[vic doucette]

With less than 1,000 miles on it, my new car had the trim piece that runs from both sides of the steering wheel to underneath the dashboard falling off!

The service advisor told me that the clips holding the piece on had broken -- and that this wasn't the first time he had seen the issue.

He had me straightened up and on my way in a,few minutes, no charge.

It did give me some concern about the build quality, though.

Has anyone else experienced this?

The car has otherwise been great.

 

[hallux]

Did you have any add-ons like remote start installed? Trim pieces need to come out in order to access the areas needed for some of those installs. I had a similar issue with the A-pillar trim on my 2011, that part had to come out for the remote start install and they must have damaged it in the process. They ordered me a new one and it was fixed in a few minutes once it arrived and I went for the repair.

 

[vic doucette]

Remote start.

 

[hallux]

The panel was likely damaged during the install.

 

[gbhrps]

vic,

Don't worry about the build quality. Subies are built as well as any car on the market and are superior to most of them. One little part doesn't mean you've made a bad purchase. Nothing built by man of over 35 000 parts is going to be fault free.

Don't believe me? Check out Consumer Reports on Vehicle Reliability and you'll see where Subies stand. Its very near the top of the list. That said, things will still go wrong, but not to the extent of many of its competitors.

 

[mbuf]

vic,

Don't worry about the build quality. Subies are built as well as any car on the market and are superior to most of them. One little part doesn't mean you've made a bad purchase. Nothing built by man of over 35 000 parts is going to be fault free.

Don't believe me? Check out Consumer Reports on Vehicle Reliability and you'll see where Subies stand. Its very near the top of the list. That said, things will still go wrong, but not to the extent of many of its competitors.

The October 2016 Consumer Reports' Car Brands Reliability page has Subaru in the "average" bucket for predicted reliability, while their Subaru page singled out the Outback and Legacy: :frown2:

Historically, Subaru models have fared well in our owner satisfaction and reliability surveys, although the Legacy sedan and Outback wagon have dropped to average reliability, and the WRX was below average.

But... it's still in the top 10 for non-luxury brands and beats 18 other brands, so I'd say that's still pretty good. :smile2:

 

[vic doucette]

vic,

Don't worry about the build quality. Subies are built as well as any car on the market and are superior to most of them. One little part doesn't mean you've made a bad purchase. Nothing built by man of over 35 000 parts is going to be fault free.

Don't believe me? Check out Consumer Reports on Vehicle Reliability and you'll see where Subies stand. Its very near the top of the list. That said, things will still go wrong, but not to the extent of many of its competitors.

I have read CR since childhood and have been a subscriber for decades. The reliability statistics played a part in my decision to by the Outback. Still, this problem after such a short period did have me concerned. I'll chalk it up to something the dealer did when they installed the remote start, a feature I could easily live without.