wanted to go. There were no warning messages, no symptoms prior to these 2 incidents. The car only has about 24,000 miles on it and all maintenance has been done on time and at the dealership. No outside mechanics have ever worked on the car. I called aaa to tow me as I was not safe to drive the car and had it towed to the suburu dealer where I purchased the car. This is an extremely dangerous situation. The floor mats were not near the gas pedal or the brake pedal and it was absolutely 100% not my error in foot pedal placement. I will not drive the car any longer until the dealer calls to tell me what is wrong or what they have found to be the problem. There is a civil lawsuit against Subaru for this situation but when mentioning it to the dealer they acted like they knew nothing about it. This is not something that should be ignored. I was lucky the 2 times it happened and I hope to god it never happens again!.

I commute with my car and recently it started to speed up all by itself. I removed my floor covers thinking the gas pedal might be stuck on it but that wasnt the problem. While accelerating from a stopped position, it revs up and accelerates rapidly all by itself. Tapping the break pedal to deactivate accidendal cruise control doesnt work. I have to slam the break just to stop it from accelerating on its own. This is the fourth time it's happened. I have my personal mechanic change the oil every 3k miles and follows the factory recommendations on all other manufacturers recommendations. Very scary to drive because it happens at random.

The contact owned a 2021 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that his wife attempted to turn into a parking lot while her foot depressed on the brake pedal, the vehicle jolted into acceleration, ultimately crashing into two parked vehicles at 5 mph. The front passenger side of the contact's vehicle crashed into the front of two vehicles. No property damage was reported. The vehicle came to a stop upon impact. The air bags did not deploy. The vehicle was not towed. The steering responsive headlight warning light was illuminated. A police report was filed. The vehicle was destroyed. No injuries were reported. The local dealer was not contacted, and the vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 39,500.

The 2021 Subaru Forester had been functioning normally with no warning lights. About 25 minutes into the drive I had come to a stop light on an upward incline. When the light turned green I moved from the brake to the gas as usual. However the auto-start function on the car failed, causing the engine to stall. A loud clunking sound was heard and the dashboard lit up with multiple lights, although I do no recall which ones were illumined. I attempted to press the gas again and the car did not respond. During this short time my foot was pressing on the gas the car rolled backwards and collided with the vehicle behind me. I continued attempting to press the gas pedal and still no acceleration was made. After parking and restarting the car it has resumed normal function. I have not yet visited the dealership so this issue has not yet been reproduced, nor has the offending system been inspected. I'm summary, the automatic engine start failed at a critical location, putting myself and others in serious danger and ultimately caused a crash.

I slowly pulled into a parking space at a grocery store. I took my foot off the accelerator, and the car jerked forward, traveling maybe 2-3 feet. I quickly put my foot on the brake and was able to stop the car. I took the car to the dealer, and the service consultant told me that she thought that a memo had just come in addressing the kind of incident I had. She also told me that another customer's car had accelerated into a bush and that the owner was so rattled that she traded her car in for another car. However, the service repairman said that he ran a lot of codes and was unable to find anything wrong. He told me that Subarus have never had unintended acceleration problems. Now I have a loaner car from Subaru, and my car is at the dealership awaiting a visit from a higher-up Subaru person who is over the local technicians. Last year, I brought the car in for several issues, one of which was an unintended acceleration while parking at another grocery store. Last year I was told that the instrument that looks for problems ran lots of codes and could find no record of the incident.

The contact owns a 2021 Subaru Forester. The contact stated while parking the vehicle in a parking lot, the vehicle accelerated independently and jumped the curb and into the bushes. The contact attempted to reverse the vehicle but continued to also accelerate independently in reverse. The contact stated the gear shift was on neutral and continue to rev loudly. The contact stated the vehicle stop on its own due to the tires deflating. The contact stated no one was injured nor sought medical attention. A police report was not filed. The vehicle was not drivable. The contact towed to the local dealer but was unable to duplicate nor diagnosed the failure. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown.

The first incident occurred when I drove into a parking space, applied the brakes, and the car suddenly sped forward, so I had to repeatedly jam on the brakes to make the car stop. Fortunately, no person or vehicle was directly in front of me. In the past week, we have experienced problems with the adas. We were backing into a parking space at night and made contact with a parked car. Our car made no warning sounds or lights to warn us. The following day, the blind spot detector light went on and off intermittently, sometimes with an exclamation point, and sometimes without an exclamation point. The lights on the mirror did not come on when cars were approaching from behind. We are making an appointment with the dealer ASAP.

On 7/9/22 @ 6:00p I was with my wife & 2 grandsons going into a diner parking lot. As I was slowly going into a spot the car suddenly and without warning accelerated causing the car to drive over a cement parking stop, over a 1foot high cement wall, through a chain linked fence which had privacy covering, down into a 12 deep ravine. After shutting off the car my grandsons, wife & myself had to crawl out through the rear hatch. When things quieted down we realized that none of the safety features were activated (anti-collision warning, anti-collision braking) I thank god no one was hurt. Subaru needs to look into this so in the future no one ever experiences this.

I was coming out of my garaged ( car was facing forward) . The car seemed to hesitate as I tapped the gas pedal. I thought maybe this was because the car sensed the sides of the garage via the rear view mirror sensors. I am always careful when exiting my garage so as not to ding the rearview mirrors. I repeatedly tapped the gas lightly about three times but the car hesitated each time and did not want to seem to move forward. One last time I tapped the gas and the car bolted out of the garage jumped the curb across the street at an unexpected rapid speed. I did not have my foot on the gas pedal. The car lunged forward , crossed the street and hit the garage door and frame of the house across the street for me doing structural damage. I believe this to be unintended acceleration for which other Subaru models have experienced problems. The air bags did not deploy. . Read more...

While pulling into a parking spot my Forester lunged forward even though I did not have my foot on the gas pedal. Also, when pulling away from a traffic light, the vehicle sometimes feels as though it wants to accelerate even though I am not pressing the gas pedal too hard.