all vehicles · every Outback year · method

Subaru Outback 2019

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

3.07 per 1,000

2.7 times this nameplate’s own median · from 553 complaints filed in the first three years, of 1035 ever. 95% lower bound 2.82.

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2008	0.56	25
2009	0.30	15
2010	1.37	102
2011	1.15	113
2012	0.36	40
2013	0.75	88
2014	0.51	66
2015	1.51	220
2016	0.86	145
2017	1.03	192
2018	2.20	405
2019	3.07	553
2020	4.30	720
2021	1.46	225
2022	2.62	396
2023	0.52	81

What owners describe

Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.

Electrical System 364 complaints

battery	280	76%
drain	60	16%
drained	52	14%
dcm	44	12%
parasitic	39	11%
dead battery	39	11%

Visibility/Wiper 326 complaints

windshield	308	94%
crack	213	65%
cracked	172	53%
windshield cracked	105	32%
windshields	52	16%
windshield replaced	42	13%

Unknown Or Other 204 complaints

windshield	104	51%
crack	58	29%
windshield cracked	32	16%
touch	20	10%
head unit	17	9%
stations	16	8%

When it breaks

87% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 10,200 miles, from 470 complaints that recorded one).

Failures cluster early, which is the signature of how the car was built rather than of wear. A low-mileage example has not yet passed the risk window.

What NHTSA did

No NHTSA investigation covers this model year.

That is not a clean bill of health, and not a criticism of the agency: investigations open for many reasons and complaint volume is only one of them.

What owners and forums say

Not built yet. This panel is meant to carry community sentiment beside the filed-complaint data, so the two can be compared. Showing something weaker here would defeat its purpose.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page:

11120782 · 11123359 · 11143129 · 11154177 · 11165488 · 11166434

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is verified against a published figure.