2020 SUBARU OUTBACK — Complaint #2074458
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STRUCTURE:BODY:HATCHBACK/LIFTGATE:SUPPORT DEVICE/STRUT filed March 17, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2074458 (ODI reference 11648691) concerns a 2020 SUBARU OUTBACK and was filed on March 17, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 9, 2021. The report was geocoded to New York based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as structure:body:hatchback/liftgate:support device/strut, 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 structure:body:hatchback/liftgate:support device/strut 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 2020 SUBARU OUTBACK shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I have owned the 2020 Subaru Outback since December 2020. Staring in 2021 there have been problems with the lift gate not opening to where it now closes immediately after opening it. This occurs randomly and causes a dangerous situation where one never knows when it will happen. The car has been brought in for service four times over the last four years. Now, that it is out of warranty, and Royal Subaru, Cortland NY, charged us, two weeks ago, $170 to repair the dysfunctional lift gate. The problem was not fixed. The car was left at last Thursday for the repairing the lift gate which they didnât fix. Subaru who now want to charge $991 to repair what the dealership was supposed to repair. The work had not been done as yet as it is a manufacturing defect, and a dangerous one at that. This Outback issue is not on my car alone as there have numerous online complaints about a malfunctioning lift gate problem. Itâs a law suit waiting to happen as one (family members, grandchildren, frien
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2074458 |
| ODI Number | 11648691 |
| Date Filed | March 17, 2025 |
| Failure Date | March 9, 2021 |
| VIN | 4S4BTAEC7L3 |
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.