Other speed control problem on the 2015 Subaru Outback
2 crashes 2 of the 16 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 speed control problem gets reported
Owners of the 2015 Subaru Outback report other speed control problem at a median of 35,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 55,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 70,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 67,197 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
58% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,003 miles | 12,508 miles | 33,850 miles | 56,750 miles | 69,200 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, 2 a crash 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 $250–$2,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 25 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2022, at a median of 700 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 38; the 2015 has 16. 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.
Accelerator suddenly became unresponsive resulting in complete slowdown to stop in traffic. Had to shut off vehicle and restart numerous time to get to safe location. Resulted in expensive fix and could have been disastrous if occurred during highway/heavy traffic situation. Apparently was a sensor of some sort. Happened a while ago, so date provided is approximate, but I just became aware of this site. *tr
I have 2015 subaru outback with eyesight and blind spot detection. I had stopped the vehicle in the driveway, about 10 ft from the garage, waiting for my husband to clean the floor. The engine was running. When my husband came out of the garage and signaled me to park the vehicle inside, I was about to move the vehicle slowly in the garage. However, the vehicle suddenly started like a bullet, as if it was trying to accelerate to that set speed, quickly. My husband heard the wheels screeching and the vehicle accelerating. He jumped on the side and survived by an inch or so. Within a fraction of a second, the vehicle hit the center support which supports the garage doors, then the snow blower and further struck the items kept against the wall between the house and the garage, before coming to a stop. It appears that, in addition to the brake I applied, eyesight may have helped stop the vehicle. I have been driving in the us for over 18 years without a single incident. Parking in the garage is the simplest of all the tasks. I strongly believe that the vehicle may have accelerated on it's own due to some malfunction.
Unintended acceleration. When driving at low speeds--what would traditionally be 1st and 2nd gear (the car has a continually variable transmission)--and while keeping constant pressure on the gas pedal, the transmission changes the acceleration of the vehicle on its own in a process that feels like it can't find the right "gear", and it provides a "jerking" feeling (usually only a couple of "jerks"). Yet the transmission is not just finding the right gear for a specific constant speed; as it shifts around, the acceleration changes and has, with constant pressure on the pedal, accelerated faster on its own. I have never felt less control of a vehicle as I have with this one.
Also reported on the 2015 Subaru Outback
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Windshield cracking
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other body or interior problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 16 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 speed control problem happen on the 2015 Subaru Outback?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 55,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other speed control problem on the 2015 Subaru Outback?
16 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.1 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