Hello. About 3 weeks ago I purchased a 2006 Forrester. Right away, I began having this problem with the car: when going downhill, the car begins bucking and surging at about 3000 rpm (in second gear and higher).
I took it back to the dealership and was able to immediately demonstrate the problem to the technician. He said it was most likely a load-balancing problem, and that the fix was probably a computer download similar to one he knew about in the 2005 Outback. He said he would contact Subaru America (or whatever the corporate parent is called) to confirm that and would get back to me that day. I asked him if he thought the car was safe to drive (I live in the foothills of the rockies so I'm going downhill a LOT). He said yes. I drove the car off the lot, reassured.
Later that day, the head of the service dept. (not the technician) called me and said that Subaru America had indicated they did NOT have a fix for this problem. In fact, they had never heard of the problem in 2006 Forresters. They were going to send their technicians to the dealership to hook up the car to their diagnostic computers, as the first step of figuring out the problem. However, they wanted the dealership to be sure and tell me that more than likely, they would NOT have an immediate fix for the problem. They suspected the problem was due to the engine/transmission being NEW, and that it would most likely right itself over time. The dealership said that Subaru America would probably like to follow my car "over time" to see how/if the problem resolved.
I told them this was unacceptable; if they wanted to take this car back to "follow the problem", that's fine, I would be happy to take another
2006 Forrester that did not demonstrate the problem.You can imagine where that statement got me - nowhere! I have a case opened with the dealership (a technical case) and a case opened with Subaru America (a customer service case). I have an appt. to bring the car into the dealership at the end of this month, for the "hook up" with the Subaru technicians. I am reading up on lemon laws in my state (colorado).
Any advice?
thanks in advance!