all vehicles · every Outback year · method

Subaru Outback 2020

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

4.30 per 1,000

3.8 times this nameplate’s own median · from 720 complaints filed in the first three years, of 900 ever. 95% lower bound 3.99.

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.

Visibility/Wiper 313 complaints

windshield	293	93%
crack	206	66%
cracked	162	52%
windshield crack	48	15%
apparent	44	14%
apparent reason	34	11%

Electrical System 259 complaints

battery	208	79%
jump	79	30%
battery dead	33	13%
drained	33	13%
battery died	32	12%
jumped	31	12%

Unknown Or Other 152 complaints

windshield	92	60%
crack	53	35%
windshield cracked	31	21%
windshields	16	11%
windshield crack	14	9%
hit windshield	13	9%

When it breaks

91% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 5,700 miles, from 443 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:

11277145 · 11278627 · 11281696 · 11282381 · 11287450 · 11287507

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.