[jg.]

Ha ha...I wrote Subaru of America with the same thought as yours. SOA needs to get people out of their 2023 Solterra so we'll all quit complaining about them! Put it behind them. I got a polite acknowledgement of my letter with an explanation that newer models will often be better than older ones. Hey, I tried!

Yes, their customer service has definitely gone way downhill. I actually had a $1,000 off coupon because of some horrible repairs done by a dealership that almost caught my car on fire while driving it home. After sending a message to Subaru about it a guy actually called me to respond and apologize (first time I've ever had someone call me after sending an email). He said was going to send me a good will coupon for when I was going to buy my next car, but that he could only make it good for 1 year, and when I was ready to purchase let him know and he would re-issue it. Flash-forward, trying to make it valid so I could use it on a Forester Hybrid and the only person that seems to work there now responded to my email, but didn't even acknowledge the coupon. So I included it in another message - no response. I called and talked to someone who essentially just logged it into their system and the same guy that has answered practically every email (not necessarily all complaining about stuff) called me and had the absolute worst phone etiquette of anyone I've ever talked to. After saying he was from Subaru, he just sat on the phone without saying anything about why he was calling until I prompted him with the same thing I told the other representative. All he said was, "It's expired, I can't do that." Never said goodbye, never said sorry, never offered to escalate it, I basically just hung up on him because he wasn't saying anything. Pitiful behavior.

 

[Tucson John]

Yes, their customer service has definitely gone way downhill. I actually had a $1,000 off coupon because of some horrible repairs done by a dealership that almost caught my car on fire while driving it home. After sending a message to Subaru about it a guy actually called me to respond and apologize (first time I've ever had someone call me after sending an email). He said was going to send me a good will coupon for when I was going to buy my next car, but that he could only make it good for 1 year, and when I was ready to purchase let him know and he would re-issue it. Flash-forward, trying to make it valid so I could use it on a Forester Hybrid and the only person that seems to work there now responded to my email, but didn't even acknowledge the coupon. So I included it in another message - no response. I called and talked to someone who essentially just logged it into their system and the same guy that has answered practically every email (not necessarily all complaining about stuff) called me and had the absolute worst phone etiquette of anyone I've ever talked to. After saying he was from Subaru, he just sat on the phone without saying anything about why he was calling until I prompted him with the same thing I told the other representative. All he said was, "It's expired, I can't do that." Never said goodbye, never said sorry, never offered to escalate it, I basically just hung up on him because he wasn't saying anything. Pitiful behavior.

Oh the good old days!

 

[JayParis]

I guess it's possible they're are putting an improved heat pump (previous compressor issue?) in the 2026 (or even the 2025!) without explicitly acknowledging there was a problem. It would be great to see stats for compressor failure for 2023 and 2024 (e.g. was there a lower failure rate for the 2024?). Time will tell for 2025 and 2026. (Specific data point: I haven't experienced this issue for my 2024.)

 

[n6nl]

Just look at the part numbers on the cars. When they improve (or change) a part, they give it a new number.

 

[JayParis]

Good point n6nl. So it looks like the current heat pump/AC compressor is part 8837042051 which the listing says supersedes 8837042950. Not clear to me when the ...51 came along although the listing for this newer part says it is applicable to all 2022-2025 years.

 

[BillLin]

 

[Ducatista]

One nice improvement is they removed the cross bar that devides the front of the vehicle and rear passengers. So you have a proper full view out the glass roof (only really benefits rear passengers I know). But why they couldn’t adjust the frame stiffness the first time around to accomplish this is baffling and points to the fact that Toyota largely doesn’t give a crap about the car. Even the other updates, the battery improvements suck (it needed an additional 10kWh of usable capacity, not a handful of cells haha), max charging speed sucks. Sure they say the curve is better and now “flat” by holding the peak longer but let’s see what happens in the real world and the cold weather. If we get a different downgraded pack for North America again than again it shows they don’t care about the car since North America is one of if not the most important market for Subaru and Toyota. The looks are nice. The C-HR+ looks way nicer though. The interior improvements are really nice and they got rid of the piano black which is great. Nice to see route planning and manual preconditioning, but if the navigation isn’t now standard and not a paid feature this is also dumb. Also needs a NACS port for North America and plug and charge capable.