This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
While driving on the highway at about 60mph my 2016 Outback suddenly accelerated much faster. The only way to avoid collision with another car or cars or end up in a ditch was to drive around them. The brake did not work! After a minute or more(?) I eventually was able to stop using the brake.
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Outback. The contact stated while the was stationary at a traffic light, the vehicle accelerated independently while depressing the brake pedal. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact stated that the RPM-??s was elevated to 5,000. The contact stated that he turned off and restarted the vehicle and was able to continue driving to his destination. The contact called the local dealer and made them aware of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 35,000. The consumer stated the vehicle was inspected and didn't find anything wrong with the vehicle.
At low rate of speed, while parking vehicle accelerated without warning and damaged 3 cars. This happened previously with separate family drivers without damage. This is a serious defect and could potentially cause serious injury or death. This was not driver error. the car lurched forward with absolutely no gas pedal involvement. The previous times it happened at a stoplight with enough room in front to hit the brake. Not this time.
Upon slowing down & pulling into a parking space, to park my car in front of a business, my vehicle spontaneously accelerated forward, up over the sidewalk. The vehicle accelerated a 2nd time as I tried to stop the vehicle with the brakes. The vehicle did not stop until it impacted the wall of the building.
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Outback. The contact stated while driving 70-75 mph in the rain, the vehicle independently accelerated without warning. The contact was unable to remember what was done to slow and stop the vehicle. The local dealer and manufacturer were not contacted. The failure mileage was unknown.
- West Bloomfield, MI, USA
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While sitting still at a red light with my foot on the brake and the gear in drive, the car will suddenly lurch forward several feet. It happens with such force that it feels like I was rear-ended. This has happened occasionally since I purchased the car in January 2016. Always when at a full stop on flat and sloped surfaces. At first I thought it only happened when the ac was on, but it has happened with the ac off.
I had experienced a shudder, pop, revving rpms of the vehicles before a sudden power loss at highway speed (65mph). I was unable to accelerate and had limited steering to get off the highway safely. The vehicle had stalled by the time I was on the side of the road. I was then unable to restart the vehicle after several attempts. A towing service was called to bring it to a local dealership. Within an hour time period the vehicle rapidly lost electrical power and hazard lights were no longer functional. This unfortunately was late at nighttime, making the visibility of the vehicle very minimal. The vehicle was evaluated at a local dealership and reported that there was a software problem with the charging systems of the car. The system was updated, but the dealership could not provide an explanation for the revving engine, shuddering, power loss and stalling that occurred prior to the inability to restart the vehicle on the side of the road.
After stopping at a stop sign on a city street, I tried to accelerate but there was a long hesitation followed by a surge of power. This happened on 2 occasions. I had the sales man drive the vehicle and also the service manager drove it for 1 week - neither times did this issue repeat itself. The dealership did not have any knowledge of this type of problem. I refused to drive this vehicle and returned it to the Subaru dealer in berlin, ct.
While driving slowly on street or pulling into intersection after light turned green, car has apparently slipped into neutral five times in the last two years. No ability to accelerate until put car into park and then into drive. No warning lights or alarms. Dealer unable to duplicate and says without duplicating problem, cannot fix. This is a safety issue since can easily be rear ended or hit on side in intersection. I am now afraid to drive this car since do not know when problem will reoccur.
Sudden acceleration: This serious unsafe condition relates to my 2016 Outback limited 2.5L purchased on 2/29/2016 in tampa Florida. The exact same unsafe condition has happened twice; first in October 2016 at approximately 8800 miles, and second in December 2017 at approximately 24,000 miles. Description of incident: While slowly pulling into a parking space and gently applying the brake, the car's engine RPM accelerated and I had to break hard in order to stop the car. I moved the transmission to park, but the engine continued at high RPM so I moved the transmission to reverse, then to neutral, then I turned off the car off since the engine was still at a high RPM. A notice appeared in my odometer area to put the car in park, which I did. I then restarted it and everything was back to normal again. Note: I did not simultaneously push the break and the accelerator together which could possibly cause this situation. I am fortunate nothing was in front of me either time. I hope no one has been injured, but it is likely property damage has resulted. Please determine the cause and correct this potentially deadly situation. I am taking my car for a 24,000 mile service on 1/3/2017 and will document this with the dealer (mastro Subaru) at that time. I suspect this is a computer glitch, and a potentially dangerous one at that. I also suspect other car manufacturers can have this same issue if these computers and programming all come from the same third party.
Eyesight technology warning showed inoperable along with lane departure and front end collision avoidance system. The car had been running less than 3 minutes after over 24. Pulled over called dealer who attempted to walk me through reset. Unsuccessful no availability for service so scheduled an appointment 3 days later. Car warning lights cleared on their own. Showed advisor email from auto mess. From Subaru indicating warning light was an issue. Was told code would be checked but Subaru was aware of the issue when some cars were overheated. Dealership was advised to clear the code and send people on their way. No codes registered at all in the system and when I let them know that car was absolutely not overheated, I was told there was nothing that could be done because Subaru knows that when cars overheat it sometimes happens. Nothing could be done but the greater concern is that their premise of when the issue is occurring is inaccurate at least in our car's case and it did not appear, due to the repetition of the company contention that overheating was the cause of the issue nor were they willing to entertain any other scenario than that which Subaru already decided. Spoke with Subaru of America who 7/10/17 customer service who stated not aware of any issues but would look in to it. By the end of day 7.13.17.
The contact owned a 2016 Subaru Outback. While driving approximately 5 mph, the vehicle suddenly experienced unintended acceleration. The driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a utility pole. The front end was severely damaged and the vehicle was destroyed; however, the air bags did not deploy. A police report was filed and there were no injuries. The cause of the failure was not determined. The dealer and the manufacturer were not notified. The failure mileage was 4,000. Updated 08/09/17 updated 10/13/2017
The Subaru eyesight system is dangerous. I've had two instances where the vehicle activated the forward-collision warning and started to break for reasons unknown to me. Once was in the middle of an intersection. Fortunately, the cars behind me were not too close to rear end me. This happened around 2 P.M. in the middle of summer with the sun behind the vehicle. I brought the vehicle in for recall work to the local Subaru dealership several months later and asked them to pull any relevant data for the two incidents. By then, the system cleared those two events. The dealer said I should purchase a video camera and run it in the car while driving to capture any false alarms in order to help them troubleshoot it as according to them the system does not capture any video/image data when it records an event. This is absolutely outrageous. Subaru has cameras in the eyesight system and flash memory to store data in - storing an image snapshot is not overly storage intensive, and yet I am supposed to invest several hundred dollars in an independent video camera to help Subaru debug their system. The dealership suggested not using eyesight on sunny days where the camera could be blinded by the sun. Hello - I live in Nevada, it's sunny here over 300 days per year. This would make the eyesight system practically useless and I'll lose cruise control. How am I supposed to know when it's too sunny for the system that it will malfunction?
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Outback. While the vehicle was secured in park with the emergency brake engaged, the vehicle lunged forward independently when the brake was released. The contact's vehicle crashed into another vehicle. The driver then shifted into reverse and the vehicle accelerated independently in reverse. The driver shifted into drive and the vehicle independently accelerated forward again and crashed into the side of a building. The vehicle jumped a curb and crashed into a tree coming to a stop. The air bags failed to deploy. A police report was filed and there were no injuries. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, but was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle was inspected by the dealer; however, a diagnostic test showed no fault codes. The approximate failure mileage was 1,100.
We bought this vehicle basically for the safety features "eye sight" and enhanced safety system.I.e. cruise that automatically keeps you a certain distance from the vehicle in front of you and stops when the car in front stops - trouble is you are going along and there is a line of cars stopped at a stop light - the car does not act like it is going to stop and certainly does not keep the "4 car distance" until you get scared and brake - not going to crash to see if it will actually stop.
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Outback. While driving 60 mph with the cruise control activated, the vehicle veered to the left without warning. The failure recurred on numerous occasions. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 1,400.
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Outback. While depressing the brake pedal to stop the vehicle, it accelerated and braked independently. The failure recurred various times. The vehicle was towed to a dealer where the cause of the failure was undetermined. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 2,300. The VIN was not provided.
The contact owns a 2016 Subaru Outback. The contact stated that the vehicle hesitated to accelerate. The vehicle was taken to a dealer, but was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 112.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Mount Prospect, IL, USA