AtWhatMileage
Body · 20 owner reports

Other body or interior problem on the 2020 Subaru Outback

Reports of this failure 20
With an odometer reading 10
Reports per 1,000 built 0.4 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $200–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 11th

When other body or interior problem gets reported

Owners of the 2020 Subaru Outback report other body or interior problem at a median of 10,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 15,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 1,800 miles at the tenth percentile to 20,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 16,260 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.

100% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 10 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
1,840 miles 3,175 miles 8,550 miles 12,913 miles 18,100 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

Putting it right typically runs $200–$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.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 26 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 500 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 140,000 miles.

By volume the 2017 carries the most reports, with 25; the 2020 has 20. 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.

Median
  1. 1996 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 88k
  2. 1997 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 138k
  3. 1998 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 104k
  4. 1999 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 130k
  5. 2000 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 49k
  6. 2001 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 74k
  7. 2002 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 130k
  8. 2003 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 19k
  9. 2004 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 119k
  10. 2005 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 94k
  11. 2006 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 49k
  12. 2007 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 117k
  13. 2008 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 35k
  14. 2009 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 51k
  15. 2010 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 16k
  16. 2011 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 13k
  17. 2012 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 24k
  18. 2013 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 30k
  19. 2014 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 41k
  20. 2015 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 3k
  21. 2016 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 18k
  22. 2017 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 40k
  23. 2018 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 14k
  24. 2019 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 1k
  25. 2020 (this one) 9k
  26. 2021 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 500
  27. 2022 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  28. 2023 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  29. 2024 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 3k
  30. 2025 Subaru Outback other body or interior problem 25k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

Also reported on the 2020 Subaru Outback

Other visibility problem

257 reports median 6k

Other electrical problem

151 reports median 5k

Windshield cracking

142 reports median 6k

Infotainment screen failure

35 reports median 6k

Lane keep or steering assist fault

35 reports median 9k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 20 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 body or interior problem happen on the 2020 Subaru Outback?

Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 15,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other body or interior problem on the 2020 Subaru Outback?

20 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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