2016 SUBARU OUTBACK — Complaint #1450825
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEAT BELTS:REAR/OTHER filed February 27, 2018
NHTSA complaint #1450825 (ODI reference 11075241) concerns a 2016 SUBARU OUTBACK and was filed on February 27, 2018. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 13, 2018. The vehicle had 20,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Washington based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seat belts:rear/other, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same SUBARU OUTBACK cohort independently describe similar seat belts:rear/other failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2016 SUBARU OUTBACK shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
THE CENTER SEATBELT IN THE BACK SEAT ( THE ONE THAT COMES DOWN FROM THE ROOF OF THE VEHICLE) HAS FRAYED AND BECOME TORN THREE TIMES IN 20 MONTHS. THE FIRST REPAIR WAS DONE DEC 21, 2016, SECOND WAS OCT 27,2017 AND THE MOST RECENT WAS FEB 13,2018. THE BELT SYSTEM HAS BEEN REPORTED AS REPLACED ALL THREE TIMES, BUT IT KEEPS OCCURRING IN THE SAME PLACE AND MANNER EACH TIME. I AM CONTINUALLY TOLD THAT THIS IS FROM OUTSIDE FORCES, BUT HAVE INVESTIGATED AND DON'T BELIEVE THIS TO BE TRUE AT ALL, MY CHILDREN RIDE BACK THERE, TOYS AND OTHER OBJECTS ARE NOT BROUGHT INTO THE VEHICLE AND THE BOOSTER THAT IS OCCASIONALLY USED THERE HAS BEEN RULED OUT BY SUBARU.. I WAS TOLD THAT SINCE 2013 14 BELTS HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY THEY GENERAL PARTS MANAGER IN MY DISTRICT, AND THREE OF THEM HAVE BEEN MY CAR. I HAVE LEASED THIS WITH THE INTENTION TO OWN, BUT NOW FEEL THAT IF THIS HAS OCCURRED 3 TIMES IN 20 MONTHS THIS CAR IS NOT SAFE FOR MY CHILDREN. SUBARU ISN'T BEING MUCH HELP, I NEED ANSWERS SO THAT I CAN GUA
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1450825 |
| ODI Number | 11075241 |
| Date Filed | February 27, 2018 |
| Failure Date | February 13, 2018 |
| VIN | 4S4BSANC9G3 |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.