2017 Subaru Outback: lane keeping assist jerks the wheel

Filed Nov 7, 2024 · Driver assistance · ME

The lane keeping assistance feature is turned off in my vehicle because I live where there are many two land roads and other drives constantly cross the middle line, including large logging trucks. Lately it has been coming on intermittently and nudging my car back toward the middle of the lane even when I would like to drive very close to the shoulder or white line on the right side of the road. When it nudges the car toward the center of the lane and I attempt to correct, it is a battle and makes me feel very uneasy. I have contacted subaru of america because when I took it to the dealer, they told me if I could not recreate it, it was unlikely they could fix it. After seeing a post on reddit, I think I am narrowing down recreating the event. I have pictures of the dashboard lights that show lane keeping assist being active despite the light showing it is also turned off.

Filed Jun 25, 2024 · Electrical · 74,000 miles · IL

The contact owns a 2017 Subaru Outback. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed, the Auto Cruise Control feature failed to function properly. The contact stated that the Auto Cruise Control feature only operated as needed 35% of the time. Additionally, the contact stated that the Lane Keep Assist message was displayed while attempting to use the Cruise Control feature. There was no warning light illuminated. The was taken to the dealer however, the vehicle was not diagnosed. The contact stated that a software update was completed; however, the failure persisted. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 74,000.

Filed Jun 23, 2023 · Driver assistance, Steering · MO

Had new tires installed and on the way home kept feeling wheel pulling to the right. Eyesight/lane assist feature was turned off. At one point the steering wheel dramatically jerked right and locked, completely immoveable. It jerked me into the other lane and almost into the median of the highway. I got to safety and had it towed to the dealership. I originally thought it was an issue with the tire alignment or the AWD system. They took it on a test drive and confirmed lane assist was malfunctioning in a dangerous way. They confirmed that eyesight/lane assist was turned off when this issue happened. They reset the system and said they couldn't guarantee the vehicle was safe to drive and suggested bringing it in if it happened again. I asked them to document everything they said over phone calls and voicemail. They agreed, but it took them weeks to provide a repair order. When they wrote up the repair order it included none of the information that was previously given and they said the car was, and always had been in perfect working order. I opened a case with Subaru of America and they were unable to get the information they needed from the dealership to proceed with the investigation. Upon further research, I found many similar accounts of this happening with Subarus of the same and similar year(s) and model(s). There is a class action lawsuit open for this but currently there are so many plaintiffs they cannot accept more. I refuse to drive this car as I feel that this malfunction is of life and limb consequence. I do not feel it would be ethical to sell this car without full disclosure and then would be out 30k on the car I purchased just three years ago. Reliable Subaru and Subaru of America refuse to offer a solution or help me in any way.

Filed Nov 22, 2022 · Acceleration, Brakes · NY

I was driving my 2017 Subaru Outback on a trip from New York to Florida. On I-95 in heavy traffic I hit a bump in the road, and at that instant, nearly every warning light on my dash came on, including EyeSight, lane departure, and emergency braking. My adaptive cruise immediately disengaged causing the vehicle to suddenly slow (this incident was at highway speed). The "brake" light was also illuminated. Not knowing what happened, I pulled over on the side of the highway and found that the wire to the electric parking brake on the passenger side had disconnected from the brake module. I tried to plug it back in, but it would not stay. I secured the cable with a hair tie and continued on the trip. Approximately 500 miles later, I hit another bump or pothole, and the same thing happened. I checked under the car again, and discovered that the driver side had failed in the same manner. I secured the cable with another hair tie and was able to complete my trip. When I returned home, I discovered that this is a known issue and there is a Subaru TSB published, 06-63-18R. There is no warranty on this issue, and I was charged nearly $750 to fix a KNOWN PROBLEM caused by a plastic retainer. In my opinion, this issue should be treated as a safety defect and subject to a recall to replace with the newer part. Having all of your vehicle assists suddenly fail at highway speed in heavy traffic is a disconcerting and dangerous event.

Filed Dec 6, 2019 · Acceleration, Electrical · 32,000 miles · TX

Windshield cracks and instantly spread with minimal impact disabling car speed control and safety systems such as pre-collision braking and lane keep assist.

Filed Nov 14, 2019 · Driver assistance, Steering · 14,000 miles · VA

On multiple occasions (when starting in driveway - stopped, while driving in parking lot - 5 MPH, driving in town - 25 MPH, while driving on highway - 60 MPH) all advanced safety features are disabled including (but not limited to) eye sight (fab - forward auto brake, acc - adaptive cruise control, las - lane assist steering), rab - rear auto brake, rear cross traffic alert, blind spot detection, park brake, ABS, traction control, power steering. Note that the failure of these systems does not cause a check engine condition and no error codes are logged. The dealer indicated that the first 4/5 failures left no codes. The next failure was delivered to dealer while running in a failed state. Dealer reported no codes found. Since the dealer did not report this to subaru I will be reporting this problem to subaru.

Filed Dec 25, 2018 · Steering · 27,500 miles · IL

When lane keep assist is on at night (uses eyesight to keep you in your lane) the car steering wheel has on two separate occasions suddenly jerked to the right. The first time there had been some road repairs with some parts of the road having new asphalt at some not, and the road was still wet from a previous rainstorm. The most recent time the road was dry and this happened when the car reached and exit where the painted stripe on the right side opened at the angle for cars to depart the interstate to allow for the exit. The first time there were two immediate jerks to the right. The last time a single jerk. Each time I had to forcibly jerk back the car back to the middle of the lane I was in, or we would have left the road at 65 MPH. I have stopped using lane keep assist - this was very dangerous. The first time I asked the salesman at subaru of champaign about this, and he didn't know about it. After the second occurrence I decided it was a dangerous defect and had to report it. Thank you.