2022 Outback Software Rant

Was excited to finally get a brand new Subaru a few months back, a 2022 Outback. In general I love the car and how it drives, but over time I'm getting more and more infuriated with several aspects of the software/electronics, and it's hard to imagine having this car for many years (as opposed to my 2008 Saturn I bought new and drove for 13 years until getting the Outback).

1. Most infuriating issue is the Lane Centering, which I know others have complained about but it really is just absolute garbage. First off, it hardly ever actually stays in the center...more often it hugs the left or right line, or bounces back and forth between them. Which means any time I'm passing someone I have to pull the wheel left so the driver I'm passing doesn't think I'm trying to hit them. 2. Which goes in to the next fun part, which is that if you turn the wheel to correct the lane centering, and then let go, it doesn't gradually take you back where it wants...it \*snaps\* the wheel back to the angle it wanted, making the car actually swerve unless you take 5 seconds to actually fight the wheel trying to kill you and let it gradually take back over. If it decides the right side line is the "center", it's going to fight you hard to get there, and you can feel it pulling with a lot of pressure as you hold a correction. 3. Lane centering part 3...it attempts to have some sort of requirement to keep your hands on the wheel, but it seems that the only way it actually knows that is if you are actually \*turning\* the wheel. Meaning it doesn't know where your hands are, only if you are using them. But that means that in order for the car to not shut off the lane centering, I need to actually make corrections \*even if I don't need them\*. So even if the lane centering \*is\* doing a tolerable job, which is usually true if I'm not near other cars, then I basically need to needlessly weave the car back and forth every few seconds to let it know my hands are there. Combined with #2, Lane Centering just results in looking like a drunk driver most of the time. 4. My trim level came with the full 11 inch starlink screen, which seems great at first and I really only got because I wanted the premium speakers. However, as with Teslas and other cars pushing this trend, replacing tactile buttons with a touch screen is inconvenient at best, and outright dangerous at worst. Having a ton of tiny push-screen buttons means you \*must\* look at the screen to do simple things like changing AC settings, and even if you are looking you could hit the wrong button because you know, you're in a moving car trying to precisely aim a finger while driving. I realize there's a way to use your voice to control this, and maybe it's just me that doesn't want to learn all the commands. I just want to drive the car. This is a minor nitpick, but over time it's adding up to be pretty frustrating not having tactile controls for the car. The other issue with the large screen is that I have nowhere to actually put my phone when it's connected via cable (for CarPlay). I can't mount it anywhere without blocking the screen, the USB ports are located in a way that the USB cable blocks the center storage, etc. Basically the phone has to go in a cupholder or balance somewhere where I need to hold it while going around corners. 5. I don't know enough about how this is implemented to know if it's Subaru or Apple/Android responsible for this, but I have some pretty major issues with Android Auto and CarPlay (bluetooth seems to be fine). Normally I might assume it's a phone issue, but as I changed phones from an Android to an Apple shortly after getting the car, and had similar issues, I feel comfortable putting blame on Subaru here. First, despite changing cables and phones and trying both USB ports in the car, I routinely get disconnected when I bump the cable or touch the phone. Second, there's some pretty major software issues like scrollbars in Spotify just not working at all...like it acknowledges that I press them but just does nothing, so I need to actually use the phone to choose music. Third, there's about a 10-20% chance that when I start the car with the phone already plugged in, \*all\* audio in the car stops working. Meaning, no radio, no beeps when you press buttons on the screen, changing the volume doesn't bring up a display showing the volume changing, etc. Just completely dead audio system. Which requires holding the volume/tune buttons for like 10 seconds to force a restart of the entertainment system. 6. The Auto Stop-Start feature when stopping the car to save gas is just trash. The car shakes horribly when it turns back on, and you need to hold the brake \*hard\* to get it to stay on. Seriously, if my foot wavers \*at all\* on the brake the car restarts and lurches. At least they have a button on the main screen to turn it off every time I start the car. 7. The seatbelt warnings are just nuts. I'm fine with them existing, but it has its own issues like all the software does. First, it's about 50/50 whether the dinging stops when actually stopping or parking. So if my seatbelt is off because I pulled in my driveway, or decided to get a different parking spot in a lot, once the dinging gets extra loud it doesn't always shut off. And for the passenger seatbelt it almost never shuts off unless I turn the car off. I can live with backseat seatbelt warnings (though it feels unnecessary), even these are way too sensitive. When my dog is in the car I need to first buckle all 3 back belts (even the middle one), or else the seatbelt warning will go off randomly the entire ride as the dog moves around. I'd at least like an option to turn off rear seat belt warnings entirely, but I didn't see that anywhere (maybe I just missed it?) 8. The entire cruise control feature (not just auto-follow) seems to be dependent on the EyeSight cameras. Meaning, if it's raining or the cameras shut off for some other visibility obstruction, you can't even just use normal cruise control anymore like in every car ever made before today with cruise control. I'm fine if auto-follow turns off, that makes sense if it can't see the car ahead. But not being able to hold my current speed? Ridiculous.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but the result is that every couple minutes while driving this car I get frustrated with something. Feels like a decent car with just atrocious software, which isn't acceptable today. There are so many new features on this car that I've never had before, never thought I wanted, and now that I have them they're implemented so poorly I'd rather they just not be there. I can't see myself keeping this car very long at all, but part of me is scared that other car manufacturers are just as lazy with their software. I'm guessing they outsource software dev to the lowest bidders, and then have minimal support after release. And this is the result.

Should probably note that \*yes\* I keep the software up to date.