NHTSA Complaint #11477675 — 2015 SUBARU FORESTER

I was driving with cruise control going around 70 when the car started slowing down suddenly. Not wanting to slow down even more, I turned off the cruise control by hand using the cancel button on the steering wheel (rather than tap the brake) but when I then hit the accelerator, the engine felt like it was in neutral, revving past 6000 rpm on the tachometer. At that point, I realized I had no control over the drive train so I pulled off the road onto the center median of the highway, just as the engine died - fortunately, there wasn’t anyone following close behind. We had been driving for about 1.5 hours with the AC blasting and the gas tank at that point was low, with less than 1/8 remaining. All this happened without any dashboard warning lights turning on. This was the very last leg of a ten-day, 2,000 mile road trip. I tried restarting the engine but only got clicking. Since I thought we’d be struck a while and it was so hot, I turned the key to the accessory position and was able to roll down the windows. We sat there for a couple of minutes wondering what to do. It took another minute to find my AAA card. Before calling for roadside assistance, I tried starting the engine again and this time it turned over. We did not have any further problems in the remaining 100 miles of our trip (though I was very anxious about it happening again). I took the car in to a Subaru service center this morning (36 hours later). They did a multi-point inspection and road test but did not find any issues and were not able to replicate the problem.