NHTSA Complaint #11476554 — 2020 SUBARU FORESTER

The windshield on the 2020 Subaru Forester, as reported by many other owners, is extremely brittle and prone to frequent chips/rapidly spreading cracks. Since purchasing new, I have had two chips that resulted in small cracks and one that resulted in a larger spiderweb crack. None of these were caused by stone/pebble impacts I would have expected to cause windshield damage. (I have lived in the same area with a Ford Ranger, Jeep Wrangler, Ford Escape, VW Sportwagen, and 2016 Forester, and never experienced any windshield chips needing repair with any of the others.) While getting my third crack repaired today, the technician stated that a disproportionate amount of his work in the last two years has been on late-model Subarus. The technician who completed the second chip repair around four months ago stayed the same — a high number of late-model Subarus with chips and cracks. My experience seems reflective of a high number of other Subaru owners, and is reflected in an ongoing class action case involving the increased fragility of recent Subaru’s windshields.