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Comments
Recalls are for safety issues - not AC issues. I know that there is a customer out in the western US that was petitioning for a recall, but since it's not safety related in design, it's not failing at a high rate and we are not having a significant number of complaints, that won't happen.
I agree that it could be better - or at least more agreeable to the masses, but I don't see a production change this year anyway. Maybe we'll see improvements next year. I'm sorry I can't help with this issue.
Thanks!
Patti
Craig
I could very well make templates of the Impreza-specific decals, then repackage the Chartpak letters/numbers, flags etc. I wonder what I - erm, SoA - could sell those kits for? Licensing issues might arise as well.
Ed
I'm surprised that you don't get a lot of complaints since there is plenty of related evidence on several forums, and going back several years. There's even a guy who sells a "fix" for the Forester, so this is undoubtedly a widely spread and recognized problem.
I'm guessing that many people who buy these cars have never been exposed to a good quality ACC before, hence they don't know better. But as you move upmarket, I think you will get more and more complaints. When you get in the price range of an OBXT Ltd or VDC, people expect and deserve better ACC than this.
I understand that recalls are for safety issues but as far as I'm concerned the ACC is "broken" and doesn't work as advertised, so Subaru should make a fix available under warranty. The ACC is supposed to work for me, not the other way around. At this point I would be happier with a good old fashioned A/C system. This is not rocket science and probably would not cost all that much to design a better system so it smacks of negligence or indifference. I would be ashamed if I was the engineer who designed this system and Subaru is evidently capable of doing much better than this.
I intend to send a letter of complaint to Subaru and to encourage as many people as possible to do the same. I am documenting in detail all of the strange and aggravating behaviors of the ACC as I discover them.
Thanks again Patti, I know you're just the messenger, and I do love still love the car
-Frank
Maybe we can paint up the L to match and we can travel around the country together
-mike
Working as designed? You mean Subaru expressly designed it to overshoot it's set temperature by 5C (9F) or more? That they designed it to turn the A/C on and blast cold air in your face when it is 10C (50F) outside? (And I could cite many more problems) If Subaru really did that, then Subaru is really stupid. They should either do it right or leave it out.
Can be easily defeated? Not entirely true either on the 05 OB; when you try to use it manually, it still makes many decisions for you, which greatly complicates obtaining the results you want. I also shouldn't have to spend so much time looking down to try and analyze what settings it decided to set for me. I'm a pretty smart guy who works in the software business and thrives on gadgets with lots of buttons. I've never had to look at an owner's manual to program a VCR for example. I can only imagine how puzzled my parents would be trying to make this thing work right! If a system is bad enough that you have to "defeat it", then the system is most definitely broken!
Unlike you, I'm new to Subaru and I didn't know how bad it was going in, and I had no reason to know or suspect that it was this bad. The Subaru brochure said "Automatic Climate Control" It didn't say "Quirky Climate Control that has a mind of it's own and goes out of its way to make you uncomfortable." The salesman also didn't say to me: "the ACC is really quirky and doesn't work very well" There is also no way to properly test the ACC on a short test drive, so you can't blame me for not discovering this before I bought it. I came in with the expectation that the ACC would work, and as far as I'm concerned I paid for an ACC that works. I shouldn't have to go and find third party fixes for a brand new car.
The fact that this is not a safety item in no way removes Subaru from it's responsibility to make sure it's products work. What if the power windows didn't work right and operated at random, shouldn't they get that fixed? Of course they should. So what's the difference other than the magnitude of the inconvenience? What if your laundry washing machine's programs did not do what they were supposed to do, would you expect the company to fix it? Of course you would!
I'm sorry but I'm just not so emotionally attached to Subaru or numb to their quirkiness to overlook something like this and to make excuses for them.
Sly
Sly
OK, now don't take this the wrong way, but this is a perfect example of user error. From AUTO, any adjustment other than temperature that you make will put the system in a semi-AUTO mode where it still attempts to meet the set temperature with the other remaining controls. My wife spents months fighting the "semi-auto" mode in her Forester until I took the time to explain to her how it worked. So I understand how it can be confusing and frustrating when you push one button and the system changes something else to compensate.
If you want full manual, turn the system to off and then bring it online with any button except auto. Make all the adjustments and settings you want, and they system will hold them for eternity.
I agree that the "auto" behavior is not the greatest, but when you go to full manual mode, the ball is entirely in your court and you should be able to set the system precisely the way you want.
Craig
My mileage was at 88,827 when it was towed to the service shop. Both head gaskets were replaced along with several other minor seals/o-rings/gaskets.
My oil pump seal was replaced at this time along with the timing belt (oil fouled I assume). This same seal was replaced ~20,000 miles ago (16 months ago).
The labor costs for this repair visit was the killer, 4 times the cost for the parts. Total was $1900.
At minimum, I wanted this documented with SOA so that you can collect info on others that are experiencing the same/similar issue. You never know, it may initiate another campaign that may cover/assist with my MY and engine style.
Thanks,
Alan
98 OBW Ltd
It also reinforces my point that the Auto (or semi-auto) just doesn't work right, hence it is not a properly functioning ACC as advertised. The ACC is supposed to make your life easier, not make you fight for it to do what you need it to...
Yes I mean exactly that :-(
If Subaru really did that, then Subaru is really stupid. They should either do it right or leave it out.
You'll get no argument from me. Since I always keep it in manual mode, I'd much rather not have had to pay anything extra for an "automatic" climate control.
What if the power windows didn't work right and operated at random, shouldn't they get that fixed? Of course they should. So what's the difference other than the magnitude of the inconvenience? What if your laundry washing machine's programs did not do what they were supposed to do, would you expect the company to fix it? Of course you would!
Your analogies are both flawed because they are based on the presumption that the ACC system isn't operating as designed. Which brings us back to the fact that it's a poor design (but not broken). Of course it's always possible that yours really is acting up so taking it in to the service dept to be checked out might not be a bad idea.
Kudos to Craig for differentiating between auto, semi-auto and manual modes. When I first got my Forester I do vaguely remember being frustrated trying to manually influence the auto mode before discovering how to override it all together.
I'm sorry but I'm just not so emotionally attached to Subaru or numb to their quirkiness to overlook something like this and to make excuses for them.
I don't know that anyone is making excuses for Subaru. Merely pointing out that asking for a recall or a free fix is an exercise in futility. Your primary path for effecting change would be to ding Subaru on owner satisfaction surveys and to not buy another (assuming that the evil ACC outweighs all the positives of your 05 OB) ;-)
-Frank
Bob
I had no idea that so many people would respond so positively to Paul's car. Several people over on nabisco have asked for decal kits or templates. If SoA got in on the act they could afford to hire screenprinters who could make the "lights" look similar to real lights, the way they do on NASCAR cars or funny cars. Really, I'm very surprised at the feedback on something I did with vinyl, decals, spray paint, and a lot of love for my son.
Ed
Craig
Ed, that's what makes it all really worthwhile. ;-)
Remember that now that you're famous! ;-)
tom
An even easier way to submit your concerns is to either email Subaru or call them at 1-800-SUBARU3 and let them know.
If this were a widespread concern, Subaru wouldn't know about it unless owners took the extra step and told Subaru directly. Patti certainly could pass on what she hears but direct communication from customers (and a lot of them) is what gets product engineering moving.
While I'm not challenging the fact that the ACC system doesn't work for you, I do question how much of a problem it is with other customers. I'm on Legacygt.com all the time and I honestly have not seen many people dislike the HVAC system to the same extent. In my experience, problems that get brought up at owners' groups are not always representative of the general owner population.
BTW, do you have your face vents pointed directly at yourself? Since the HVAC system measures air temperature below the steering wheel, I find that the system does a better job for me when the vents are directed away from me. By indirectly cooling/heating the air, the temp sensor will more likely be measuring what you perceive.
For now, I'd do what Craig suggests -- don't ever touch the AUTO button and go full manual. In the rare cases that I do fiddle with manual control, I usually start with hitting the fan speed button, exactly like you would with a manual system. Choose the temperature, vent direction, A/C on/off, etc to your liking and when done, hit "OFF". When you hit the fan button again, it should have remembered all of your settings.
Ken
I also tried your suggestions and experimented with all the controls. The only difference in behavior I could detect when going to OFF versus selecting another contolr is this:
When lowering the temperature all the way to minimum, if I had first hit OFF, the system goes into a high fan setting. If I didn't go through OFF first, it actually switches to RECIRC!
Sly
I find it very hard to believe they would design it like that on purpose. However I can belive that they were too lazy to design and test it properly.
"Your analogies are both flawed because they are based on the presumption that the ACC system isn't operating as designed."
I disagree because you are asking the wrong question. It is not whether it works as designed, but wether it works as advertised and expected. If the turbo was not designed with safeguards to keep from blowing up the engine would that be OK because it works "as designed"?
Here's a quote from my owner's manual, page 4-10: "It [the ACC] activates when the 'AUTO' button is pressed, and is used to maintain a constant, comfortable climate within the passenger compartment". In relation to the separate control for the passenger it says on page 4-13: "... the system automatically adjust the temperature of air supplied from the outlets such that the desired temperature is achieved and maintained". That's what is advertised and expected, and it doesn't do that.
For the passenger side, the system is physically incapable of doing that because there is only one sensor, on the driver's side. As far as I can tell, from experiment, it outputs a temperature difference with the driver's side, but it has no clue what the temperature actually is on the passenger's side.
I know that getting this fixed is a long shot at best, but I will at least have the satisfaction of making a lot of noise about it and annoying Subaru at least as much as this is annoying me. I'm also hoping that if enough of us complain about it, they will at least fix it for the next MY. I'm sure they will lose a few sales over this noise, so if they are smart, they will react.
I think you are making excuses. You are basically saying "ah well, they are stupid and quirky, so what did you expect?"
When I plunck down $40K Cdn on a piece of machinery, I expect everything to work as advertised. Is that wrong?
While I would expect more people to be complaing, I'm not entirely surprised.
First of all, many people are just not the critical type and just assume that's the way things should be, or will simply talk to their dealer and be told that's normal.
Second is that it appears to work much better in warmer climates.
Third is that many Subaru owners are repeat owners and probably have never experienced a real ACC before so they didn't have any expectations about how it should work.
I have done as you suggest and gone to full manual, except when I'm experimenting and documenting the system's flaws. However, while this allows me to be comfortable, it still doesn't give me the ACC that I was expecting and that I paid for.
Ah well, I'm off to Thailand for two weeks starting tomorrow, so I'll be out of you hair for a while.
Sly
1. Many Subaru owners are engineers and other professionals and are quite critical and particular about everything, and especially their cars.
2. Subarus are most popular in the Northern states, and while we are below Canada (Latitude wise, eh ;-) ) it still gets cold here in the US of A.
3. Your last point about Subaru owners not experiencing 'real ACC' is almost insulting, as it implies we've never experienced 'real' cars, so please be careful, I'm sure you don't mean it. I still regularly drive my family's and friends' MBs, BMWs, Lexus's, as well as an exotic or two (It always changes) and I'm sure I'm not alone among Subaru owners. (Everybody has a rich uncle, right?)
Hope you have a nice trip, and I hope they fix your ACC, but either you're particularly sensitive to temperature or there's something very wrong with your car, becuase most of us don't have problems with our climate control. If we did, we would (and have) complained.
Good luck, Sly
Don't catch the flu in Thailand! There's a shortage of vaccines this year!
tom
I also tried your suggestions and experimented with all the controls. The only difference in behavior I could detect when going to OFF versus selecting another contolr is this:
When lowering the temperature all the way to minimum, if I had first hit OFF, the system goes into a high fan setting. If I didn't go through OFF first, it actually switches to RECIRC!
There is definitely a semi-auto mode, whether the manual explicitly spells it out or not. Starting from full auto, any control you tweak (other than temp) takes you from full auto towards full manual. Once you have tweaked (overridden) every possible setting it is in full manual. The in-between is what I am referring to as semi-auto.
Our two previous Subarus (03 Forester XS and 02 LL Bean Outback) and my 05 XT are exactly the same in this regard (as is my wife's new Acura TSX). When you get in the "purgatory" of semi-auto, it seems like the system has a mind of its own but it's just trying to maintain the set temp any way possible. Instead, I think it just confuses everyone. Ideally, it's there for people to do something like turn the fan speed down if full auto is being too agressive.
Starting from off, hit a mode, then fan speed, then set AC on/off, fresh/recirc, and temp to your liking. The system will be in full manual mode at that point and thereafter. If your system does not do this, then it is malfunctioning. Again, this is exactly the way our two previous and current Subaru operate.
Craig
I've also seen several people say that they thought their's was working OK until I started explaining the issues and then they would OH! yeah, it does that!
So we all have different tolerance levels. I guess it bugs me because I think it is inexcusable on a brand new $40K Cdn car, and there is absolutely no excuse for Subaru not to have at least re-engineered the temperature probe which is the biggest part of the problem. I could live with a quirky system, if it at least didn't overshoot it's temp by several degrees in heating mode.
I will still miss my OXT while I'm gone
BTW: no shortage of flu vaccine in Canada, and I got mine this week
Just curious.
Sly, I just wanted to make sure you weren't offending a lot of the people who own subies, that's all. ;-)
tom
My gripe about the system is that you have to change both temperature knobs even when you want to maintain a single temperature. My wife's Acura is slightly better in this regard -- the driver's side temp knob controls both sides until the passenger side temp control is changed, at which point the two sided are independent. Subaru's system always has independent temps for driver and passenger sides.
Of course, this is another example of how I have trained myself -- I automatically adjust both knobs when I am alone in the car. Still, it's an extra step and that seems to be the recurring theme with ACC -- lots of extra steps here and there.
Craig
So - I really don't have anything else to add. I'm sorry Sly is so unhappy, but I'm glad he is happy with the car overall.
Thanks.
Patti
It was like Christmas for Mikey, my 9 year old. He loved the binoculars, and went to bed with the Peter Solberg collector cards under his pillow. I'll bet he was having dreams of fast little Subarus! Rob M.
The binoculars are neat! They actually work too!
tom
I think Ken bought a generic flat mount/bracket at Walmart, which is also an option.
Craig
Or drill a pilot hole slightly smaller than a regular screw first.
rob: who's fault would that be?
Can't blame Subaru for physical damage like that. In any other car you'd just damage whatever license plate frame it had anyway.
-juice
Of course, that didn't help one bit when some (#&%*)$&) stole my vanity plate off the front of the car one night!
Funny thing is I like having the bumper way out in front, it's the first thing that touches and the bumper does not get damaged. The plate I can remove and reshape.
-juice
tom
But, both my mom and my brother bought OBWs that were dealer trades. The original dealer put on their dealer advertising plate. Since neither of them wanted the advertising and it looked silly with two holes in the front bumper, the purchasing dealer agreed to swap bumpers with another car.
Subaru should rethink the front plate design.
DaveM
I brough my car into my local dealership, AutoNetwork in Queens, NY for a head replacement under warranty. After some wrangling and calls to Subaru3 they finally did the job under warranty, but that is another complaint. This one has to do with theft, when I dropped off my car for service, I had over $20 in quarters in the coint tray/cabin fuse cover. When I picked up my car two days ago I did even look whether the coins are there or not, this morning I had to pay for parking at a meter and when I open the compartment there was only about $3 worth of coins in there!! Plus I open my glove box and everything in there has been moved and tossed about. I am a very, for lack of a better term, anal person, I know exactly how things are suppose to be in the glove box. I am furious, I called the dealership and talked to the service manager Steve, he claims this has never happened (bs)and claimed that he was inputting it into the system, even though I didn't hear any key strokes at all. His tone was the most aggravating thing to me, it was one of those "agree to it and get'em off the phone" type of tone. I have left my car over night and over several days at other dealerships, this is the first time anything was even moved in the cabin of my car. The entire repair was done on the engine, no one should be going through stuff inside the cabin! Steve claims that service techs sometimes have to go thru the glove box to look for registration stuff or manuals, what for?? service techs don't have access to manuals and have to look at the owners manual?! Its not really the money that has me fumming its the fact that I feel really violated. The way the inside of my car looked it seemed like someone was deliberatly opening compartments looking for stuff, the compartment on the driverside armrest was opened and stuff shuffled around, I didn't even have a chance to look at the back storage compartments under the floor. This is absolutly unacceptable! Is there any thing you can do? (not about the money I know that is long gone, but about the dealership and their lack of care)
If they stole stuff from inside your car, quarters are the least of your concerns.
I'd call the 800 number back again and register a formal complaint.
I've had valets do that, which is why I prefer not to use those services. They once also damaged my leather shift knob (right on the top, no idea why).
It could have been the lot attendant. I doubt it was the mechanic.
-juice
Patti
Patti
http://www.subdriven.com/news/publish/Subaru_News/article_267.sht- ml
Now that's something SOA should consider doing.
Bob
http://www.autobarn.net/cru79150.html
As mentioned in earlier posts, the front bumper has dimples where you can use a self-tapping screw to mount the plate directly.
I chose to mount the bracket above first and then mount the plate to the bracket for a nicer look. I also added a thin chrome plate holder to tie in the look.
It would have been nice if Subaru did have a little "nicer" mounting area than what's available today. Perhaps a detail for future enhancements.
Ken
Patti
We've all have experienced, I think, "dud" dealers. But it's really hard to sympathasize with someone who won't consider alternative dealers because the MUST take either the subway or the bus.
Maybe if they had one loaner for each model, but logistically that would be tough, and it might not even be the tranny or model you want.
Honda did that for the Pilot and Odyssey, at least when they were in short supply.
-juice