2023 SUBARU SOLTERRA — Complaint #1951803
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING filed December 20, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1951803 (ODI reference 11561166) concerns a 2023 SUBARU SOLTERRA and was filed on December 20, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on November 8, 2023. The report was geocoded to Oregon based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as forward collision avoidance: automatic emergency braking, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: yes, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same SUBARU SOLTERRA cohort independently describe similar forward collision avoidance: automatic emergency braking failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2023 SUBARU SOLTERRA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
We hit a stationary deer at night. Afterwards, we found an open recall: WRG23-1: Forward recognition camera reprogramming 2023 Subaru Solterra, but Subaru refused to investigate as they claim animals (suddenly appearing) are a carve out on their liability. However, the deer wasn't leaping, it was already frozen in the road. The headlights only illuminated its knees, too late for the driver to stop before impact. It could have just as easily been a person, or other heavy road debris. The incident was on a dark highway bypass, with slight left curve, so poor headlights hampered the driver & automatic systems from stopping in time. The headlights angle down (tilts & dims from brights automatically for oncoming cars) instead of illuminating the road properly, neither the driver nor the braking system can detect an object. The regular lights have an abnormally short distance. Only the brights setting illuminates a sufficient braking distance, & those can't be used with oncoming traffic.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1951803 |
| ODI Number | 11561166 |
| Date Filed | December 20, 2023 |
| Failure Date | November 8, 2023 |
| VIN | JTMABABA9PA |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.