all vehicles · every Outback year · method

Subaru Outback 2017

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

1.03 per 1,000

0.9 times this nameplate’s own median · from 192 complaints filed in the first three years, of 918 ever. 95% lower bound 0.89.

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 391 complaints

battery	331	84%
drain	74	19%
draining	44	11%
battery drain	39	10%
dead battery	36	9%
drains	34	9%

Visibility/Wiper 205 complaints

windshield	190	92%
crack	136	66%
cracked	98	48%
windshield cracked	65	32%
cracks	38	19%
cracking	24	12%

Unknown Or Other 178 complaints

windshield	63	35%
crack	37	21%
windshield cracked	25	14%
rock	17	10%
eyesight	16	9%
bottom	15	9%

When it breaks

48% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 30,000 miles, from 516 complaints that recorded one).

No clear early or late pattern.

What NHTSA did

1 investigation covering this model year, 0 of which list a recall campaign. Owners had filed 28 complaints about this component over roughly 49 months before an investigation opened.

Desiccated Air Bag Inflator Rupture

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:

10899454 · 10909578 · 10917279 · 10925991 · 10929737 · 10930137

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.