Other engine problem on the 2013 Subaru Outback
1 crash 2 fires 3 of the 38 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 2013 Subaru Outback report other engine problem at a median of 35,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 26 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 120,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 118,250 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.
50% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,750 miles | 8,653 miles | 35,000 miles | 90,036 miles | 121,000 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 crash and 2 a fire 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 $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 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 brought the car in for a routine repair. When I got it back it began to malfunction. It would not shift correctly. The automatic transmission was slipping. The car did not accelerate correctly and chugged. The acceleration abruptly stopped at a high speed on the freeway nearly causing a severe accident and replicated this at a low speed, and from a stop. I returned the car 3 times and the issues remain consistent. To date subaru of america has not addressed my concerns. The car is unsafe for me and my family. Downtown oakland subaru has yet to identify what is the cause of the malfunction. Each service department person has test driven the car and experienced the same issues. *tr
After stopping at a stop sign, I attempted to drive off, but the car did not accelerate on application of the throttle pedal. The engine remained at idle, and the car rolled slowly into the intersection. Nothing I did corrected the problem until I placed the transmission in park, turned off the engine, then re-started the car. The car then performed normally until I reached the next stop sign, where the problem repeated. In all, the problem occurred seven (7) times on this day, apparently at random. That is, at some stops the car performed normally, and at other stops, the car failed to accelerate when the throttle pedal was depressed. The service department at my subaru dealer was unable to replicate the problem and therefore performed no repairs. Two weeks later, the problem occurred again, three (3) times in two days. This is an extremely dangerous problem, because it can leave the car in a busy intersection without the ability to move until the driver turns off the car and then re-starts it. This problem has been noted by other subaru outback owners in online forums, and at least one other vehicle safety complaint has been…
Tl* the contact owns a 2013 subaru outback. While driving 60 MPH, the oil change indicator illuminated. The contact adhered to the oil change schedule, but the failure occurred numerous times. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The approximate failure mileage was 3,000.
Also reported on the 2013 Subaru Outback
Excessive oil consumption
Other steering problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Other powertrain problem
Parking brake failure
Cruise control failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 38 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 2013 Subaru Outback?
Across 26 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 90,000 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 2013 Subaru Outback?
38 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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