Headlight failure or clouding on the 2011 Subaru Legacy
When headlight failure or clouding gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Subaru Legacy report headlight failure or clouding at a median of 60,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 85,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 72,300 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,300 miles | 16,750 miles | 60,000 miles | 82,150 miles | 82,600 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
Putting it right typically runs $150–$1,800 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 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 10 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2011 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
I am in the process of replacing my third total set of low beam headlights. This has been going on since the first year since I purchased the car. First one side then the other burn out, and it is very difficult to replace the bulbs so it costs a lot of money. I have owned many cars and I have never experienced this, either the performance of the bulbs or the inaccessibility of the design making them impossible to replace without extreme cost. I have used high quality bulbs and it doesn't seem to matter. They all just burn out. It seems like other people are having this problem as well. *tr
The 2011 legacy headlight design is poor. I have gone through 4 sets of low beams and currently refuse to replace them again. I refuse to take the car to the dealer for them to replace the low beams due to having to remove the wheel and inner wheel well for access. I know this is not just me, I have read in many other places and forums that other owners have the same problem. It would be nice to have some sort of resolution or fix other than converting to a h.I.d. Lighting system. *tr
All 2015 subaru legacys, including mine, have a horseshoe shaped cloudy image on the plastic headlight lens when the low beams are turned on. It appears to be a result of a reflection from the headlight bulb because when the lights are off the cloudy image is no longer there. I noticed the lights were projecting an inferior beam making night driving more difficult due to this cloudiness in the plastic lens covering the headlight assembly. I have contacted a few subaru service people and they know about it but subaru is not forthcoming with any information. I did write to their customer service in nj but no answer as of yet. I feel this is a safety defect as it does affect the light distribution and secondly it looks bad as well. Checking with other legacy models on the car lot has shown they all have this same image which I call the "bat signal" as used in the batman movies. I would appreciate a better lighting system on a $25,000 new car with less than 1000 miles. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. *tr
Also reported on the 2011 Subaru Legacy
Torque converter failure
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
CVT failure
Other electrical problem
Other steering problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 15 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 headlight failure or clouding happen on the 2011 Subaru Legacy?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is headlight failure or clouding on the 2011 Subaru Legacy?
15 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