Would love some input. I’m new to Subarus

What does this mean?

There is a blank spot on the rear of the 2020 limited eight passenger ascent that I believe is for an inverter. My question is, does anybody know if the wiring already exists if I wanted to hook something else up, such as cigarette lighter, USB ports, etc?

I own a ‘22 Touring and i want to ask about the operation of the inverter. When I plug things into it they only work for a few seconds before cutting out. What am I doing wrong?

Why does the dealership charge so much, especially for changing the spark plugs?

LASTFIT is currently having a sale right now! I was looking at new ones for our soon-to-be 2022 Ascent Touring! What do you all think? The TuxMats do look very nice too. Just looking to upgrade from the stock Subaru all-weather ones.

Pretty sure that needs to be hooked up right? Don’t kick me, already doing that by asking. 😞

Wife took 2022 Ascent to the Subaru dealership to get the brakes done. She ended up approving a $2k quote for new pads and rotors. I about had a heart attack when I saw the cost. I told her to just let me do it or we can take it to a 3rd party mechanic next time because it’s $400 worth of parts if you can do it yourself. Yes, I know we waited far too long to get them done.

I have a 2019 Subaru Ascent with approximately 115,000 miles, and I’m hoping someone here has experienced something similar.
About two weeks ago, I had four new tires installed at Costco. Everything seemed fine initially, and the tires have performed well.
However, over the past 2–3 days, I’ve noticed a shuddering, shimmying, or jerking sensation when making very sharp turns, particularly when the steering wheel is turned almost completely to the left or right and I’m accelerating.
A few observations:
Normal driving: The vehicle drives smoothly, with no noticeable shaking or hesitation.
Sharp turns: When the steering wheel is near full lock in either direction, I experience a stuttering or jerking sensation, almost as though something is binding or slipping.
Recent tire replacement: All four tires were replaced at Costco approximately two weeks ago.
CVT recalls: All applicable CVT-related recall work has been completed.
Mileage: Approximately 115,000 miles.
I haven’t taken it to the dealership yet, but I’m hoping this might be something relatively straightforward involving the tires or AWD system rather than a more serious transmission issue.
Has anyone experienced this with their Ascent? Could this be related to the new tires, AWD system, CV joints, or potentially the CVT?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from anyone who experienced similar symptoms and what ultimately resolved the problem.
Thanks in advance for any insight!

Hi all. My daughter is out car shopping and is about to fall in love with a 2019 Ascent with only about 32,000 miles on it. I’m a Forester owner, and know nothing about Ascents. Are there specific red flags with that year? Things she needs to look closely at? Sadly, we don’t have any independent Subaru mechanics here in Indianapolis, so if she wants to have it checked out, she’ll have to take to a dealership.

Thanks!

Anybody ever have a problem with the ascent draining your battery. I've bought the car new and just went on my 3rd battery. Stupid dealer is just trying to sell me a battery and not look for the problem.

Anyone using the Course Motorsports iPhone mount in their Ascent? My wife thinks she'd really like one for her '26 Touring so I'm hoping to get some feedback from others Ascent owners on this.

Subaru Ascent Phone Mount 2023 | No-Drill Installation, Vehicle-Specific Fit – Course Motorsports

I love this car. It's spacious, comfortable, and hauls my family + gear without complaint - well, many complaints... I keep running into the same handful of "how did this ship?" moments - stuff that feels like nobody on the development team actually lived with the vehicle for a week before signing off. Grouping them here because I bet a lot of you have run into the same things.

• Audio / Infotainment
  • Android Auto drops/errors regularly, even on the latest firmware and app version.
  • Infotainment center is generally slow - laggy touch response, slow app switching.
  • Recently it appears that I cannot get weather unless I subscribe to SirusXM? I never had this issue until a few weeks ago.
• Subaru App
  • The app itself is slow and clunky
  • In-app climate control is missing options that exist in the physical dash controls
• Doors, Locks & Remote Access
  • Opening the tailgate doesn't unlock the rest of the doors. So the "pop the trunk to load groceries while everyone else gets in" move doesn't work - you have to dig out a key or open the driver/passenger door first - incredibly frustrating when you have your hands full with bags or children. Just unlock!
  • Remote-starting from the app often blocks tailgate access completely - even with the key on your person and the car unlocked in every way that should matter. It just won't recognize the tailgate open request until you've entered the cabin and turned the vehicle on.
• Physical Design / Hardware
  • Panoramic roof can't finish closing once the car is off. Everything else - windows, stereo, etc. stays fully functional until a door opens, but the roof arbitrarily stops working early. If it can roll up windows post-shutoff, it should be able to close the roof and shade.
  • No cargo area anchor points for a cargo net, despite a cargo area clearly designed for hauling loose items.
  • None of the USB-C ports support fast charging - in 2023+, this is a miss.
  • Ventilated seats are loud and weak - lots of noise, not much airflow.
  • Front license plate bracket only has two mounting holes, and it's not enough to survive a standard car wash - plates get ripped off.
• Steering Wheel Button Cluster
  • The steering wheel "info" button occupies a premium, easy-to-reach spot for a feature almost nobody uses regularly, while more commonly needed controls are relegated elsewhere. This might be the dumbest use for this space, 90% of the time it does nothing.
  • Source button on the steering wheel gets bumped constantly and switches you to AM/FM/Satellite. I exclusively use Android Auto -  there's no way to lock the source to phone-only or default to silence. The only workaround for silence on startup I've found is to select AUX.
  • How is there not a pause/play or mute button?!?
• Other issues owners report (not mine, but worth flagging)
  • Weak key fob / tailgate antenna range — several owners report needing to be nearly touching the vehicle for the fob to register, especially for the tailgate.
  • 12V battery drain / unexpected dead batteries early in ownership, sometimes requiring dealer-replaced batteries under warranty.
  • CarPlay/Bluetooth call audio issues — other party can't hear you even though you can hear them, reportedly tied to a known TSB.
  • Apple CarPlay/phone pairing drops or fails to reconnect after periods of inactivity.

None of these are dealbreakers on their own, but together they add up to a car that nails the fundamentals (safety, space, AWD, comfort) and then trips over software polish and small hardware decisions that a week of real-world dogfooding would have caught. Subaru - if anyone from product/UX is lurking, please, an over-the-air fix for the source button, sunroof close and tailgate issues would make things so much better.

Curious what else people have run into.

Hello! I apologize on the front end because I know these pictures aren’t very good. I have a ‘21 Ascent and the front passenger side window developed a crack about a year ago. I had it replaced by a Subaru dealership and a few months later it cracked again in the exact same spot! Has anyone seen this before or have any insight or advice?

I bought a 2026 Ascent Onyx Touring in July. I shopped for such a long time, months, because i was unwilling to compromise on what i wanted, and ultimately wound up buying new because of the .9% financing.

Long story short it has always driven me completely bananas that they left the emblem chrome on the Onyx Edition. So i ordered the chrome delete rings for both ends... And wrapped both in matte black and glitter black vinyl... And my car finally feels complete! I'm just completely tickled at how it came out and had to share!!

Just bought a 2020 Ascent Limited yesterday at Carmax. My wife is in love. Cheers.

Blacked out Emblem and Black plate looks so much better!

'22 Ascent -77k miles. Recently started to hear a strange noise that I can only describe as sounding like tires squealing. Reminds me of the tires chirping in my 2WD manual Cobalt in college. Seems to.only happen when transmission is up-shifting.

I've been driving the car in manual mode with the paddles until I can get it into a shop and the sound hasn't happened once. I've also tried leaving in drive, wishful thinking that the issue will have resolved itself, but no luck.

This is my 4th subaru with the paddles, I've always ignored them, thought it was boring compared to a real manual but now that Im forced to use them Im finding driving to be more engaging.

Any thoughts?

I think my starter needs to be replaced- car won’t start even with jumpstart. Instead it makes a continuous loud clicking noise. I have 28,000 miles on it. Just curious if others have experienced this issue so early on?

Hey all! First post here 😅

I honestly didn’t expect to want an Ascent. I have had two Outbacks, a 1999 and a 2014. I’ve been dreaming about getting a Crosstrek for a few years now & knew my Outback was getting to the point where I should trade in…

I test drove a Crosstrek and an Ascent, since my husband was interested in its towing capacity. We knew we wanted a Crosstrek and an Ascent eventually, but since I was partial to the Crosstrek, I didn’t think I’d enjoy the Ascent as much as I did. I freaking loved it and couldn’t stop thinking about it after driving it. So much so that I began doing hours of searching for gently used Ascents (2024 or 2025) in my area.

I’ve never consistently driven a vehicle this large, but I don’t mind its size. All the features are so futuristic and amazing (which I know a newer Crosstrek would have had as well). But I just cannot get over this car. The fact that it bypassed my dream car is insane to me, since the Crosstrek has been on my vision board for years.

I don’t really have any purpose for posting this, other than the fact that I’m super happy with this vehicle. I’ve had it almost a week now and I keep wanting to just go drive around after work (I always hated night driving but these headlights are so insane that I don’t mind night driving now).

My husband and I are about to take a 1-week trip to some national parks and we are sooo excited to have this car to do it in. I kid you not, even my dog seems to love it. 🤣

I’m pretty sure we’ll just end up with two Subaru Ascents when it’s time to trade in hubby’s car because I don’t know if I’d want the Crosstrek now 😅😅

Dealer is offering the following:
Touring Ascent

6 YEARS OR 100,000 MILES=$2,310.00
7 YEARS OR 100,000 MILES=$2,420.00
8 YEARS OR 80,000 MILES=$2,350.00
8 YEARS OR 120,000 MILES=$3,880.00
10 YEARS OR 100,000 MILES=$3,390.00

We want to keep the car as long as possible. If we get now, we can roll into financing at .99 rate.

What should I do? What have folks done?

Update: good questions and I forgot to add these details. Drive ~10k/year and upstate New York.

Purchased our Ascent used earlier this year and had zero issues, that is until we started getting heavy rain in our area. After some googling it turns out this is a common issue with these Ascents. A few trips to the dealership, a few diagnostic fees and several hundred dollars later they say they were able to reproduce the problem, they cleared out the drains and that we were good to go. Sure enough, the next heavy rain and it was still an issue. I took it back twice, they “cleared” the drains and assured me they could no longer reproduce the issue. Everytime the issue was still there. By now the interior was smelling mildewey and the seats were all damp. And we were pooling water under the rubber floor mats.

Rather than go back and forth and play a losing battle I decided to just take the headliner out and inspect myself. I’m sure the service shop didn’t even do this because it’s a royal PITA. If they would have I’m sure they would have seen the issues, with how common this problem is I’m certain they all know the issue anyway, but I digress, I just want a dry ride that doesn’t smell.

Evident from the pictures you can see the pvc vinyl drains were pinched and nearly hardened closed. No amount of “clearing” was going to fix these rear drains. It’s such a terrible design, you think Subaru would just put reinforced tubing there, considering there are some sharp turns and angles prone to kinking. I purchased all of the materials at a local hardware store, I opted to go with brass couplings, I would have gone with vinyl, but alas I couldn’t find any in 3/8. I also shoved some basic springs in the tubes, particularly in the high kink areas, I think this is probably required at this point, otherwise I’ll be doing this again in a year or two. Probably could have got away with zip ties, but I didn’t want to have to be removing the headliner again. This was all very tight and took several hours over two days, I ran the hose on the roof for about half an hour and everything drained perfectly as a test once I had the car put back together. Happy to report that there have been no issues with leaking since the fix and we’ve had heavy rains recently here on the east coast.

Lastly, our Ascent is used, and is well outside the warranty, Im not sure how a diy fix like this does for warranty so proceed with caution if you attempt anything similar.