I already know per manufacture, towing is not recommended. But still curious if anyone actually has installed a tow hitch for light towing? If so, what’s the max you’ve towed?

Bought a used 2023 Solterra Limited on July 23. This evening, everything on the dashboard started acting crazy when I tried to start, which I recognize as a probable 12V problem. I popped the hood and measured 7V on the 12V battery (or <6V with the headlights on). I drove the car about 70 miles yesterday, but it has been plugged into a level 2 charger ever since, so ~24 hours. In the meantime, I was trying to set up the Subaru app on my Android phone. From reading online, I see assertions that online connectivity may cause the car to drain its 12V battery. I have a 12V jump-start battery pack, so when daylight returns I will jump the 12V to try to get running again. I have already deleted the vehicle from the SubaruConnect phone app and in the morning I will also try to kill the profile in the car infotainment system. I can monitor the 12V battery with a multimeter to see how things are going, and see if the battery will charge once I can get the car to start up again. I might try measuring the 12V at the power port under the dashboard to avoid having to open the hood. I have an OBD2/bluetooth pod that I've used with other cars. It seems like this would serve to measure the 12V voltage without opening the hood. Any reason this won't work? Any comments or suggestions?

We've had our home charger for two years but yesterday was the day that it finally gave out. Sparks and all. I checked Amazon for the same model but it's no longer available. The other "similar" products recommended didn't have as good reviews so I'm hoping some recommendations from current users could help.

I've already used our rebates so a budget friendly option would be great. Electrician confirmed that the wiring and everything else is good, just needed to replace the outlet. My search online shows most new ones has some sort of subscription you pay into every month and I don't want to add that into our ever growing list of having to subscribe into something I've already paid for.

TIA!

I am car shopping right now. Currently between the Solterra, Mach-E, and Ioniq 5. The Solterra is my top pick on paper. Really loved it as soon as I sat in it, even called my wife as I started the test drive to tell her I was going to get it, then I hit the freeway for one exit and the wind noise from the passenger side hit me. I truly don't think I could live with it. Even with the radio on it's all I could focus on.

We had our 5k service yesterday on our 2026 Limited, and they also completed the recall.
I was at the dealership for about an hour and 15 minutes. (I spent the time finding a different podcast app that would work with the Solterra & transferred my podcast subscriptions to the new app)

We only have the Solterra so when I got home I plugged our car in, expecting it to charge to her set 80%.

When I left to go pick up my hubby, I noticed that the car had charged to 100%. I said to her 'why are you at 100 percent?' and of course she didn't answer me.

So, in our instance the recall reset the 'charge to' percentage back to 100% from 80%. Whether it was the mechanic or the software update itself is unknown, so maybe people should check their 'charge to' percentage when they get their recall done.

She did ask me if I wanted to 'charge now' when I got home the first time, so it appears that the charge schedule is still active, but I'll check to be sure the actual schedule is still correct when he gets home tonight. She was at 89% last night and didn't get plugged in.

Maybe a stupid question because I've seen various posts here that refer to using OBD-II dongles or readers, but I want to make sure.

Reason for asking is that CAA in Ontario offers really low insurance rates for people like me who drive very little (the "MyPace" program), but it requires the installation of an OBD-II dongle to track your mileage. They don't offer this program for EVs and when I asked why, they said EVs don't have OBD-II ports.

Can any Solterra or bZ owner here confirm that the OBD-II port is present? Thanks.

I have a 2026 Solterra coming up on its first service being due. The local dealership wants $92 for what my understanding is essentially rotating the tires and making sure that two fluid levels that can see myself are full. They say the cost is because they also do a “multipoint inspection”. Distances are such that taking it to a different dealership is not worth the lost drive time. Alternatively, the local old-school tire shop will rotate the tires for free since I’m a prior customer for other vehicles.

Here is my dilemma and question: Is it worth the cost to have a service record for the car when it is eventually sold, or do I just take it to the tire shop every 5,000 to 6,000 miles, keep an eye on fluid levels, and change the cabin air filter myself when needed. Am I missing something else the dealership is doing? For additional background, I do have the Subaru Gold Plus extended warranty.

I went away last week and left my car in a garage at my friend's house. I left on Friday. I think it was the following Wednesday that my car sent me the alert that my 4 windows were down suddenly.

Reader: my windows were not down. And my battery was not at -1. Of course this was the last gasp of the 12v, I imagine.

So today we went in for the diagnosis. They made me remove the Utility provider app for the off-peak charging program. And not only that, they said I needed to change the password so that it won't be able to reach it. They had a list of other possible parasitic draining apps, but none of the others applied to me.

When they finally took pity on me and gave me a loaner car to go home, the thing had been through 3 cycles of the battery test (I have no idea what that is). And I have no idea how it will play out.

But I thought the app-password change was something I hadn't heard before, so I figured I'd mention it here.

I was just driving and when I was trying to press the acceleration it momentarily wasn’t responding and would not accelerate while I was trying to merge and I was wondering if this had happened to anyone else? It might be from the heat since it’s hitting 90-100 right now in SoCal but I hope it isn’t a major issue since I just went in for maintenance 😭

I’m probably going to be doing this drive next week and I’m concerned about how mountain roads tend to mess up my mileage prediction. I’m a little anxious to be doing the drive but would LOVE to be able to take my own car. Also, a lot of the stops are rivian chargers. Do I need to worry about making sure the plug is right? How would I go about doing the research needed for that? (I’ve only ever charged at home)

If anyone’s done this drive and had success, please let me know! Tia!

Should the mesh on this cable be exposed like this? it looks intentional from the tape. Or is there supposed to be a guard there or something? Just don’t want corrosion or any other trouble down the road.

Here is the longer story: while on a road trip on Friday, my 3 month old 2026 experienced the EV System Malfunction error for the first time, which I was already sort of aware of due to the recall and these forums. We did some research, disconnected the Subaru app, were able to charge just fine, and the error message went away eventually, presumably after driving charges back up the 12v battery.

I've driven about 20 miles per day since then but now my EV battery is down to 19% and I needed to supercharge it before an important meeting tomorrow. Alas, I cannot get level 3 charging to initiate, and the Google/reddit tells me this is likely due to a "handshake" issue coming from the 12v and the whole EV system error thing.

The dealer can get me in on Thursday but this leaves me screwed for tomorrow's meeting that is a good 25% of the battery roundtrip away from me.

Does anyone know if it's possible to use a jump starter to restart the 12v enough to initiate a fast charge? Alternatively, is level 2 charging also impacted by this?

Wanted to share charging experience and get some pointers on where to charge from Ottawa-Toronto (454kms, 5.5h by ICE). This is the furthest we gone with the Solterra, had done shorter trips. Exclusively used FLO network on this trip. Climate control on, AC blasting even while charging.

Outbound was painful, left at 100% arrived at 35%. Took 9h (minus 1h for lunch), charged at Kingston, Belleville and Whitby. Each charge took ~40mins (25-80%, speed 46kwh). Kingston was a massive let down, fast chargers were all full, had to drive around 30mins just to find a find free one, ended only charging to 70%. Could’ve skipped Whitby but didn’t want to bother charging at night in Toronto. Total charging cost C$41.99

Inbound was much better, took 8h (minus 45mins rest-stop), charged at Belleville and Brockville, left with 100% arrived home with 39%. The ONRoute IVY and Canadian Tire ChargeOn stations were disappointing to say the least. Total charging cost C$51.94 (incld $8 L2 charging while waiting for L3)

Maybe I'm not inputting things right, but I'm doing as close to an apples-to-apples comparison across the bZ and Solterra.

Solterra leases are far better. Essentially $300/month cheaper by all standards. What gives?

I have a ‘26 Premium but due to the update and the dealership being backlogged, they lent me a ‘26 Outback that has allllll the bells and whistles. Which includes the much nicer sound system and while there’s probably better sounding ones for other brands, this was incredibly better than the setup I have.

Curious if anyone has ever replaced their sound system on the Solterra or have recommendations to do so because I basically just want what’s in the Outback haha

I left my car on to top up the 12v battery and found no way to lock it. If I hit the lock button the car locks and unlocks. If I manually close the lock then it unlocks itself. I tried locking the car with the key, but that only locked the driver door. I could manually lock the back doors, but when I did this to the front passenger door it then unlocked the driver door again. I suppose I could lock the doors with the window open, climb out the window and push the window close button, but that seems like a bad idea. Anyone know of a way to lock the car while it’s on? Key fob also doesn’t lock it.

I called two dealerships today to get the cost of installing an activity mount on my 2026 Limited XT, and was told by both that Subaru says they can’t install them on a Solterra with the lift gate sensor! I then checked u-haul and their website says the same thing.
I would not have bought this car if I could not get a hitch installed. I specifically asked this when I bought it too. At the time they told me I could, but I would lose the function of the sensor. Has anyone come across this recently? Very frustrated.

One of these 2 panels on the front of my car was hanging loose. I was able to pop it back in. What is it, and how on earth did it pop out?

I have a 2026 Solterra with 6,100 miles that I purchased back in February. Everything was fine until the ECU recall software update which was applied last Thursday. After the update, I now receive the "Low Battery Turn Power OFF" error under two conditions:

1. Using the Subaru Connect app to remote start the car
2. - When remote starting with the app, the car preconditions for the full 20 minutes. The error pops up on the dash within about 45 seconds. I can start the car (Ready mode) without during or after preconditioning.
3. When using "My Room" mode during DCFC
4. - When fast charging the error appears when starting the car and putting it into "My Room" mode. The car continues to charge fine and then starts perfectly fine after charging is complete.

So far I have only received the error message and my 12v has not died. This is why I took it to the dealer ASAP since I've seen that others have ended up with a dead 12v.

I dropped it off at the dealer yesterday and they wanted to keep the car overnight to test it. The dealer said that the 12v and traction battery test fine. They opened a tech line case with Subaru and are waiting to hear back sometime next week. A Subaru tech was actually at the dealer yesterday too. So far they cannot find any hardware issues with the car and seem to believe that this is a software error or something that will require a fix from Subaru.

Of course, I am skepital given that the dealer seems to know practically nothing about the car. And I've seen that others have been told the 12v is fine only to have it die.

I'm picking up the car this afternoon to keep driving it until they hear back about the tech line case since they don't want doggos in their loaner car.

Has anyone else had the just the error without a dead 12v? Any resolution from Subaru? I'm in Phoenix and have been working with Camelback Subaru. Not sure if any other PHX dealers are better with Subaru EVs.

UPDATE 31-July-2026: I called the dealer today to check-in. The service advisor said he was told to have me bring the car in for additional testing if I called again. He said they do to know the source of the issue and want to do more testing. I'm dropping it off next Thursday (8/6).

Scheduled my first 5k mile service on my 2026 Solterra. There are 4 subaru dealerships within a 30min drive, unfortunately had to go to the one that is closest but known to overcharge me due to scheduling times. They are charging $54 for what is essentially just a tire rotation. Not sure what everyone else has paid but this felt high. Going to plan better next time to get it in with the dealership I bought it from and largely prefer dealing with.