Verified government source

NHTSA complaint #11438733

This page summarizes an official U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration owner complaint. Use the verification links below to confirm the record directly with NHTSA.

Vehicle

2021 SUBARU OUTBACK

Manufacturer

Subaru of America, Inc.

Components

UNKNOWN OR OTHER

Dates

Incident: 10/26/2021
Filed: 10/30/2021

Owner complaint summary

The vehicle on board computer system periodically goes completely black (i.e., completely shuts down) disabling all of the operator controls (heater/fan/defrost controls, seat heater controls, temp controls, navigation, radio and other dash monitoring and informational controls, etc.). I am not sure of all features/functions that are lost because it happens when I am driving and I cannot investigate to see what all functions/indications I have lost. It remains out of service for a short period (the times of the shut down seem to have varied) of time and then comes on and reboots itself. Sometimes it comes back to where/when it shut down, and sometimes it just comes back to the initial ignition/start screen. This requires action by the driver (which is a safety concern because it requires the driver's attention and is distracting) to reset control settings. Navigation sometimes requires resetting an address because the computer lost its destination. This is dangerous. I just had the vehicle serviced for this issue and had a Subaru "FIX" installed - that apparently did not work. The problem still exists.

This is an owner complaint filed with NHTSA (ODI #11438733). It is not automatically an official recall, investigation outcome, or manufacturer admission unless the complaint text itself describes one.

Official record ID (ODI): 11438733. This page is the human-readable source link used across afterwarranty. The raw JSON link proxies NHTSA's public API for machine verification; prefer this page when reading the complaint.