2017 SUBARU OUTBACK — Complaint #1818951
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC:BRAKE FLUID LOW WARNING:SWITCH/SENSOR/FLOAT filed June 13, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1818951 (ODI reference 11469067) concerns a 2017 SUBARU OUTBACK and was filed on June 13, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 22, 2022. The vehicle had 41,806 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Tennessee based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as service brakes, hydraulic:brake fluid low warning:switch/sensor/float, 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: yes, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. 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 service brakes, hydraulic:brake fluid low warning:switch/sensor/float 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 2017 SUBARU OUTBACK shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owned a 2017 Subaru Outback. The contact stated while reversing, the vehicle accelerated backward. The contact pumped the brake pedal and was depressed aggressively several times however the brakes failed to respond. The vehicle collided with a pillar of bricks causing the vehicle to stop. No airbag deployed and no one was injured. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a collision center where the insurance deemed the vehicle a total loss. The manufacturer was contacted and a complaint was filed. The failure mileage was 41,806.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1818951 |
| ODI Number | 11469067 |
| Date Filed | June 13, 2022 |
| Failure Date | April 22, 2022 |
| VIN | 4S4BSENC3H3 |
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.