NHTSA complaint #11467188

Owner complaint summary

I was driving down the interstate using the IQ cruise feature. There was no road construction and a car was in front of me. A small pebble hit the bottom part of the windshield, passenger side. This was not a large rock. It was "normal" gravel that often hits the windshield during highway driving. After hearing the "ting" from the small rock, we then heard a cracking sound. Immediately a 12 inch crack appeared in the windshield. Within hours, the crack doubled in size. Two days later, two new cracks appear. These cracks are on the bottom, driver side and intersect with one another. One crack is approximately 18 inches long, the other is less than 12 inches. I now have two sets of cracks that almost span the entire width of the windshield. I have already paid to repair a chip in the middle of the windshield that occurred several months ago. I was stopped at a red light. There was a car in front of me. When the light turned green, the car in front of me threw a rock on my windshield as we began to accelerate. We were not moving fast at all, since the light had just changed to green. I was shocked to see a chip in my windshield from that incident. Prior to owning my 2021 Subaru Forester, I drove a 2010 Mazda CX-9. My Mazda had 160,000 miles when I traded it in. The Mazda's windshield was NEVER damaged in over 10 years and 160,000 miles. In contrast, I have owned my Subaru Forester for 18 months and have driven less than 19,000 miles. I have already paid to repair one chip and now need to replace the entire windshield due to cracks across both the driver and passenger sides. There appears to be a defect with the Subaru Forester windshield that makes it excessively prone to damage. There have been Subaru windshield issues in the past (unknown to me until recently). Based on my experiences, I do not believe the windshield problem has been completely resolved.