all vehicles · every Outback year · method

Subaru Outback 2022

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

2.62 per 1,000

2.3 times this nameplate’s own median · from 396 complaints filed in the first three years, of 464 ever. 95% lower bound 2.37.

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 255 complaints

windshield	244	96%
crack	181	71%
cracked	127	50%
impact	98	38%
windshield cracked	77	30%
edge	43	17%

Unknown Or Other 87 complaints

windshield	62	71%
crack	43	49%
impact	21	24%
windshield cracked	19	22%
windshields	14	16%
crack windshield	10	12%

When it breaks

74% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 13,947 miles, from 39 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:

11424796 · 11426401 · 11429098 · 11429109 · 11431925 · 11432300

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.