2020 Subaru Forester: Lease or Buy Verdict

The setup

You're looking at a 2020 Subaru Forester in 2026, which means this crossover is six years old and well past its initial warranty. The question is whether to lease a newer model or buy this one outright. That decision hinges on whether you're willing to own the problems that show up after the warranty expires, and with the Forester, those problems have a very specific pattern.

The 2020 Forester earned top marks in NHTSA crash tests: 5 out of 5 stars overall, with 5 stars frontal, 5 stars side, and 4 stars rollover. The rollover probability sits at 16.9 percent, typical for a crossover of this height. On paper, it's a safe vehicle. But crash test performance only tells you what happens in the worst case. The complaint record tells you what happens on a Tuesday.

What NHTSA data actually shows

NHTSA has 595 owner complaints on file for the 2020 Forester, with zero safety recalls. Of those complaints, 26 involved a crash, 8 involved a fire, and 16 reported injuries. Those are real people filing federal paperwork about real harm.

The dominant problem is visibility, and it's not even close. The VISIBILITY/WIPER category alone accounts for 252 complaints, more than the next four categories combined. Add the separate VISIBILITY category with 49 complaints, and you're looking at 301 complaints about the same basic issue: owners can't see out of the car properly.

The pattern in these reports is consistent and alarming. One owner filed with NHTSA: "As I was driving my 2020 Subaru Forester a cracked suddenly appeared across the driver side of the windshield, possibly from a small pebble. The sunlight reflection off the crack sent blinding sunlight into my eyes which nearly caused a collision with the c..." Another reported: "In a three year period I have had to replace my windshield for cracks causing visibility issues. Each of these cracks have appeared for no apparent reason."

Read that second one again. Three windshields in three years. Not from collisions. Not from obvious road debris. Just cracks appearing.

The electrical system drew 100 complaints, and the problems aren't minor annoyances. One owner reported: "The head unit suddenly stopped working. It unfortunately isn't covered Under warranty. The screen consistently turns on and off." When your infotainment system is also your backup camera display and your climate controls, this isn't a convenience failure. It's a safety issue.

Engine complaints total 75, power train complaints add 31 more, and forward collision avoidance, one of Subaru's headline safety features, generated 42 complaints. That's 42 reports about the system designed to prevent crashes potentially causing them or failing to activate.

The math

Let's work through a typical scenario with stated assumptions. Suppose you're comparing a three-year lease on a new Forester against buying this 2020 model outright.

Assume the 2020 Forester sells for $22,000 in today's used market (this is an example figure for illustration). Assume you finance it at 7% over 60 months with $3,000 down. Your payment would be roughly $376 per month, and you'd pay about $3,560 in interest over the life of the loan. At the end, you own the vehicle outright.

Now add maintenance. A 2020 Forester in 2026 is due for its 60,000-mile service if driven an average 12,000 miles per year. You're looking at oil changes, tire replacements, brake work, and the routine items. Budget $1,200 per year for scheduled maintenance, or $100 per month. That brings your true monthly cost to $476.

But here's where the complaint data matters. If you're one of the owners who goes through three windshields in three years, add $900 to $1,500 in glass replacement costs depending on your deductible and whether you have glass coverage. If your head unit fails and it's out of warranty, replacement runs $1,000 to $2,000 at the dealer. These aren't hypothetical. They're documented patterns in the federal complaint database.

A three-year lease on a new Forester might run $350 to $400 per month with similar money down, maintenance is covered under warranty for most of the term, and if windshields keep cracking, that's the manufacturer's problem, not yours. You walk away at 36 months and the pattern of failures documented in the 2020 model doesn't touch your bank account.

The buy scenario only wins if this specific 2020 Forester turns out to be one of the good ones. That's a bet against a complaint rate of 595 reports on a single model year, with more than half focused on a single catastrophic weakness.

What we recommend

Lease a newer model. Walk away from the 2020.

The visibility complaints aren't a scattered sampling of bad luck. They're a pattern, and patterns don't improve with age. A windshield that cracks spontaneously at year three will crack spontaneously at year seven. The electrical problems that surface after warranty expiration are expensive to diagnose and expensive to fix, and Subaru's parts and labor rates are not cheap.

When you buy a six-year-old vehicle, you're buying all the problems the first owner already discovered, plus all the problems that haven't surfaced yet. The NHTSA complaint database is your early warning system, and it's screaming at you about windshields. Listen to it.

Leasing keeps you under warranty. It caps your exposure. It gives you an exit. If the 2024 or 2025 Forester models show the same windshield failure pattern in their complaint data three years from now, you turn in the keys and lease something else. You're not married to Subaru's engineering decisions.

Our lease vs buy guide covers the broader framework, but this specific case is clear-cut. The 2020 Forester's complaint record disqualifies it from buy consideration unless you're getting it so cheap that you can self-insure against the windshield lottery.

What would change our mind

Two things would flip this verdict.

First, if Subaru issued a recall or a technical service bulletin acknowledging the windshield problem and offered a no-cost fix or replacement with improved glass, that would eliminate the primary risk. Zero recalls are currently on file, so Subaru has not taken that step.

Second, if you found a 2020 Forester with documented proof that the windshield and head unit had already been replaced with updated parts in the past year, and the price reflected a steep discount, say 30% below market, then buying starts to make sense. You'd be acquiring the vehicle after someone else paid to fix the known problems, and your discount provides a cushion for the next failure.

Short of those conditions, the math doesn't work. You can check our market pulse to see whether used Forester prices are falling fast enough to justify the risk, but as of today, they're not.

Bottom line

The 2020 Subaru Forester crash-tests beautifully and fails predictably. NHTSA's database contains 252 complaints about visibility and wipers, a concentrated record of a specific weakness that will cost you money after the warranty expires. You can't un-crack a windshield, and you can't negotiate with a failure pattern this well documented.

Lease newer and let someone else own the problem. If you're committed to buying, buy a different model year or a different vehicle entirely. The 2020 Forester had six years to prove itself, and the federal complaint record is the proof. Read it and walk away.

Safety figures on this page come from the NHTSA public complaint and recall database for the 2020 Subaru Forester, retrieved 2026-08-23. Complaint counts reflect reports filed by owners and are not verified defect findings.