After the transmission is in park and the key is turned to turn-off the engine, the key will not advance to the "LOCKED" position and cannot be removed. Also, the steering wheel does not lock. This apparently can be remedied by repeatedly shifting from drive to park forcefully. Also, disconnecting the car battery seems to allow turning the key to "LOCKED."
2017 Subaru Outback steering complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 24 of 24, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Key get stuck in the ignition lately when I turn off the engine and it takes awhile before it's released from the ignition. I have 52k plus miles now on my 2017 subaru outback.
While traveling through michigan's upper peninsula and northern wisconsin during snow fall with a fully packed car on the highway I experienced the rear end "ghost walking" or "steering" or "pulling" to the left and to the right. I had to drive 40mph while two-wheeled drive camrys, civics, vans, etc. Passed us by. Growing up in northern michigan, I'm no stranger to winter conditions and all wheel drive vehicles. I don't think all-wheeled drive vehicles make me invincible, but they do make driving in wintery conditions better. After our trip, I took the car into the subaru dealer and they said at 37k miles, the suspension looked great, alignment looked great, and that they would recommend new tires (tires are at 4/32 and have even wear and tear). I asked to speak directly to the tech working on my car and he said that there was nothing wrong with the vehicle and that although they were recommending new tires, the current tire condition would not cause what I was describing. My wife and I then researched and came across several online forums with other driver's experiencing the similar issues, but with prior year models. I called subaru's main customer service line to see if they could help and they said that they would make note of my complaint, but that if the subaru dealer tech said the vehicle was fine other than suggesting new tires, I should get new tires and the vehicle would be fine. Subaru also said there were no "campaigns" open with respect to this problem and that they were sorry I "felt like I had this experience" and there was nothing they could do. Here's a link to a forum, where the people seem to know what is going on: https://www.subaruoutback.org/threads/2005-2009-ghostwalking-abnormal-winter-handling-fixes.30747/page-2. We plan to buy new tires, but are willing to offer our car up for test driving to see what is going on.
While driving at highway speeds on clear dry roadways, the steering feels as if I have a brief loss of control. I liken it to hitting a patch of ice and having a slight loss of steering control. I've noticed it twice while entering a curve and decelerating from 55 MPH to 45 MPH (the reduced speed limit of the curve). This issue happens only intermittently and is only noticeable at highway speeds. We had the subaru dealer look at it and they said nothing was wrong.
The key gets stuck in the ignition and will not release. Have to leave the key in ignition all the time.
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.
Not able to take key out of the ignition, key is being stuck 50% of the time. Second issue is the engine is making bird chirping noise, it comes and goes but it gets loude!! Took it to dealer a year ago by the time I got there the noise stopped so they could not figure out the issue, took in the second time about 8 months ago the service tech heard it and booked me for an appointment. By the time mechanic got to it next day it stopped. This was all under warranty and now I am out of warranty and have no support from a local dealer from where I bought the car. I did some research on this issues and there is a huge problem with this and subaru is not doing anything about it.
Vehicle would not start error message indicated steering over heated this has happened on two occasions
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.
Ignition key becomes locked in the steering column when the car is turned off. Many times when I turn the car off the keys become stuck in the steering column. It is necessary to turn the car off and on and sometimes even move the car and park a 2nd or 3rd time before the keys can be removed from the column. Its helps to turn the car off quickly and then remove the keys'even then you can feel the keys wanting to stick.
The vehicle has excessive wander. The vehicle has very high steering effort. During high speed (60+ MPH) and cross winds, the vehicle will occasionally feel as if it's driving on ice. It feels as if it's slipping and sliding with little or no control through the steering system. Also, when executing a turn while driving at moderate speeds, the steering will not try to return to straight ahead as most vehicles do, when completing the turn.
Since purchase on 2/19/17 from parker subaru cda, complaint of shaking front end, wandering on highway and freeway from side to side in a dangerous manner, from complete loss of steering in snow, slush and gravel as of 2/28/17. I have been very specific about the incidence. Going in my driveway at least 8 inccidents; in snow or slush conditions, in depts on only a couple inches or less in the winter of 2017. In the summer of 2017 three incidents of complete failure was reported on grave road at speeds of 15-MPH, I have had the very same complaint every visit: 2/28/17, 3/23/17, 4/6/17. 9/13/17, 10/22/17, 1/22/17- @ parker subaru cda.
My outback was purchased new in april 2017. My concern is that steering is imprecise, particularly at highway speeds. The vehicle wanders/requires nearly constant "centering" and does not tend to return to center after turning. I have sometimes felt a fear that a gust of wind or road anomaly at the wrong time will cause this vehicle to leave the road surface unexpectedly.
I purchased my 2017 subaru outback brand new in january, 2017. Currently, in may 2017, the vehicle has 3200 miles of operation. The problem I am having is three-fold. 1. Around town in city traffic, the steering is heavy and difficult to control. It is very tiring to drive the vehicle under these condition. At times, it feels as if you may suddenly loose control of the steering. 2. The vehicle wanders. At highway speeds, it is difficult to keep the vehicle on center of the lane. You must constantly correct from left to right in order to keep the car on-track. At one time during one of these corrections, the vehicle crossed the lane divider and almost impacted the vehicle driving adjacent to me. 3. Steering wheel does not return to straight ahead. The vehicle does not "return to center" under any operating conditions. On most cars, if you turn the wheel left or right, the steering geometry tries to return the steering wheel to center position to keep the vehicle traveling in a straight line. The subaru outback does not exhibit this capability.
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