2021 Subaru Outback
This year drew an ordinary 293 complaints for a Subaru Outback — the model's median is 291. What they were about is the unusual part: 6.1% of them mention spread, against 2.3% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 4 of the Subaru Outback, which began in 2020. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 293 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 291 |
| Involving a crash | 9 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 27.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- spread — 6.1% of this year's complaints, against 2.3% across the other years of this generation (2.7×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
Have owned the vehicle less than a year and it has already acquired 2 chips. One of the chips spread out to a larger crack immediately.
Noticed a 6 inch crack on passenger side starting under the wiper. Crack started spreading across the windshield, now about 18 inches long.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 21V024000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 22V485000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 23V755000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 24V227000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Subaru Outback was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2021 Subaru Outback? What happened to yours?
Loading comments…