2016 SUBARU OUTBACK Complaints

The lock on the side of the door that turns on the child lock so kids cannot open the door from the inside is stuck in the lock position and will not disengage.

Excessive oil consumption. Have to add a quart every 3300 miles. Twice in last two months on highway and city street, low oil warning came on. Mileage on auto is 72000 miles. All scheduled maintenance performed by Subaru dealer.

The "SELECT LEVER COMPLETE" or fear shift neutral park sensor switch stops working. Subaru has acknowledged the issue and issued a TSB (NUMBER: 16-112-18R). The issue is that the car does not sense it is in park or Neutral, even though the shifter is in that position. For keyed cars, the key cannot be removed and for push to start the car rear gate does not open and an alarm sounds when doors are open when the ignition is on. The car warns to move shifter to Park, even though the car is shifted to park. Car has been serviced several times with complaints indicating symptoms of issue, but was never informed of cause and lever select was never replaced.

The Eyesight system will malfunction and turn off at random times. The Automatic Emergency Braking and Forward Collision Warning will activate when there is nothing in front of my car causing it to brake abruptly. I have almost been in numerous collisions due to the random safety systems malfunctioning.

There is a strong smell of engine exhaust in the cabin as other people have submitted similar complaints.

Recently, My daughter noticed the strong smell of exhaust in the car. It turns out the there is a leak in the exhaust manifold. Subaru issued SERVICE PROGRAM BULLETIN WUJ-95R to address a issue where a bellows in the exhaust cracked and allowed the leakage of exhaust gases in front of the CC, releasing noxious gases into the air and into the driver compartment. Problem is they only applied this to a small amount of the production of the 2016 outback. This issue has been occurring on 2015 to 2019 models since and they did not include them in the recall. To fix this issue because of a design flaw the CC (Catalytic Converter) also needs to be replaced at a cost of over 3000 dollars. My ask is that they should extend this recall to cover all the cars with this design as it is a serious health issue to drivers of the cars. This is not an issue where rust is causing exhaust to break out, This is a manufacturing design issue where cars are having the issue which were only a couple years old. In my case, the Bellows in question were replaced by the previous owner at less than 4 years old and I did not know about that. So when that repair failed(not the permanent fix offered in the service bulletin) Subaru told me I am on my own though the CC should be covered to 150K in New York State. I feel they should be responsible to address this issue for all the models with the defective design.

My 2016 Subaru Outback has gone through 5 batteries since purchase in 4/2016. The reason for my contact with you is that the Navigation function “eyesight” has been problematic for at least two years and began with the third of five batteries. The function stops working randomly at any hour of the day and in all conditions. This year it went off and on in excess of 300-400 times. Each time it stops, cruise control, lane warnings, etc. are off. This can be harrowing with highway driving. On the three occasions I took it to the dealer the past two years they could not find a cause. After I replaced the battery again recently, they reset a DCM whose warranty had been extended by Subaru and that I brought in myself. There have been a number of parasitic drain tests, some finding a drain, others not on the batteries When the car was returned to me, the navigation system went off only once that same day but I presume it will go off in the future. I do not find the car or system reliable. The problem appears to be exceedingly hard to diagnose. Since these are the types of systems used with automatic and self driving car functions, I thought it important that you be made aware of the hazards these systems present.

Media screen failure. Is available for inspection. Safety of pedestrians or other accident at risk because the screen is useless in bright sunlight. Planning to complain to dealer. No warning signal or alert when backing up when screen is unreadable. This has caused accidents x 3 for my family. Backed into another car with no warning.

I have a vehicle built in 11/15. I had an issue with cracked pipes associated with the catalytic converter that appear to match an existing nhsta recall for vehicles built between 12/09/2013 – 9/30/2015. It appears that the previous recall was not expansive enough.

Travelling on I-95 southbound at approx. 70 mph in the right lane at least 8-10 car lengths behind another vehicle in front of me. Clear skies, 78* F, calm weather. I heard a loud, sudden noise followed by wind and what sounded like glass on my roof, thought it was fireworks or a gunshot. Pulled over to make sure my dogs are OK (all good, just spooked!) and see what happened to the car when I observed a large hole and continued cracking noise in the sunroof - glass was pushed outwards/ convex rather than concave as if an object had struck the glass from above or in front of my vehicle. Notified insurance then carefully drove home the remaining 20 or so miles, called dealership and started researching the issue. There are nearly 40 reports of spontaneous sunroof explosions on NHTSA website for Subaru Outbacks. Dealing with Subaru Corporate and a local dealership for repairs.