Other engine problem on the 2005 Subaru Outback
1 fire 1 of the 12 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.
When other engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 2005 Subaru Outback report other engine problem at a median of 90,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 135,000 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.
27% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20,000 miles | 40,675 miles | 90,000 miles | 137,000 miles | 155,000 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, 1 a fire is 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 $300–$4,000 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 28 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 1,500 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 38; the 2005 has 12. 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.
2005 subaru outback totally destroyed by fire of unknown origin approximately 30 minutes after engine shut off. No one was in the car and police/fire dept determined arson unlikely. *nm
I have been experiencing a problem while accelerating from a stop or from coasting, such as when a red light has just turned green. I begin to depress the accelerator and the engine just about dies. This has nearly caused me to get "t-boned" at intersections numerous times. I have brought it to the attention of two different subaru dealers and they say that nothing is wrong with it. I have heard that other subaru owners are having this problem but subaru will not admit that this is a safety issue. *jb
2005 subaru outback. The car was in park and my right foot was tucked back behind my left foot which was resting on the foot rest pad on the far left side of the floor. The engine was idling normally when suddenly it went to very high revs for 4 to 5 seconds and then returned to normal idle. Later the same evening, as I slowly entered my garage and applied normal brake pressure, the car first slowed (as expected) then suddenly began to accelerate. I applied hard brake pressure and the car stopped. It did not seem like the engine had revved as high as the earlier incident and it only lasted for a couple of seconds, but there was a definite, brief surge forward as I entered the garage. *tr
Also reported on the 2005 Subaru Outback
Other suspension problem
Cruise control failure
Other speed control problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Other lighting problem
Wiring harness or short circuit
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 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 engine problem happen on the 2005 Subaru Outback?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 90,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2005 Subaru Outback?
12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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