My hypothesis, based on what I’ve seen so far on these forums, is that to address the glare issue in the later model years, Subaru has added a coating to their head unit display, and at least when something doesn’t are positioned correctly and evenly during manufacture, these iridescence problems are prone to appear when viewed through “proper” polarized lenses. A similar problem comes up all the time here in AZ with bad window tinting jobs.
Despite denying any knowledge of this being a problem in other Outbacks, the dealer has “promised” to replace the head unit display if we purchase an Outback with this problem. However, I’m hesitant to take this on faith, eg what if many Outback displays have this problem to some degree (a design flaw rather than sample manufacturing) or it comes or goes with time time? We briefly checked a few other Outbacks and sometimes saw the problem there as well. Not knowing how to get them without the nav to quickly show all white, we can’t say for sure if any of them had a problem.
Does anyone know of anything more like a TSB they can direct me to, or if any of you have had this problem or taken Subaru to fix it?