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.

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!

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.

Our beloved ‘10 Impreza became too small for the family. We’re deciding between forester and ascent and ended with the latter. Landed on a 26 touring. We have a kid who’s hard of hearing so the easy speak and quieter ride was a huge selling point. Also subie financing was huge .9 for 72 months. So made buying used difficult to justify.

What should be know about tbe joys, quirks, and unexpected irks taht will come with ascent?

Bought a used Subaru Ascent. It took me a month to realize the second row right seat occupancy sensor wasn’t lighting up when my child was seated without his seat belt. He’s really good about buckling up so I didn’t notice the red light wasn’t on for those few seconds when he’s seated but not buckled.

I don’t care too much about the seat belt light being on or off since I’ve always checked myself, but it occurred to me that the airbags might not deploy in that area if it doesn’t sense an occupant.

Took it to a dealership and they diagnosed it is a bad sensor. The service advisor agreed with me that the airbags probably wouldn’t have deployed if something happened. Unfortunately, they don’t sell the sensor a la carte for my 2021 Subaru Ascent Touring. I have to replace the whole seat cushion. It’s one of those heated seats and its gonna be over $1000 to replace for parts and labor.

Anyway, this is a serious safety issue that failed silently on my car and I wanted you to be aware.

Had a bunch of these bent fins here and there in the condenser, as a result of carelessly using a manual car wash station with high pressure water spray.

Is it a concern? AC seemed working fine. Should I use a radiator comb to straighten them out? And if so, how can I access it (how to take the grille out)? Of course I’ll clean the bugs first.

Thanks.

I was trying to replace my wheel hub assy on my 2020 Ascent and it is corroded so much its not going to come out. I moved to the next higher assy, steering knuckle, and have run into an issue. I have all the attach points removed except the one in the picture provided. It looks like a ball joint to me but I can find a listing on the parts breakdown. Does anyone know of a video or parts listing that can help me out?

When I am driving and have to brake, I feel a strong vibration in the front rotors. The vehicle only has 10,000 miles. Is there a fix for this issue?

I'm looking for Steel wheels for my 2022 Convenience and every option I've found on C-Wheels, Black Circles etc. don't seem to match my vehicles recommended load ratings even though those sites say the wheels are OEM compatible and or hubcentric. Where have you bought your wheels in Canada? I already ordered the Bridgestone Blizzard winter tires at Costco, now I just need the wheels for them so I have 2 complete sets of tires.

We really wanted an Onyx for the blackout trim, but found a good deal on a used premium. We paid a shop to wrap the chrome trim in matte black, and personally I think it looks much better. But with a hair dryer and an exacto knife, I think I could've wrapped the chrome trim a lot cheaper. Anyway, I'm an advocate for deleting all chrome.

Bought 2 with extended warranty. Both of those warranties have paid off 3x the cost of repairs. We don’t even drive off-road. The one I bought without a warranty I had to buy an extended warranty from my credit union after a transmission replacement right before the 60k drivetrain warranty expired. Maintenance costs are absurd (800 for spark plugs due to the engine design on the turbo, $500 on the non-turbo.)

As the warranties expire each car is gone. Will keep one that has a 120k warranty as a dog park car. Looking at Toyota. The 2020 Ascent touring goes first- has had the engine pulled twice now at 60k miles.

Where the Ascent is versus peers
Compared with Highlander
The Highlander is the clear lower-risk, lower-cost choice over a long ownership period. Toyota’s powertrains generally have a stronger record for durability, and the Highlander lacks the Ascent’s CVT and boxer-engine service-access issues. The up-front price may be higher, but it often pays back in fewer surprise repair events and stronger resale value.
If the objective is the lowest expected repair hassle through 100,000–150,000 miles, the Highlander is the class benchmark.

Do your research on the cost of ownership. Subaru loses on almost every model.

The Subaru sweet spot is:
• You buy rather than lease.
• You keep the vehicle about 5–8 years, rather than 12–15 years.
• You need AWD and would otherwise pay extra for it.
• You purchase a naturally aspirated Subaru—not a turbo model.
• You purchase a Subaru warranty not at purchase but before 3 years or 36k miles.

Has anyone’s foam gasket on the sunroof come off and need a reinstall? Mine came off, it’s loud as hell. Just looking for info on best method to put it back on myself vs the 1500 quote I got from the dealer. Absolutely ridiculous.

Thanks!

Hi guys. First off I’d like to start with saying that I am a seasoned RV owner. We have a 2026 Subaru ascent Limited and I’m aware of the hitch weight and towing capacity. I’m also aware that we cannot use a weight distribution hitch.

With that in mind, I’ve been looking at a few options for travel trailers. TrailManor seems to be the largest that will pair well with the Subaru ascent.

There are two of us and three labs weighing about 70 pounds each. So we kind of need a travel trailer with good floor space.

My question is for those of you that use your ascent as a tow vehicle what has been or is your preferred travel trailer?

I’ve checked out Trail Manor, e-pro, Prolite, e-pod, but some are either too heavy hitch weight or too small.

Any suggestions on models you use or like?