Electrical System Problems of Subaru Impreza - part 2

The key will not come out of the ignition when the engine has stopped. It has to be restarted (often multiple times) before the key will come out. Does not happen every time but is frequent. This could lead people to leave the key in place if they are in a hurry and result in the possibility of theft. Roommate has 2017 outback that does the same thing and was told that it could be fixed but the cost would be approx $1300. There are no warning lights on when this happens and there is nothing that indicates whether or not it will happen.

See all problems of the 2016 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

After less than two years into my lease, the car was completely 'dead'. I could not start it or 'jump' it. It cost me out of pocket money to have it towed 50 miles to dealership. They replaced battery. They car was recalled a year or so. Took it into dealership for repair. After I noticed that automatic headlight dimmer would not work. -still doesn't. 2 weeks ago, car would not start. Was told again by dealer that car had to be brought in. Was referred to 'roadside service company' was quoted an ' out of pocket' charge of $644 to tow vehicle to dealership. Since I could not do that, decided to order battery myself for $260. Waiting for battery to arrive.

See all problems of the 2018 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

I believe my car having some issues with fuel system, gasoline delivery, cooling down and exhaust system, electrical system:ignition. This vehicle only has 15,606 miles on it and should not be giving me this kind of problem.

See all problems of the 2019 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

The contact owns a 2014 Subaru Impreza. The contact stated that after parking the vehicle in the driveway, the vehicle failed to restart after thirty minutes. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact stated that the failure was due to the pump assembly and noticed that the connector was difficult to remove and had melted. The vehicle was towed to the local dealer where it was diagnosed there was an open circuit in the assembly. The vehicle was not diagnosed. The manufacturer was notified and offered a discount on the cost of the repair. The failure mileage was approximately 81,000.

See all problems of the 2014 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

Electrical issue affecting the headlights, radio, clock, gauges. Headlights constantly flicker/dimming, also causes the bulbs to burn out rapidly. Radio constantly losing power clock/miles left in tank display resets occasionally the the speedometer and tachometer display loses power dropping all the needles to 0 for a second before popping back. These issues got worse after the last recall was done.

Intermittently unable to remove the keys from ignition after placing the car into park and shutting off the engine. (instances where keys remain stuck/locked in the ignition requiring someone to 'muscle' them out of there). I believe this is linked to a faulty sensor not allowing the keys to be released. Second complaint: the headset unit on the car, (starlink), has a touchscreen that no longer responds to touch and I believe is slowly draining the battery from the car. Subaru is unwilling to service the vehicle for either problem without a service fee.

50% of the time or more, the ignition refuse to release the key. When turning the key to take it out of the ignition, there are three clicks before the key releases. Mine often clicks twice and will not go beyond this point. I searched and found at other people have the same problem. Sometimes if I place my foot on the brake and put it in neutral, then back to park it will release, but this does not work every time and it can lead to much confusion when parking. People sometimes can’t tell if im trying to move or park. This doesn’t appear to be an isolated incident.

See all problems of the 2012 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

Yesterday, March 28, 2022 I stopped to run into a shop. Left my windows down because it was hot. My ac fan doesn’t work half the time. When I put my keys in the ignition, the key would not turn to accessories or ignite the car to start. The steering wheel was locked. The park gear shift wouldn’t move. I tried forcing these for at least 15 minutes. I had my emergency key fob and tried it repeatedly,too, but still I don’t know why it turned finally. I took to Subaru today who had a technical bulletin about it, fixed it for no charge. Says letter has gone out but I hadn’t received it. Why? I live alone, am 73, and do not have anyone to call to help. It’s unsafe because one could be stuck in the car when bad weather is outside creating a dangerous situation. Subaru called this park-range repair.

See all problems of the 2015 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

The 2020 Subaru Impreza hatchback was purchased new from a Subaru dealer. Approximately, one year after purchase the vehicle started to exhibit hard starting. That is when the key is turned on the engine did not immediately turn over but there began an increased hesitation overtime before engine would turn over. It demonstrated issues of electrical problems. Finally, on March 24, 2022 the engine failed to turn over and we had to have the car towed to the original Subaru dealer. The tow truck driver attempted to turn the engine on but in his opinion, the starter was not working at all. As of the writing of this report we do not know the exact cause of issue nor do we expect to pay for any repairs or parts since the vehicle is still under warranty.

See all problems of the 2020 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

The battery dies sporadically when the car has been parked for a short time or a day or two. No telling when it will happen, but suddenly the car will not start. Subaru dealer says there's nothing wrong, but obviously there is. This has happened three times already, once in 25- degree weather with a 15-degree wind chill. I have checked all the lights and keep the headlights turned off, as I don't drive at night. So far this has happened only when the car is parked, but what if it happens when I am driving? date given below is the third incident. The others were in late January and February.

The airbag warning light has been lit within the dashboard. The front passenger seat airbag is faulty and is not able to correctly sense when a passenger is within the seat or not, which disables the airbags. This can be deadly to the passenger if in an accident. The issue seems to be in the ods passenger seat mat that determines when the airbag is active or not. If moisture is able to get within the mat, then it can short the circuit and cause airbags to not deploy. My car was "supposed" to already been fixed with the issue in 2015 on the recall #wqt55, NHTSA campaign 15v419000, but I don't believe the underlying issue was fixed correctly or the same part has failed again. Looking further into recalls, the exact same issue is happening again with Subarus with #wra-24 and NHTSA campaign 24v227. The dealer has asked me to pay over $1700 on to replace this part. Subaru America should fully cover the cost of any passenger ods issue especially when there have already been two recalls with the exact same issue.

The contact owns a 2010 Subaru Impreza. The contact stated while attempting to start the vehicle, the vehicle would not start. The contact was able to jump start the vehicle and the vehicle was able to start and no warning light illuminated. The contact replaced the battery to the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, but no failure was found, but the failure reoccurred. The vehicle was taken back to the dealer, but the vehicle was not diagnose. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was contacted and no assistance was provided. The failure mileage was 90,000.

See all problems of the 2010 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

Vehicle was purchased new by original owner. Battery died at 5,709 miles and was replaced by dealer. I purchased the vehicle as a cpo. Second battery died at 8,077 miles and was replaced by dealer. Third battery died at 8,836 miles and was replaced by dealer. Old batteries were disposed of by dealerships, surely, and are not available for inspection. Safety concern is chiefly of failure when the vehicle is off, not during driving. Problem has been confirmed at each dealership visit. Note that there are several class-action lawsuits pending against Subaru for prematurely dying batteries. No warning was given by vehicle except for a slightly longer engine start the time before catastrophic draining of battery and failure of engine start. Though anecdotal, non-Subaru technicians feel it's not defective batteries but rather a defective electrical system, specifically the controller area network.

Battery won’t hold a charge, randomly leaves driver stranded.

See all problems of the 2011 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

When put key in ignition, the car doesn’t start. The key can not be taken out of ignition. Numerous jiggles. Put foot on the brake, take foot off the brake. Eventually starts. Fear will be unable to take key out of ignition.

After turning off the engine in park, the keys are not being released from the acc position of the ignition in my 2016 Subaru Impreza, which has 32,000 miles. I must repeatedly depress the shift lever and/or shift gears back and forth and/or restart and turn off the car in order to get the key out. This has been going on for two months now for at least half the time although not every time I turn off the car. There are no warning messages or diagnostic lights, just the malfunction itself. The issue has been documented in TSB 16-112-18 in numerous models of Subaru. My spouse and I have contacted Subaru of America and a local Subaru dealer, who have disclaimed responsibility for the problem, but did admit that this was a known issue. The dealer also insinuated that the fault could be the customers' by spilling beverages or something into the shifter linkage. As indicated in the youtube printout I have attached (yakfish taco 2014 - 2018 Subaru forester key stuck in ignition - quick fix solution), many people are working around this problem by disabling the key removal safety feature in the wiring of the steering column. This allows the key to be removed from the ignition at any time, such as when the vehicle is driving or stopped but not in park. It is my belief that people are going to die from this. Subaru should be forced to issue a recall.

There seems to be an issue with keys getting stuck in the ignition on a lot of various years and makes of Subaru's. So much so, that Subaru put out a service bulletin (bulletin number: 16-112-18r) to remedy this. Unfortunately, those who are out of the warranty time frame, are no longer eligible for a replacement without charge. This is not a safety issue per-say, but rather an issue of the car possibly getting stole due to Subaru's unwillingness to make this a recall issue and making it free to current owners regardless of the warranty status. What I would like for you folks to do is push Subaru's hand into making this a recall issue and fixing the issue free of charge even if the vehicle is outside of the warranty time period. Thank you for taking the time to read my concern. I got the recall serviced on this vehicle on 09/17/2021.

Sometimes when a passenger sits in the front passenger seat the airbag light will show that it is turned off. It happens about 70% each time we are in the vehicle. I don't know if it is a wire issue or the airbag sensor. It seems that it is covered in other recalls, but not my vehicle. Not sure why but it seems they are the same system.

See all problems of the 2013 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

I bought a "Subaru Impreza" 2017, and in the span of 4 years, had numerous issues, including: -dead battery -car suddenly stopping on highway: no electroninc warning whatsoever -over 6 possibly lethal recalls (mainly pertaining to car electronics andbrakes), which might cause car to stop moving/responsing to steering/braking at any moment, which I send in for repair ASAP. Afterwards, I was assured all the electronics and brake components had been checked, and I would be safe to drive everyday for work. -this week, after all these "repaired" recalls, my car suddenly while I was driving on one of the busiest/most dangerous highways in our area: it took me several minutes to even manage to pull onto the shoulder. During that time, I was almost hit 5 times, and had to call chp to come take me. I could have easily been killed. And the chp operator clearly told me not to drive this car again. -the next day, I got to Subaru dealership which sold me this car, asking for a loaner, and free repair. Although Subaru provided the loaner, they also gave me a 1133. 98$ to fix the electronic issue, which they assured me "is not my fault, but not on the recall list, so even though it malfunctioned, I have to pay, even though their negligence almost cost me my life. I'm curious to know how many other Subaru 2017 drivers had similar experience.

See all problems of the 2017 Subaru Impreza 🔎.

Check engine/break/abs/traction control/ cruise control and at oil temp lights are all on. Now my back break lights are not working! car jerks at times. Read on a few forms that this was an issue for Subaru Imprezas 2012 and up. There was also a recall on this issue on April 2019. Please have this recalled again.

Malfunction with my dashboard lights. Abs/ at oil temp/tracktion control/ hill light and cruise control gage. Are all on car seems to run somewhat alright until car jerks then all of the mentioned issues comes on.

The contact owns a 2017 Subaru Impreza. The contact stated that while the vehicle was parked in the driveway and turned off a fire occurred. The neighbor had discovered three vehicles in the driveway were on fire and called the fire department to the scene who extinguished the flames. During the incident the three vehicle were destroyed. A fire report was taken at the scene. Fire investigators determined that the fire started on the front passenger side of the Subaru vehicle. No further information was available. The manufacturer and local dealer were not notified of the incident. The failure mileage was 54,000.

Key gets stuck in ignition and cannot be removed when in park. This is a know issue and documented in service bulletin 16-112-18r.

Not quite sure what specific part or wiring location but it’s somewhere in the electrical system. The car is available for inspection upon request. Started out with electrical system on not allowing the windows to roll down and the bluetooth connection malfunctioning to cause a high pitched screech. It is ear piercing and scared me half to death driving down the street with rush hour traffic and almost caused me to crash into someone. It does it at unprompted times and would be afraid to swerve into somebody and cause an accident. Trying to turn it off or turning the volume down makes it louder and the only way I’ve gotten it to stop is to turn off the car. A couple of days later, the power wouldn’t turn off on the media center or cycling through modes (fm/am radio, bluetooth, usb, cd) and caused the same high pitched screech. Now the drivers window does not roll all the way down and slams the window down the door at random times. Followed by the airbag sensor not enabling when an adult is sitting in the passenger seat. This can put passengers at risk if involved in an accident and can’t climb out the windows or the airbags from being deployed. The car is serviced at the dealership every time maintenance is needed. Dealership maintenance appoint is on Monday September 21st 2021 at the mccurley dealership in pasco washington for other wear and tear maintenance but will ask them to inspect this as well. There has been no prior messages, symptoms, warning or maintenance lamps before this issue occurred. It started to do this back in the beginning of August 2021.

The battery dies after just sitting in my home after a day.

The vehicle was sitting and being started on a weekly basis until recently where we had an issue with the battery needed to be replaced.

Since purchasing my vehicle in January of 2019 I have had to have the battery replaced 4 times, each time the car has not been sitting for more than a week, not been exposed to extreme temperatures, not been left with a light on or a door open. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th times this happened I requested that the vehicle be examined to determine whether there was an issue other than the battery at play, Subaru has never taken that inquiry seriously and simply replaced the battery only for it to die a few months later.

The engine cooling system failed and put myself and my step-daughter at risk while driving on the freeway. When I got off the freeway, the vehicle stalled and I was unable to move the car. I got a tow to move the car. The electrical system was messing up for the windows and the radio, I was unaware of the other parts of the vehicle it was affecting. I just tolerated it for the time being. When my car overheated, the red warning temperature lights came on, the blue warning lamp that tells the temperature, and the tract warning lamp, as well as the check engine lamp. They did not turn on prior to this. I took the vehicle to john hine Subaru. The car went from being my most reliable, to this unpredictable incident.

Battery drains too fast and keeps need a jump.

About 5-6 times my knee has bumped the key during normal driving, turning it in the off position. It has happened while driving straight and while turning. It happens more frequently while accelerating out of a parking lot onto a surface street. It has left me dead stopped in the middle of oncoming traffic or having to coast to the side of the road. It takes several seconds to restart the car because I have to put the car in park to restart it.

Car won't turn over ignition. All brake lights stopped working. It impacted braking, vdc system, abs system and cruise control didn't work. Occurred after 2 hour trip with no concerns and functioning systems. Only noticed when tried to restart the car.

The passenger side airbag shows off when an adult is sitting in the passenger seat. This happens at start up and while driving. There are many such problems for this model and year being reported online.

The last several weeks (at around 16k miles) the majority of the time when I would try to park, I'd place my car in park, have my foot on the brake, but I could not turn the key from the acc position to the lock position and also could not remove the key. I'd have to cycle the car on, reverse a few feet, go forward to my parking spot, put in park and try to turn off. I often had to do it 5+ times to be able to remove the key. On this site I found some information from Subaru claiming that some cars have a problem with contaminants getting to the "plate guide b. " once I saw the illustrations I realized that a component of plate guide b is a little switch. The button on the gear shift knob has a plunger that drops when the button is released; when it functions properly that plunger should come to rest on the switch in plate guide b and deactivate the lock in the ignition. It seems that over time there was a loss of spring tension either in the gear shift knob or in the little switch so the plunger was not activating the switch. After learning all this I was able to do the repair without replacing any components, and now that I know what I'm doing, it can be done in about 10 minutes and requires only a flat head screwdriver, a philip's screwdriver, a pair of needle nose pliers and a flashlight. I just had to remove the center console (two screws in the back seat one on each side and one under the hand brake boot, disassemble the gear shifter cover. (all plastic clips easily undone with a flat head screwdriver), knob, and dust cover to expose the switch and then bend the exposed end of the switch slightly upward so the shifter knob's plunger will activate it again. The switch looks like a small flat piece of metal. I just held it firmly in place with a flat screw driver then pulled up (gently) on the end of it with needle nose pliers to bend it slightly upward.

Purchased Impreza limited 10/31/19. On 1/23/21, car would not start. Aaa said battery not good & installed a new battery. On 7/4/21 car would not start; battery jumped by aaa. On 9/10/21 car would not start. Aaa said battery not good & installed a new battery again—3rd battery since I purchased car. On 7/22/21 Subaru of morristown said they checked for parasitic drain, and told me it is “within specs. ” they said I don’t drive enough miles. End of July 2021 I (a senior woman) purchased a battery tender which I must attach to the battery whenever the car is parked in my garage.

Since January 2021, the screen with the rear camera go to black, many times and you only can see the red and yellow lines, so and other words when activate reverse the screen is black you can see nothing. Please help.