2020 Legacy Anomalies

[ITEngineer]

Hello:

I just bought a pre-owned 2020 Subaru Legacy Limited. Overall, I am happy with it, but there is some weird or undesirable behavior that I want someone to chime in on if they are aware of what I'm talking about.

1.) The Driver Monitoring System is mostly nice, except for the EXTREMELY ANNOYING feature that follows the position of your head and eyes as you drive and incessantly tells you to "keep your eyes on the road." I oftentimes tilt my head and squint when I focus on something. When I do, the annoying message comes on. Or if I look at the radio briefly, etc.

QUESTION: Can I turn off that feature WITHOUT having to turn off the Drive Monitoring System altogether? For example, I like it when I enter the car and it recognizes me and adjusts my seat and mirror. I'd like to keep that enabled.

2.) If I want to disable the Driver Monitoring System, I have to do it every time I start the car. it will NOT remember the setting and stay off. Is this by design? Who the hell wants to have to go into that busy Settings menu and have to disable it every time they get in their car?

3.) Sometimes while driving, the "Driver Monitoring System Disabled" message comes on for no reason. That happens when the Driver Monitoring System is enabled and I have done nothing to try to disable it. Why is that?

4.) Sometimes I get a message that says nothing but "OFF". Today it came on about 10 times in 15 minutes. Huh? What is off? Why does this notification, which has both an audio and visual indicator, come on so much? All I see is an icon on my dashboard of a car with the word "OFF" underneath it.

5.) I also get a "User Profile Recognition Disabled" message every now and then. Why? All these messages just come on while I'm driving.

6.) Sometimes while driving, the "Eyesight off" message comes on for no reason. Why? What exactly is that message all about?

7.) The Bluetooth is flaky. I have 2 Samsung Galaxy S10 phones and they both have a problem connecting to it. Sometimes it takes up to 20 minutes of trying before it works. And even then, it will disconnect in the middle of a phone call. And when I try to connect and it fails, the message I get is "Could not connect, please try again later." Huh? Try again later? What's that supposed to mean? Am I making a long distance phone call and the lines are busy such that I should try again later??

Bottom line, the dealer from whom I bought the car is CLUELESS. They have no answers. And when I pressed them, they got upset. I had to escalate to their General Manager, who swears he is working with Subaru to get me answers.

Can anyone help?

 

[MRVEGAS711]

Hello:

I just bought a pre-owned 2020 Subaru Legacy Limited. Overall, I am happy with it, but there is some weird or undesirable behavior that I want someone to chime in on if they are aware of what I'm talking about.

1.) The Driver Monitoring System is mostly nice, except for the EXTREMELY ANNOYING feature that follows the position of your head and eyes as you drive and incessantly tells you to "keep your eyes on the road." I oftentimes tilt my head and squint when I focus on something. When I do, the annoying message comes on. Or if I look at the radio briefly, etc.

QUESTION: Can I turn off that feature WITHOUT having to turn off the Drive Monitoring System altogether? For example, I like it when I enter the car and it recognizes me and adjusts my seat and mirror. I'd like to keep that enabled.


Can anyone help?

I agree with everything you said. Hell, I pick my nose and it tells me to keep my eyes on the road!! I have entered three driver profiles JUST FOR ME. Sometimes it would recognize me, sometimes not. After entering my third profile, its fairly close, but the setting go to whichever version of me drove last!!
Same on all your issues and this is my first Subaru living in snowy Maine. It my be my last with an early sell. This car frustrates the hell out of me.
ALSO.....Collison warning very sensitive. You could never own this car in a big city with aggressive driving. The car sounds like a slot machine to begin with!!

 

[ITEngineer]

Totally frustrating. I feel like selling this piece of junk right now.

 

[joepilot]

1.) The Driver Monitoring System is mostly nice, except for the EXTREMELY ANNOYING feature that follows the position of your head and eyes as you drive and incessantly tells you to "keep your eyes on the road." I oftentimes tilt my head and squint when I focus on something. When I do, the annoying message comes on. Or if I look at the radio briefly, etc.

QUESTION: Can I turn off that feature WITHOUT having to turn off the Drive Monitoring System altogether? For example, I like it when I enter the car and it recognizes me and adjusts my seat and mirror. I'd like to keep that enabled.

Believe it or not, you'll get used to it. We've had our 2020 Legacy about 10 months now, and have put about 16000 miles on it. At first that DMS really irritated me, but I hardly notice it now. It gets fussy if you look down too much, or if you look to the side for too long, but I just let it do its thing and ignore it. Doesn't bother me at all anymore.

2.) If I want to disable the Driver Monitoring System, I have to do it every time I start the car. it will NOT remember the setting and stay off. Is this by design? Who the hell wants to have to go into that busy Settings menu and have to disable it every time they get in their car?

Some of the settings are remembered when shutting the car off and some aren't. The good news is, the one that irritated me the most - the auto start/stop system - has been moved to the home screen with the newest software update. Now I don't have to go two menus deep in order to turn off that danged thing. Just touch the button at the bottom of the home screen and BOOM, no auto start/stop. Most of this is by design, in order to meet various federal regulations or insurance institute recommendations. All done to keep (or try to avoid) Subaru from getting sued.

3.) Sometimes while driving, the "Driver Monitoring System Disabled" message comes on for no reason. That happens when the Driver Monitoring System is enabled and I have done nothing to try to disable it. Why is that?

This will happen when the lighting conditions in the car are just right, primarily when the system is getting reflections from the sun off of something that is "blinding" the little sensor at the top center of the dashboard. When the sensor can once again properly "see" your face, the system will reengage.

4.) Sometimes I get a message that says nothing but "OFF". Today it came on about 10 times in 15 minutes. Huh? What is off? Why does this notification, which has both an audio and visual indicator, come on so much? All I see is an icon on my dashboard of a car with the word "OFF" underneath it.

That's a new one on me. We've never experienced that in our Legacy.

5.) I also get a "User Profile Recognition Disabled" message every now and then. Why? All these messages just come on while I'm driving.

That's another one that I haven't seen.

6.) Sometimes while driving, the "Eyesight off" message comes on for no reason. Why? What exactly is that message all about?

This will happen when the Eyesight sensors (those two "eyes" on each side of the rear view mirror that are looking out the windshield) get blinded by direct sunlight (such as driving into a sunset) or when rain is heavy enough on the windshield to block their view of the road and vehicles ahead. The Eyesight system will come back on when it can "see" clearly again.

7.) The Bluetooth is flaky. I have 2 Samsung Galaxy S10 phones and they both have a problem connecting to it. Sometimes it takes up to 20 minutes of trying before it works. And even then, it will disconnect in the middle of a phone call. And when I try to connect and it fails, the message I get is "Could not connect, please try again later." Huh? Try again later? What's that supposed to mean? Am I making a long distance phone call and the lines are busy such that I should try again later??

Never had that problem. My wife and I both have iPhones and they stay connected with no problem. The only thing that irritates me about that is that the car seems to default to my wife's phone, even when it recognizes me as I get into the driver seat. It will say "Hello Joe" but I still have to go in and tell it to connect to my phone (and I have to tell it to switch to my driver profile). You would think they could link all that stuff to the driver recognition system. Alas, no....

 

[magarity]

I'd like to thank the people on this thread for letting me know not to get a brand new model.

 

[MRVEGAS711]

I'd like to thank the people on this thread for letting me know not to get a brand new model.

Maybe you would have better lick, But 8 months in, this first gen. smart car, Ain't Too Smart!

 

[MacDuncan]

You are not alone!!!! I have noticed all of your issues as well. Makes for a darn frustrating experience.

 

[MRVEGAS711]

My facial recognition has completely turned off now. it welcomes me as Driver A or B or C or D or E.
Hating my 2020 Legacy I paid 30K for.

 

[TheMortallyWounded]

So glad I got a 2019.