crudzinskas

I have removed the radio (for a 2017 Legacy) and was surprised to find how tightly wrapped and stiff the wires were (unlikely to rattle). I have had rattles that I thought for sure were coming from within the dash/radio area but ended up being elsewhere. In my car I've had rattles from the black plastic piece under the glove box (and equivalent on drivers side) that rattled when I would hit the dash to try to find the source. On days where it is very cold I also occasionally get a rattle from the cowl panel which sounds like it is coming from within the car. It sounds like you did a thorough job of going over your car, but I would double check items around where the rattle is just to be sure.

Put in a new Duracell Group 25 battery from Sam's club. The OEM battery had been barely starting the car for most of the winter now so I wanted to swap it out before it completely died on me especially with the sub-zero temps we've had the past couple days. I felt it was a great deal for $90+tax, plus I got $20 back for trading in the OEM battery after I got the new one. For those interested it has 770CA @32F, 625CA @0F, and 95RC plus a 3 year free replacement warranty. I've read so many people getting these huge capacity and CCA batteries for their legacy but I'm glad I stuck with a pretty standard Group 25. The car started stronger at 0 degrees last morning than it did when I had purchased the car a few summers ago!

Do you have a link to where you purchased this? It's going to look great!

True, but also quicker and more convenient than a key when it is working fine. It also lets you lock your keys in the car and open it back up by pin code which is a cool feature that I use often. Thanks to Rowlette for posting the part, as for $30 this is something I'd replace in a heartbeat if mine were to go bad and is a cheap fix for an electrical component in a car.

I have a 2017 with 39k miles, but my car has done this since it was brand new. When it's cold the RPMs will be higher to allow things to come up to operating temperature. Once you are near operating temperature (about 15 minutes into your drive) it should behave normally. Depending on how cold it is, I will be driving at 3,000 RPMs at 35mph until the car is warmed up.

Yes that is the number I called. The lady I spoke with was very polite and even established email contact with me over the phone to confirm I had a way to contact her back after the phone call. Just tell them exactly what your problem is and they will direct you to the proper person. The whole call probably took me only about 10 minutes - about 3 minutes to start speaking to someone and the rest explaining the issue and being told how they would help me out, what steps they would take to do so, how long it would take them to get back to me, and to ask me if what they proposed were satisfactory steps towards resolution. That's good you thought of asking that. I guess time will tell if what they changed really did improve the longevity of the screen!

I am hoping Subaru has pushed the manufacture to acknowledge the issue and make some type of revision in the replacement screens. But I agree with you that if they didn't change anything then we can't expect a new head-unit to be more than another year or 2 band-aid until the same thing happens again - especially if the issue is a result of UV/heat exposure. I guess it's time to start rubbing SPF 70 on our radio before taking our cars out into the sun

Head Unit finally came in and the new screen looks amazing (well, new at least)! However, they are ordering me a new one because this one is "defective" but in a different way. From the driver's side as you look at the screen, the left edge of everything is cut off, but if you look from the passengers side you wouldn't be able to tell that anything is wrong. It's as if the screen shifted underneath the touch screen portion during shipping or something. Anyways I showed it to the tech who replaced it and he agreed that, although slight, it is definitely not within normal tolerance for the viewing angle and agreed that a new one should be ordered since they have never seen a screen like that. I didn't want to make a fuss about it, but they offered to get another new one before I even pushed them to do anything about it. These pictures show though what the brand new screen looks like compared to a screen that had faded over 2 years. Both screens have the same FB856US code on the bottom left, which I am not sure if that's just a model number? The new screen is definitely a little more responsive as well, but that is likely because it doesn't have all of the gps data/lifetime mileage calculations/stuff stored.

The US recommendation is only inspection of the fluid and every 30 months or 30,000 miles. Mine hasn't been changed or inspected at this point (35,000 miles). Personally, I'll probably check mine out around 50,000 miles and if it looks good let it go closer to 100,000 miles. Good to know, Thanks!

After talking with Subaru CRS on Saturday, the representative thought I had a good claim on my headunit and was very helpful in getting in contact with my dealership to resolve the issue of them not wanting to replace it. The dealership contacted me saying that they have a new unit on order and will install it free of charge under warranty when it comes in, likely next week sometime. The Subaru CRS rep called me about 5 minutes later to follow up and confirm that my dealer had been in touch with me and to make sure I didn't have any questions. I would highly recommend reaching out to Subaru CRS as they seem very willing to help resolve issues and claims that are well founded and have evidence to support them. I will try to get some side-by-side pictures for comparison of the old unit with the new one to highlight the differences and to help you guys decide whether or not your head unit might qualify for replacement under warranty under the premise of TSB 15-177-14R.

Was that the first time you had changed it? How did the fluid look? Was there a lot of shavings on the drain plug?

I cannot see the grid lines from your pictures. Even in good units the gridlines are there, it just that they are essentially invisible in most lighting conditions. My unit was perfect (essentially no visible lines even under harsh lighting) for the first year and then slowly degraded over the second year to the point now where I am trying to get it replaced as the lines are always visible now. Good luck with your new unit! I am working with Subaru CRS to hopefully get a new/refurb unit as well under warranty as the dealer service manager told me "Every Subaru has grid lines visible at all times." I proceeded to show him the TSB that says units that have lines visible at all times are defective and call for a replacement to which he responded, "Every Subaru has grid lines visible at all time." Subaru is contacting the dealer again and said will be back in touch with me no later than Wednesday, so we will see what they are able to do.

Thanks for posting this picture! I second that if you could take another picture and post it, it would be very useful. I plan on taking this with me when going to the dealer just in case!

I have an appointment in a week for replace a drivers side airbag assembly and I am going to have them look at it too. I hope they agree with us! Although the problem doesn't really hinder the functionality, except for extreme direct sunlight which is probably less than 1% of driving time, it would be nice to have a fully working head unit since the car is still under warranty. Wasn't too promising talking on the phone with them today though since the service tech said, "Oh there is probably an update out to fix that." They are on to something really great if they have software updates out that can fix hardware issues, lol....

It looks like the display in the service bulletin is off and the lines are visible. Is it typical to see the lines when your screen is off? I can see the lines on mine when the screen is off and in typical lighting, as well as direct sunlight which I could expect. The lines are only barely viable at night. I attached some pictures for reference. I never really noticed too much, but after driving a 2018 Forester that was a loner car with this same head-unit (without navigation) I realized I could not see any lines at all in almost 100% of lighting conditions. Picture Order: Direct Sunlight, Screen Off, Screen Off half sun, Night, Shaded non-direct light

Sounds like you need to take the car to the eye doctor. You probably just need a new prescription. Anyways, I would just confirm the fuses are good. It's not really normal for them to blow, but it could just have been a one time thing that you can fix for cheap on your own if the dealer is far away from you. If you can't figure out the issue you obviously know to take it to the dealer and I'm curious to see if they try to fix it or just give you a new system and send yours off to their engineers to figure out what went wrong. I personally have only ever gotten the white "Eyesight" with the slash over it to come up signaling that it cannot "see."

As long as you have the apps installed on your iphone they should not be greyed out when you plug your phone in. Everything should work for you except for MirrorLink.

I found this happens to me maybe once or twice a year. The problem has always resolved itself in under a week by just waiting for the Pandora app or iOS to have some kind of update. Although I do not prefer it either, you can still use Pandora from either Bluetooth or AUX cable until everything starts working as normal again.

Washed the car for the first time this spring (finally a nice day). Clay barred the car for the first time - the car is almost 2 years old now. I was surprised how little contamination there was on the paint for not having a garage. Then I applied a cheap $5 ebay/amazon ceramic coating and so far it looks good. I was a bit nervous since the set came with no instruction or anything, but I figured the worst that can happen is that it eventually all crumbles off of the clear coat and the car is back where I started. The surface feels and looks great with it, and I'll see if it actually does anything for water shedding/easier cleaning once it rains later this week. If it looks good I'll probably get a few more 30mL bottles of it for how cheap it is, and it was honestly easier to apply and work with than a wax.

The wiper heaters are my favorite part! (To be fair there isn't too much else to get excited about in a windshield, haha) I've never had the wipers freeze to the windshield even if my entire windshield is just a layer of ice, and they really help reduce streaking to increase visibility in the winter by keeping the rubber warm. I don't think I'd want another car without them, unless I move someplace where the weather doesn't suck

I have a rattle coming for the very front of the dashboard where the speakers are. I didn't think to check the cowl panel, but I suspect that's the most likely place for the issue especially since it seems like the rattle is worse in the winter when the plastic get stiffer, and thermal expansion differences, etc.. Thanks for linking the outback thread for reference!

Just did mine yesterday actually. It was my first time changing it and it was very easy and took about 2 minutes. Just do it exactly like in this video and nothing can go wrong. You'd be hard pressed to break the plastic on the glove box by hand if you tried as it is designed to be not prone to cracking. Good luck and enjoy the ~$20 and a lot of time you saved by not having a shop do it!

I have the sport trim which comes with the piano black as standard, and I really like the look. I think the black would look pretty nice with the beige. I have had my car for 9 months and have no scratches on any of the piano black trim. Fingerprints are a lot less of an issue than I thought too especially on the steering wheel having the piano black buttons. I use the buttons all of the time and fingerprints are never really noticeable. If you are really worried about finger prints then take 30 seconds once a week to wipe them off - as easy as that!