Turns out my phone worked with all other Subaru’s in the dealership, also the dealers iPhone didn’t work in my car but a Nokia E71 did on this occasion!

Anyhow to cut a long story short, the service manager dropped every other job, took out my sat nav there and then, got the number and is reporting to Subaru Australia and he is getting me another unit.

Looks like I might just have a one off faulty unit.

I had a call from a chap at Subaru Australia yesterday and he was very interested in my problem; he had never heard of my particular issue but was aware of the problems mentioned on your site.
We went through step by step to confirm what was (not) happening.
I called him today and they are baffled saying this is the only occurrence of the problem, I should go to my dealer and check my phone with another similar sat nav equipped Outback!

I am beginning to suspect from the legacygt.com forum that firmware 8400 (mine is 8300) may be the answer though as yet no confirmation from anyone at Subaru.

My dealer is also onto it and doing his best but when the service manager is away it doesn’t help.

See this thread – http://www.legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129939

You will see that Subaru is replacing these units now for those with your problems. You may have to push but there is a few precedents now.

I have a 2010 Outback premium sat-nav diesel, NO symbian (I have a Samsung HD icon and a Nokia 6300) phones will communicate at all with my sat nav unit.

I have reported this to Subaru Australia but their response is as mentioned in their service bulletin but this is NOT my problem, the units will not recognise each other at all!

I wonder if anyone else has the same problem.

I am not convinced yet that they will fix the issue, though having said that, it has only been four of five days since I reported to Subaru Australia and passed on their response to my local dealer.

I agree with Craig, there is no way I will expect to be paying for this to be corrected as having spent 51K buying a car I expect the sat-nav to work on all mobile phones in the current market, not only half of them!

Prior to my fix at 20km an hour was the problem area I was getting. There was a pause with no power (the hesitation) then power got applied on full.

This is the official US Service Bulletin description. Could this “harsh shift below” be your violent kick down? :-

ECM Reprogramming Files

Service Bulletin #11-94-09
Pages: 1 Bulletin Description: This is to announce that ECM reprogramming files are now available to rectify a “delay” feeling after depressing the gas pedal. The usual customer description is a “hesitation”. It is most noticeable when attempting to accelerate after a slow “rolling stop” (very slow speed / not quite fully stopped), and sometimes may be accompanied by a harsh shift as the transmission shifts at the same time of acceleration.

I have the 3.6. The main problem I had was a hesitation when accelerating out of a slow rolling acceleration. The best way to explain it was when breaking or coasting into a set of lights and then they turn green and you press the accelerator it would just sit there and do nothing for a second.

I will probably write a blog article on that soon but Subaru dealer connected my car up to the laptop, took it for a drive and sent the file through to Subaru Australia. The fix was ready a few hours later. This is a documented problem in several overseas markets.

After the fix when you accelerate in the same situation you get instant power but for the first second it is at say 50% even when applying full throttle then after a second or so you get the full surge. I guess this is to stop whiplash effect going from a deceleration to full power in one movement.

As to your effect of violent kicking down at that speed I have not specifically noticed but will be give it a try it under light throttle. You do get it under medium and full throttle but that is standard for an auto but the total effect depends upon your engine setting.

In “I” the car sort of expects more gentler throttle so if you press hard then it can rev for a second whilst it kicks down.. then you get that typical auto jerk when it changes gear. I find if I know I am in “I” and I want to accelerate hard such as overtaking I hit the paddle down.

In “S” it is certainly less pronounced. It is though the reaction time to your throttle is better.

“S#” is even better again.. but driving in that all the time is a little overkill.

I am an “S” man myself.. with “I” for long trips.. and “S#” for the occasional blast

Have you tried another phone with bluetooth. Bluetooth is only the transport protocol for the data. The actual quality of the voice I would have though would come from the phone itself as long as the bluetooth connection is up.

There are problems with symbian based phones with syncing but if it is not synced it should be a matter of no voice.. not bad voice.

Re the voice recognition.. I find the system needs each word said separately. As Australian we generally blend our words into one and when we do that it will not register. When I clearly say each word without rushing it I don’t have any problem.