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Consumer Reviews for the Subaru B9 Tribeca
Read recent reviews for the Subaru B9 Tribeca
Great...for a while.
Bianca, 02/27/2018
2006 Subaru B9 Tribeca Ltd. 7-Pass. 4dr SUV AWD w/Nav, Gray Int. (3.0L 6cyl 5A)
Bought this car used in 2013 with about 78k. This was the first car I bought on my own! Previously had a 1998 Chevy cavalier (my first car I got in high school)! The subaru was a 7 passenger, limited, grey interior, with navigation. I LOVED this car when I first bought it. It was comfy, roomy, and had everything I needed and more! In 2015 my check engine light came on, the car would … shake horribly, and completely struggled to accelerate...uh oh! But, problems are to be expected in a 9 year old car! Took it to a local shop to see what the problem was. Store owner claimed to love this vehicle and knows all about them...yeah...! Told me it was the battery connection and changed the battery for me. Great! Check engine light turned off, shaking stopped, accelerating went back to normal. I’m good to go, or so I thought. Nope! I live in Nebraska and the weather can change at the drop of a hat. Began raining one day, about two weeks later, and all the problems came back. Took it back to the shop twice before they decided to shut down their store without notice and without actually fixing the problem. Cool, what a waste of $500. Whatever, problem came and went as the weather changed for over a year. Weird, but apparently this vehicle is notorious for that, according to other reviews and subaru forums. Fast forward to 2017. The problem continued to come and go, but now the car was over heating and air conditioning wasn’t working (in the awesome heat of the summer - had upper 90’s this summer). Yay! Took it to multiple Subaru mechanics and NO ONE I mean NO ONE could figure out the problems. Kept driving, probably dumb, but oh well. Finally the power steering went out...while I was getting onto the highway. Let it sit for two weeks or more while I looked at buying a car. Well, as I was taking it in to be traded in it literally shut off, like the entire thing. Wouldn’t drive, lights turned off, compass on rear view mirror had all the lines flashing with it making no actual letter, wouldn’t accelerate, and lord knows what else was happening (I was in panic mode because I was on a main road). Finally had it towed to a local Subaru specialty shop and a NON-Subaru mechanic figured it out! Turns out the previous shaking was caused by a bad spark plug, like the wiring inside. The rest of the problems were caused by the serpentine belt going out (just under $300 for parts and labor). Car was back up and running, until about a month later when the check engine light came on again. Took it to autozone to check the code...it was the 3rd spark plug again which was causing me to drive on five cylinders instead of six. Light never turned off (since about November 2017), then started over heating again and the inside of the car was not warming up...aka, my windows wouldn’t defrost...in the middle of winter, cool, literally! Anyways, decided to go with a Honda CR-V this time around due to the massive headaches this thing was causing me. I turned in the keys with about 151k. Overall, it’s a good car, but left me with massive headaches when no one could figure out how to fix the problems. Last note, the car does not get 18/23 mpg. It’s more like 12/15. I was averaging 13 mpg since I drive highway (which bottlenecks during rush hour) and city. Will I buy a Subaru in the future, I don’t know. If I do, it’ll be a legacy or Forester or a more “popular” car because parts are VERY LIMITED in the States for this vehicle. Hope this was helpful for someone looking into this vehicle!