Front Seat Heater/cooler Problems of Subaru Forester

The contact owns a 2018 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that the front passenger’s side seat was extremely hot. Additionally, air bag warning light was illuminated. The contact also stated that the taillights were inoperable. While his wife was driving at an undetermined speed, the vehicle inadvertently lost power steering functionality. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where the taillight bulbs were replaced; however, the failure persisted. The manufacturer was not contacted. The approximate failure mileage was 90,400.

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Nhtsa recall 19v-701 (Subaru recall wum-98) includes only Foresters with seat heaters manufactured from 1/20/15 - 8/1/17. My Forester was manufactured on 6/6/18 and is not currently included. Page 3 of product campaign bulletin wum-98r revised 11/20/19 (copy attached) states if the date code on the front passenger seat cushion wiring harness is 18074 (74th day of 2018) or before and the supplier code is 6578, "the harness is ng and the seat cushion assembly must be replaced". As you can see from the attached photo (img_1295), the date code on the harness label in my vehicle is 18019 (19th day of 2018), the supplier code is 6578, and the Subaru part number (64084sg020) matches the part number on the defective harness label on page 3 of wum-98r. Also, how can the cut off date for defective wiring harnesses (74th day of 2018) be 7 1/2 months after the last recalled vehicle was produced on 8/1/2017? what happened to all the defective wiring harnesses made in that 7 1/2 month period ? after several emails to Subaru customer service, Subaru still refuses to admit that the wiring harness in my vehicle is defective, stating only that the vehicle was not manufactured between 1/20/15 and 8/1/17, even though according to page 3 of wum-98r the harness is clearly defective. Note also that page 3 of part 573 safety recall report 19v-701 claims the wiring harness defect was corrected on 2/19/2018, and lists 17 recalled part numbers, but does not include the part number in the photograph of the defective harness label on page 3 of wum-98r (and the harness label in my vehicle). This recall clearly warrants further investigation by NHTSA.

The contact owns a 2012 Subaru Forester. While driving approximately 30 mph, a burning odor filled the inside of the vehicle. The seat became very hot and burned a hole through the seat and the contact's clothing. There were no injuries. The contact turned off the seat heater. There were no warning indicators illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that it was a second occurrence and the failure could not be diagnosed. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and offered a savings coupon in addition to the seat replacement. The vehicle was not completely damaged. The failure mileage was approximately 90,000.

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