Other wheel or tire problem on the 2005 Subaru Legacy
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 8 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 6 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other wheel or tire problem gets reported
There are 8 reports of other wheel or tire problem on the 2005 Subaru Legacy, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 60,000 miles. It is the 12th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 19,654 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 3 a crash and 2 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $200–$1,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 225,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 16; the 2005 has 8. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Vehicle: 05 subaru gt limited sedan (purchased) 11/30/04) tire: bridgestone, potenza re92 (215/45 zr17. My wife and I skidded as we approached a stop sign on a level, snow covered road. I broke gradually and my speed was low, about 10 MPH as I started braking). Instead of stopping, the car just kept going even though I applied more brake pressure. If there had been a car ahead of us, I would have rearended it. I discovered very negative reviews of this tire on the folllowing 2 customer survey bases: tirerack.com and 1010tires.com. The majority of customers rated this tire as poor for wet traction and very poor (dangerous was used in some reviews) for snow traction. I have case #s w/soa & bridgestone. They and the dealer have refused my request to credit my oe tires for new ones. Many customers (ave of 2.6 out of 10) answered no when asked would you buy this tire again. I am very concerned that there is a safety issue with the re92 for wet traction, especially snow traction. Considering that subaru AWD vehicles built a reputation as a car that will be sure-footed in inclement weather, why would soa equip this car w/tires having a…
Right front wheel broke. Cast wheel. Found tire and rim 30 feet ahead of vehicle after crash due to loss of control. Vehicle spun, entered culvert facing opposite direction and impacted tree causing it to roll twice. Vehicle totaled. Geice insurance has possession of vehicle but will leave intact for another 30 days. Have pictures, broken rim and part of spoke. We've purchased a subaru forrester with subaru giving us a customer loyalty rebate. There is little doubt in our minds that this casting was defective and may cause many more serious accidents with death or injury. We we're frankly lucky. Pictures and comments can be viewed at http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?p=346119#post346119.*jb
Right front wheel broke. Cast wheel. Found tire and rim 30 feet ahead of vehicle after crash due to loss of control. Vehicle spun, entered culvert facing opposite direction and impacted tree causing it to roll twice. Vehicle totaled. Geice insurance has possession of vehicle but will leave intact for another 30 days. Have pictures, broken rim and part of spoke. We've purchased a subaru forrester with subaru giving us a customer loyalty rebate. There is little doubt in our minds that this casting was defective and may cause many more serious accidents with death or injury. We we're frankly lucky. Pictures and comments can be viewed at http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?p=346119#post346119.*jb
Also reported on the 2005 Subaru Legacy
Turbocharger or supercharger failure
Other engine problem
Wiring harness or short circuit
Other electrical problem
Other fuel system problem
Fuel leak or fuel odor
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 8 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 8 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other wheel or tire problem happen on the 2005 Subaru Legacy?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other wheel or tire problem on the 2005 Subaru Legacy?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed