Other steering problem on the 2017 Subaru Outback
1 crash 1 of the 15 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 steering problem gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Subaru Outback report other steering problem at a median of 10,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 300 miles and a quarter after 30,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 14th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 200 miles at the tenth percentile to 40,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 39,599 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
78% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 201 miles | 300 miles | 12,000 miles | 30,000 miles | 39,800 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 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 $350–$2,400 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 18 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 15 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 90,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 37; the 2017 has 15. 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.
I purchased my 2017 subaru outback brand new in january, 2017. Currently, in may 2017, the vehicle has 3200 miles of operation. The problem I am having is three-fold. 1. Around town in city traffic, the steering is heavy and difficult to control. It is very tiring to drive the vehicle under these condition. At times, it feels as if you may suddenly loose control of the steering. 2. The vehicle wanders. At highway speeds, it is difficult to keep the vehicle on center of the lane. You must constantly correct from left to right in order to keep the car on-track. At one time during one of these corrections, the vehicle crossed the lane divider and almost impacted the vehicle driving adjacent to me. 3. Steering wheel does not return to straight ahead. The vehicle does not "return to center" under any operating conditions. On most cars, if you turn the wheel left or right, the steering geometry tries to return the steering wheel to center position to keep the vehicle traveling in a straight line. The subaru outback does not exhibit this capability.
My outback was purchased new in april 2017. My concern is that steering is imprecise, particularly at highway speeds. The vehicle wanders/requires nearly constant "centering" and does not tend to return to center after turning. I have sometimes felt a fear that a gust of wind or road anomaly at the wrong time will cause this vehicle to leave the road surface unexpectedly.
Since purchase on 2/19/17 from parker subaru cda, complaint of shaking front end, wandering on highway and freeway from side to side in a dangerous manner, from complete loss of steering in snow, slush and gravel as of 2/28/17. I have been very specific about the incidence. Going in my driveway at least 8 inccidents; in snow or slush conditions, in depts on only a couple inches or less in the winter of 2017. In the summer of 2017 three incidents of complete failure was reported on grave road at speeds of 15-MPH, I have had the very same complaint every visit: 2/28/17, 3/23/17, 4/6/17. 9/13/17, 10/22/17, 1/22/17- @ parker subaru cda.
Also reported on the 2017 Subaru Outback
Other electrical problem
Other visibility problem
Windshield cracking
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other powertrain problem
Parasitic battery drain
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 other steering problem happen on the 2017 Subaru Outback?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 300 miles and a quarter after 30,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other steering problem on the 2017 Subaru Outback?
15 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.5 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