Complaint volume
455 consumer-submitted complaints are matched to this model year. Treat the count as a research signal, then read the actual summaries for repeated symptoms.
Complaint records
455 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2022 Subaru Outback, grouped by component category.
Buyer interpretation
Complaint records are most useful when they turn into inspection points, seller questions, and comparison checks against nearby model years.
455 consumer-submitted complaints are matched to this model year. Treat the count as a research signal, then read the actual summaries for repeated symptoms.
The most common categories are visibility/wiper, unknown or other, electrical system. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Enriched records include 10 crash reports, 4 fire reports, 5 injury reports, and 0 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage is available on 38 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 21,915 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Build a buyer checklist to turn these issues into questions and inspection points.
455 total complaints on record
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | The problem is with the windshield. On 12/26/22 a crack about 8" long appeared spontaneously on the passenger side running from the edge straight towards the middle. I drove the car that day and noticed at dusk that another crack appeared, starting at the bottom edge in front of the driver and running upward towards the middle. Both of these occurred with no noticeable impacts from stones. Both cracks have continued to grow over time. I contacted the dealer on 12/31/22 , where they took pictures and notified Subaru. Three weeks later Subaru wanted more, better pictures so the dealer took more. After receiving no response, three weeks later I contacted Subaru through their website. Their response to contact me still has not been fulfilled. Given the nature of these cracks, the expense and safety issues of having extensive cracks, I decided to contact NHSTA. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | We had some cold weather in Minneapolis but we were told that Suburu had worked out its cracked windshield issues when we purchased the outback. Not true. A crack developed from the center of the base of windshield and continues a third of the way up | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | I was driving, approximately 50 miles per hour, when my windshield cracked from top center down and across the driver's side obscuring my view and startling me. Nothing struck my windshield and there are no divets or marks other than a clean crack that looks like a stress fracture. There were no other vehicles near me and I was on a paved road. My car is 6 months old with 3300 miles on it. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | TIRES | The Outback Wilderness comes stock with Yokohama Geolandar A/T 225/65R17. There was 13,300 miles on it from factory new tires. At interstate speed of about 75mph, the tread appears to have fully separated from the sidewalls. The tread was closely inspected for any debris by myself, my dealer, and others and no tire punctures are present. We believe this tire has a manufacturers defect and would like to have it inspected if possible. We have kept the tread, despite asking dealer to save all part of tire, the still managed to lose the part from the rim, thought there as not much left from the accident, it was virtually destroyed. Very unusual in all my years of driving. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | The windshield cracked without provocation of a rock or any impact, just cold weather. I don’t feel that the windshield of my “ski car” should just crack if the weather gets cold. I was up skiing at our local mountain before this occurred and heard concerning sounds from the windshield. Lo and behold a few weeks later it cracked on its own. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | The contact owns a 2022 Subaru Outback. The contact stated that while driving approximately 1 to 2 mph on two occasions into a parking spot, the vehicle hesitated then accelerated and crashed into a pole. There were no warning lights illuminated. There were no reported injuries, air bag deployment, or fire. A police report was filed. The vehicle was taken to a collision shop. The contact called the local dealer but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was contacted and had an investigator inspect the vehicle but was unable to duplicate the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 700. The VIN was not available. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | 700 |
| Feb 2023 | ENGINE | This has happened many times since my vehicle ownership in May. Today for example I am on the highway cruising along (cruise control set) and alarms start going off, the vehicle lurches as it self-disables safety features one by one - Cruise control shuts off automatically - check engine light on, reverse auto breaking disabled, lane assist disabled, Collision avoidance disabled, entire eyesight system disabled. (and I'm sure more I am missing) I have contacted Subaru of America many times about this fault, they have yet to respond appropriately to my inquiries (usually they dont respond at all or simply tell me something about the factory stereo?). The only fix I've found is removing the gas cap tapping it a few times and resetting (to the "one-click") tightness. After multiple start/stops the codes will clear and life will resume with safety features. This incident today was 204.3 miles into my gas tank, not sure how the gas cap is related but something is definitely wrong. If it truly is the gas cap they could simply have a small icon on the 11" display vs disabling every safety feature- While I am DRIVING! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | The windshield cracked without any impact to it after five months of taking delivery on my 2022 Subaru Outback. The crack appears to have originated from the base of the windshield, under the plastic cover. The car was parked outside with the temperature close to 44 Fahrenheit, and was not moving. Based on the amount of the reports for a broken windshields for this model, this is not an anomaly. Subaru should address this issue before they have another lawsuit that covered previous generations. This is my first introduction to the car maker, and it is not going well as one would hope. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Went out our Outback this morning and noticed a crack in the windshield. The crack originates from the drivers side edge of the windshield, at approx. the midpoint of the vertical edge of the windshield. I drove the car yesterday without incident. There was no crack in the windshield when I parked in the driveway yesterday, late afternoon/early evening. There does not appear to be a rock chip or impact crater at any point of the crack. The crack appears to have formed spontaneously without an impact to the glass. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | Windshield cracked while driving in low temperatures, forming a foot long crack from the passenger side edge inward. No impact was felt or heard, but the Subaru service department claims to see an 'impact event', so they're not covering it under warranty. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | Went to work one morning and noticed a crack from black piece of windshield under wipers 12 inch up center of windshield with no impact noted temps in upper 30s | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Minor pebble chip hit the lower area center of the windshield (with the sound effect of maybe small paper clip equivalent). Initial impact created a 3" crack, which spidered to about 36" in total within a few hours. Impact 12/7/2022. A minor impact should not compromise a windshield so significantly and so extensively and put passenger safety at risk with poor glass quality. Independent windshield replacement company has observed unusually high volumes of windshield replacements for late year Subaru Outback models. Windshield replaced asap 12/12/2022. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | Vehicle windshield shattered without noticeable impact from object, producing a 12 inch crack on center of glass. Dealership refused to warranty the glass, claiming that they did not see the damage occur and cannot verify it was spontaneous. Repair costs were egregiously high given that a camera recalibration is mandatory to ensure safety, quoted at $675 - more than the price of the replacement glass itself. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | Windshield spontaneously cracked on lower right side. Crack spread within minutes across entire windshield. This happened in May 2022 in fairly decent temperatures in the upper 60’s | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,ENGINE | On January 28, 2023 at approximately 1930 hours, vehicle battery was dead after being in a parking garage for a week. Vehicle was jump started and being driven on a highway for about 10 miles at highway speeds. At a location on the NYC Harlem River Drive, traffic came to a stop for a minute or so. The 'Auto Start Stop System' stopped the motor as designed. When traffic started to move again, the motor would not restart and the battery was dead. We were disabled in the left lane of an unlit high speed, high volume highway in the dark with our emergency flashers rapidly going dim. After about 45 minutes and numerous near serious collision misses, a tow truck arrived to tow us off of the highway. The system that failed was the 'Auto Start Stop System' and the vehicle is available for inspection. I have 40 years of investigating and reconstructing fatal and serious motor vehicle collisions and this defect put the safety of the motoring public at a serious risk. It is unknown if the problem has been reproduced and the component has not been inspected by the manufacturer. There was not any warning indicators or other symptoms of the problem. To the contrary, the vehicle operator had the false assumption that all systems were operating properly. This defect presents a high risk of serious injury to highway users. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | I was driving to work, temps in the mid-thirties, and I heard a crack. It was confusing because there was nobody else on the roadway with me. That's when I looked and saw a 12" crack, beginning at the bottom-middle of the windshield and extending upward. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY | The windshield cracked during a severe weather incident where outside temperature was -24 degrees. There were no stone chips or any other issues with the windshield. I drove the car for approximately 20 minutes with the defroster on, when I got home I pulled the car into the garage, when I got back into the vehicle the windshield was cracked from the bottom left of the driver’s side across the windshield toward the middle. I took the vehicle to safelite first, they said the sandwich piece of glass between the exterior section and interior section of the windshield had suffered a failure to to extreme temperature differential. They had seen a number of similar failures since from the prior weekend. They said it is a manufacture issue and said to take it to the dealer for a warranty issue. I took it the the Subaru dealer where I purchased the vehicle, they inspected the windshield and took a number of photographs to submit to Subaru. I was told their windshield experts would examine the photos and get back to them with an answer, that will be four weeks ago tomorrow, Friday the 27th. Meanwhile I’m driving a vehicle with a broken windshield which is not safe. I called Subaru customer care and they are trying to contact the dealership about the claim submission but haven’t been successful. I can certainly pay to replace the windshield, however, if it is a manufactured error I believe Subaru should honor the claim and replace it. I searched the Subaru Outback owners portal and found numerous similar incidents where owners claimed the windshield failed under similar circumstances. According to safelite, Subaru windshields are softer than most manufacturers in an effort to save weight and expense. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | I woke up in the morning and my windshield crack with no apparent damage by an outside object. It started on the left side where the black meets the clear glass. Please look into this. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | The windshield cracked on its own overnight (temperatures in the low 30s). The crack starts at the bottom of the window at the center and goes upward and towards the passenger side. The crack is roughly 14" long, but has extended another 2" since the initial crack started. It impairs the view for most drivers. The dealer confirmed that there was no impact mark and have submitted photos to Subaru of America. Subaru has come back with stating it was caused by 'external influence' even though there is no evidence of that. The dealer is doing their best to appeal this with Subaru. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | A 6" crack appeared on the front windscreen at the passenger side at the bottom right corner extending towards the center. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | Ive been through 2 windows already. They have cracked randomly and with no damage. It always happens in the winter when I turn my car on to pre heat before I drive it and the heat change cracks it. The OEM glass and the Safelite glass are inferior. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | 2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness - 20k Windshield crack develop -Rain and wind, but no other cars / obstructions visible, defroster on, loud bang sound, windshield shows 8” x 5” curving crack near rear view mirror. -No impact / dent / uneven indentations visible. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | POWER TRAIN | Pulled into my driveway, put the car in PARK, ran in the house for 5 seconds, car was rolling down the driveway when I came back to it. Got back in the car to leave (also checked to see that the gear shifter was in park which it was). I have several videos of this incident happening via cameras attached to my house. In the video you can see my wife (who is legally blind) jump out of the car because she didn't know what else to do. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | I woke up one morning to find a few cracks in my windshield that were not there the day/night before. The dealership says it was from impact, but I hadn't driven it yet that day, it was fine the night before, and I have covered parking at my apartment. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | Windshield obtained significant crack for seemingly for no reason (parked in driveway; no trees/debris around). Crack continued to grow to 2-3 feet while remained parked. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |