Other engine problem on the 2018 Subaru Outback
2 crashes 2 of the 21 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 2018 Subaru Outback report other engine problem at a median of 15,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 2,000 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 8th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 600 miles at the tenth percentile to 60,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 60,991 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 609 miles | 2,000 miles | 13,000 miles | 30,000 miles | 61,600 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, 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 $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 2018 has 21. 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.
Engine cuts off unexpectedly while driving down the road. I'm able to restart after pulling off the side of the road. February 22 and march 24, 2018 were the first two times the issue happened. I took my car to the dealership, and they said subaru was aware of the issue. They told me to keep my gas above half a tank. The issue hasn't happened since I started keeping my gas half full. The 'miles to empty' gage is very inaccurate. I feel very unsafe driving the car because it spontaneously cuts off, and I'm worried it will cut off in an intersection of a major highway. The service department at macon, ga subaru has been very unhelpful and unwilling to diagnose the problem. The field service engineer named kevin said the problem is likely caused by failure of one of two parts involving the fuel system. However, they are unwilling to replace the parts. The dealership expressed concern that their service department would have to take the brunt of the cost if they sent my part back to subaru. This seems like an unacceptable reason to refuse to attempt the repair of such a serious safety issue.
** 2018 subaru outback ** this has happened three times** driving car when car shuts off complete loss of power engine turns off without warning at various speeds - seems to occur when the low fuel warning system turns on at 1/4 tank of gas. This 3rd time almost got me killed traveling at 45mpg when it happened today inside a major intersection. Software / sensor for the low fuel system? Something is very seriously wrong. 1. Is this car safe to drive with a full tank of gas? 2. Has there been other complaints about this exact problem? 3. Is there a recall or fix ?
Also reported on the 2018 Subaru Outback
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Infotainment screen failure
Windshield cracking
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 21 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 2018 Subaru Outback?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 15,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 2,000 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 engine problem on the 2018 Subaru Outback?
21 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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