general problems of the 2007 Subaru Legacy

Vehicle spontaneously caught on fire causing while accelerating at approximately 45 mph. Fire caused extensive damage to cv shaft boot, wire harness and transmission. Cause of fire is unknown.

The electrical harness connecting the body and rear lift gate which contains 14 wires within a rubber accordian boot suffered a breakage of all 14 wires at the body side of the boot. This affected the third brake light, defrost wires, and the rear wiper motor as a safety issue, and rear backup lights, liftgate lock, and security system as an inconvenience. First item that was noticed was lift latch lock not working, then other items failed in succession. I looked at affected components but only solved problem by accessing a Legacy owners website where this was found to be a frequent issue in varying degrees. Problem was fixed, not repaired, by running 14 new higher quality wires through the rubber boot and making connections at either side. Replacement harness from Subaru had same type of wires which in my opinion would have eventually failed again.

The electronic display for the hvac controls and radio go off and come on intermittently for no reason. When the display is off, you cannot engage defrost, heat, a/c, and none of the radio controls at all. The only control that still functions is the fan speed of the hvac controls. This occurrence is well documented among numerous Subaru owners, on the owners group www. Legacygt. Com, of which I am a member, from 9/29/2004 to 5/2/2011. . Read more...

If you press on my radio and/or sometimes for no reason at all, my display lights on the radio go out, the lights for heater/ac/temp control go out and my four way flashers come on. When this occurs, you are unable to control the radio, the heater, defrost or air conditioner, which is dangerous with variable weather conditions. In addition, I have two babies in the back seat so regulating temp is important too. At first this was an intermittent problem, which made it difficult to address. Now, it is more frequent. Recently, I had it to the dealer and the radio was determined faulty, but will cost $300+ to fix. I contacted Subaru of America regarding this issue and I was told by the representative that my car is well out of warranty and above the mileage (my car currently has 58,000) and they are sorry. In addition to the radio problems, my car's headlights and fog lights need to be replaced every 6-8 months. I have had multiple occurrences where both headlights die at night and I am forced to drive with my high beams on. To this I was informed by the dealer, that bulbs just die.