I own a 2003 Outback Wagon with an automatic transmission. My wife has a 2003 Forester XS, also an automatic.

I have a noticeable vibration with mine, not driving but sitting at lights etc. It is so bad that I sometimes put the car in Neutral when waiting at traffic lights, etc. It happens winter and summer. It has been to the dealer who found nothing wrong, all the codes checked out, it was driven by a tech, etc. It is not my imagination either. My wife pointed it out to me and I hadn’t said anything to her about it. It is driving me crazy. It makes some other hard upshifts and downshifts that make noticeable clunks and/or jerky speed changes. My wife’s car shows none of this.

Has anyone else had these problems? The dealer is going to see the car again soon too. I’m tired of my less than year old vibrating and shifting like crap. My old VW golf with 150K shifted better and vibrated less as did my 97 Chevy Cavilear with 111K on it.

 

Hi Mine doesn't vibrate but it does the jumpy hard speed up slow down thing your's does. My dealer said it was having issues with the shift point and to drive in third. I thought he was avoiding the lousy transmission issue. I get the hard jerks on acceleration & can feel the gears shifting when I decelerate. I would love to know if you find out what's wrong. I didn't know to post here... I'm over in Maintenance with my complaint.

 

I'm having the same issue (no vibrations, but jerky shifts) and I have an auto '05, barely had it 3 weeks. I mentioned it to the service manager and he said he wasn't sure what it was that I was trying to explain to him, but that if it continued, they would take a look at it when my first oil change came up.

Upon deceleration, the downshifting of the gears is very noticeable, especially when I'm braking. Sometimes, trying to accelerate it jumps hard into gear too. I've driven a lot of different automatics in my time, and this is definitely nothing I've ever experienced before.