2002 Subaru Impreza: what breaks, and at what mileage

The failures owners actually file about

Owners have reported 41 named failure modes on the 2002 Subaru Impreza, and the three most-reported carry 45% of everything filed.

Fuel leak or fuel odor leads with 53 reports, about 1.3 per 1,000 vehicles and with the middle half of reports between 37k to 117,500 miles.

Other fuel system problem follows with 52 reports, usually reported between 40k to 72,500 miles.

Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure follows with 49 reports, usually reported between 87k to 162,500 miles.

By system, the reports fall mostly into fuel (108), brakes (62) and suspension (54).

What happens when these parts fail

Across the named modes, 9 mention a crash, 3 a fire and 8 an injury. Those are the words owners used in their own complaints, and NHTSA does not verify them, but they are the closest thing in this data to a measure of what a failure actually did.

The average severity weight across every report on this year is 4.74, where a stalled engine or a failed airbag weighs many times more than a rattling trim panel, and a figure this high means the reports are dominated by failures with safety consequences rather than annoyances. The weighting is set out in full on the methodology page.

What the top failures cost to put right, as editorial estimates for an independent US shop rather than figures from NHTSA: fuel leak or fuel odor at $300–$2,500, other fuel system problem at $300–$2,200, control arm, ball joint or bushing failure at $400–$2,200 and ABS module or sensor failure at $500–$2,400. Dealer labour, a seized bolt or a part that is no longer made can push any of these past the top of its range.

18% of the reports on this year sit in the engine, transmission, drivetrain or cooling systems — the four where a repair bill is usually four figures.

How often, against how many were built

Scaled by an estimate of how many of these cars exist, the 2002 Subaru Impreza draws about 8.0 per 1,000 vehicles, which puts it in the 85th percentile of complaint rates among 2002 vehicles we can rate.

That denominator is the weakest number on the page and it is fair to say so plainly. Rate per 1,000 uses a fleet-size estimate derived from recall paperwork for this exact model year. It is a lower bound.

The working figure is 42,287 vehicles. If the true number is twice that, every rate on this page is half what it says; the ranking against other 2002 vehicles, which is what the risk score uses, is far more robust than the rate itself.

Recalls on the 2002 model year

NHTSA has issued 6 recall campaigns covering the 2002 Subaru Impreza, affecting an estimated 112,127 vehicles. A recall is a different kind of evidence from a complaint: it is the regulator and the manufacturer agreeing that something has to be fixed, and the fix is free for as long as the car exists.

The campaigns cover suspension:front:control arm:lower arm, fuel system, gasoline:delivery:fuel pump, latches/locks/linkages:tailgate:latch and seats. Whether the work was actually done on the car in front of you is a question only the VIN can answer, and the manufacturer or NHTSA will answer it free.

One caution about reading these together: a recall usually raises the complaint count for the same part, because owners who read about it go and file. The mileages stay informative; the counts get noisy.

Where 2002 sits in the model line

High risk for a 2002 — 152nd riskiest of the 329 2002 vehicles we can rate. Every score on this site is a rank inside its own model year, which is what makes a 2004 and a 2019 comparable at all.

Across the 27 model years of this car that carry enough reports to score, 2015 comes out best at 65 and 2021 worst at 84, with 2002 itself at 69.

If the model year is negotiable, 2015 scores lower than 2002 by a margin worth acting on. Same body, same engines, different luck — usually a supplier change or a mid-cycle fix, which the complaint data can show but never explain.

Within the 2002–2007 generation specifically, 2003 is the strongest year at 66 and 2007 the weakest at 72.

Where to spend the inspection money

The mileages below are where the first quarter of reports for each mode had already been filed, which makes them the point at which a fault is worth looking for rather than the point at which it happens: ABS module or sensor failure from about 10k, other powertrain problem from about 13k, fuel leak or fuel odor from about 37k and other fuel system problem from about 40k.

On a 2002 Subaru Impreza with more miles than that on it, the useful question to put to a seller or a mechanic is whether ABS module or sensor failure has been dealt with, and if so with what parts and at whose expense. A car that has already had the repair is in a different position from one that has not.

Treat it as where to point the inspection, not as a prediction. A well-maintained example can sail past every mileage on this page, and a neglected one can fail well before the first of them.

The limits of complaint data

339 owner reports; fleet size estimated from this year's own recall paperwork. Every count on this page is therefore a floor: it is the number of owners who went to the trouble of filing with a federal agency, which is a small and self-selected fraction of the owners who had the fault.

Of those 339 reports, 225 carried an odometer reading, so the mileages here describe 66% of the sample rather than all of it. Owners also round: readings pile up on multiples of ten thousand, which is why this site publishes "about 90,000 miles" and not "91,438".

The failure modes are assigned by software reading the owner's own words, which is accurate in bulk and wrong in individual cases. A mode with a handful of reports may contain a misfiled one.

And nothing here predicts what one car will do. These are other people's complaints, filed years apart, on cars maintained by strangers. Read the page as a map of where this model year has previously gone wrong, then have the specific car in front of you inspected.