Other visibility problem on the 2015 Subaru Outback
1 fire 1 injury 2 of the 105 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 visibility problem gets reported
Owners of the 2015 Subaru Outback report other visibility problem at a median of 10,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 2,500 miles and a quarter after 35,000 miles, from 98 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 800 miles at the tenth percentile to 62,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 62,753 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.
78% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 847 miles | 2,625 miles | 10,000 miles | 34,250 miles | 63,600 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
Of these reports, 1 a fire and 1 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 $150–$1,400 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 2,400 miles, and latest on the 2006 at 125,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 260; the 2015 has 105. 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.
This car has a screen in the dashboard that controls the stereo, phone, and other functions. It has a very reflective glassy finish. The screen is not surrounded by a hood of any sort and it is titled at about a 50-degree angle. On other occasions, I have noticed that this screen reflects a lot of sunlight, but it was more of an annoyance than anything. On this occasion, I was driving the car at about 1:30 in the afternoon, going east on a highway. The dashboard screen was reflecting the sun into my eyes so directly that it was painful. It was also distracting. The light was so bright and so consistent that I had to drive while holding my right hand in front of the screen to block the light. I had to drive that way for probably half an hour. I did not have any sort of "accident." however, I can foresee that under the wrong circumstances, this characteristic of the car could blind or distract a driver from seeing other traffic, traffic signals, etc. And cause an accident. It could also cause someone to keep one hand off the wheel and maybe cause an accident that way. It is my opinion that this characteristic of the car should be…
After owning car roughly 1.5 months, front windshield developed a roughly 15 - 20 inch crack starting from top left side starting from the edge, working down and across. Crack appears to have started in the edge heating element. Possible minor rock scrape, but no "pit" or "star." *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2015 subaru outback. The contact stated that while the vehicle was on, the front window defroster caused the front windshield to crack. The crack was located in the middle of the windshield and extended upward. Also, the contact indicated that the plastic exterior panel near the window melted. The cause of the failure was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 3,400...updated 06/09/15*bf updated 9/28/2017*cn
Also reported on the 2015 Subaru Outback
Other electrical problem
Windshield cracking
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other body or interior problem
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 105 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 visibility problem happen on the 2015 Subaru Outback?
Across 98 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 2,500 miles and a quarter after 35,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other visibility problem on the 2015 Subaru Outback?
105 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 7.3 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