A number of posters have complained about the lack of an unswitched 12 VDC outlet on the Forester. An unswitched outlet will still have voltage when the car is "off" and the key has been removed from the ignition. Well, the trailer wiring harness connector in the spare tire well IS UNSWITCHED (always on!). The down side is that you have to constantly plug and unplug the trailer connector. If you forget to unplug the trailer harness when you park the car, you might have a flat battery when you get back! I suppose this setup is the result of another lame Eurozone "safety" regulation, just like that idiotic "parking light" switch on top of the steering column. Oh, well.

There's one going to the radio too, for the clock and memory settings. And all over the fuse box.

I jumpered a relay at the left hand panel of my '01 Forester to make the rear outlet "hot" all the time to keep the electric cooler on while we were doing, well, something that required the engine to be off and the car locked. The downside was the seat heaters were also "armed" all the time, too. Had no problems since we were smart enough not to leave stuff on too long.

 

Our Dodge minivan had either a relay or a blind plug for outlets that were either off with the engine or hot all the time at the customer's preference. Neat, huh?

HEY that might be a good use for the top-of-the-steering-column-switch!

If you really want to make that outlet constantly hot or switchable, it can't be too hard to locate the source of that wire if you can get a good schematic for your car. Then you could just connect that wire to the battery with a fuse, and put in a switch if you so desire. If it were my car, I would just add on a second outlet that is constantly on, but I'm just into having more choices and neat stuff on my car.