2017 SUBARU FORESTER — Complaint #2057578
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STRUCTURE:BODY:HATCHBACK/LIFTGATE:SUPPORT DEVICE/STRUT filed January 20, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2057578 (ODI reference 11637135) concerns a 2017 SUBARU FORESTER and was filed on January 20, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 20, 2024. The report was geocoded to Connecticut based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as structure:body:hatchback/liftgate:support device/strut, 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: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. 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 FORESTER cohort independently describe similar structure:body:hatchback/liftgate:support device/strut 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 2017 SUBARU FORESTER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
When closing the liftgate during the normal course of use, the liftgate support cylinder on the driver's (left) side failed (metal ball joint snapped where it connects to the liftgate), causing the support cylinder to fall between the liftgate and the rear tail light. Without this support cylinder in place, the liftgate did not receive enough support from the right side support cylinder and rapidly fell down, smashing the left support cylinder into the left tail light, cracking the tail light assembly. Additionally, there was no way to secure the liftgate with the broken support cylinder still attached to the body of the vehicle. Fortunately, we were in the parking lot of a hardware store where I was able to purchase a ratchet kit to remove the two bolts connecting the support cylinder to the body of the vehicle. Had this occurred somewhere else, I would have had to drive the vehicle somewhere else with the liftgate unsecured. This was an extremely dangerous situation as the liftgate
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2057578 |
| ODI Number | 11637135 |
| Date Filed | January 20, 2025 |
| Failure Date | August 20, 2024 |
| VIN | JF2SJAEC9HH |
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.