Phone and GPS Mounts for a Subaru Forester

The Subaru Forester turns out to be a fairly easy vehicle to mount a smartphone or GPS.  A tablet is a bit more challenging.  It’s a well designed interior without a lot of surprises.

Mount Analysis

Similar to the Subaru Outback, the Forester doesn’t have a lot of radical interior curves, uses standard shaped vents and has some decent dash space.  This will make it easy to suggest some good mounts for smartphones and a GPS.  A tablet is almost impossible to comfortably mount.  The interior is simply too small and we don’t think it’s possible to mount a tablet and be able to safely view it.

Our requisite photo of the interior of a Subaru Forester accompanies this article.  As we stated, it’s a fairly conventional design.  We’ve seen worse.  Much worse, like the Toyota RAV4.

Subaru Forester Mount Recommendations for the Windshield

The most popular location for a smartphone or GPS continues to be the windshield so we will start with those mounts.  The Subaru Forester windshield is overly sloped but it has a very wide dashboard making the reach to the windshield a bit longer than other vehicles.

Consider the iOttie Easy One Touch 5 Car Mount for SmartPhones which features an extendable rigid base combined with an expandable cradle.  Unlike many similar mounts, the iOttie Easy One Touch 5 has an eight-inch extension feature.  This additional extension is welcome in the Subaru Forester to help overcome the extra wide dash.  The included cradle expands by pressing the buttons on each side.  This is large enough to hold most phones.  The cradle swivels into landscape or portrait.

Turning the iOttie Easy One Touch 2 into a dash mount is easy.  Add the The iOttie Reusable Dashboard Pad for use on the dash.  It’s a temporary non adhesive accessory.  The bottom has a sticky surface and the top is smooth like a windshield.  Although no wipe is included, be sure to clean the dash area before application.  Now stick the suction cup from the mount to the smooth surface on this dash disk.  Based upon the location if the embedded dash display, you may find this fits best to the right near the passenger side.

A good choice for a Garmin GPS is the Arkon Windshield Dash Garmin Nuvi Suction Mount.  It’s longer than the stock mount from Garmin and fits the back of the cradle that came with the GPS.  The mount comes with a dash disk to turn this into a dashboard selection if desired.  Like the phone mount, attach this to the right of the overhead display.

Subaru Forester Mount Recommendations for Other Locations

Although we see the dreaded vertical vents on this SUV, you can consider the Andobil Air Vent Mount.  This mount can be used to hold practically all phone models with or without a case.  The ball and socket design facilitates a 360 degree rotation and pivot.  The included cradle opens to accommodate phones up to 3.75 inches wide.  The mount uses a unique locking clip to securely attach to horizontal and vertical vents.

Apple iPhone owners can scope out the Andobil MagSafe Air Vent Mount which is the same mount but with a magnetic adapter that pairs perfectly.

We took a deep dive into the Andobil car air vent mount which is you can refer to for more info.

The car seat bolt will not work on the Subaru Forester.  The bolt has a plastic covering over it so they cannot be accessed.  Sure, you could attach these by screwing into the floorboard, but it’s not something we recommend.

Like other Subaru models we have seen, the cup holder is a problem when it comes to a mount.  The cup holders are set too far back to be easily accessible by the driver, especially with the seat all the way up towards the steering wheel.

The CD player mount is going to work just fine on the Subaru Forester. The Apps2Car CD Slot Mount uses a knob on the bottom to secure the mount within the CD player. I prefer this mount to others in this category as it will permit a more custom and secure fitting.  You don’t want the mount to rattle around inside the player.  The cradle opens to almost 4 inches which is wide enough for most phones and many GPS devices.   While it will partially cover the in-dash display, you may want to opt for this location if not needing access to the display while driving.  If access is needed, don’t use this location, instead opting for the other locations already discussed.

Summarizing the Mount Situation

So where does that leave us for a Subaru Forester?  The best locations are the windshield, vent, dash and CD Player.  The seat bolt and cup holder are poor choices.  A smartphone and GPS can be mounted easily with a tablet being a challenge due to space issues.