Federal complaint record · Subaru Legacy · model year 2005

2005 Subaru Legacy

Owners submitted 182 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 33th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2003 to 2007 midsize sedan cohort. The largest reported component group is engine. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Engine · 14% · group n = 34Brakes · 12% · group n = 30Fuel system · 11% · group n = 27Electrical · 10% · group n = 25Airbags · 9% · group n = 22
182
Complaint records on file
74,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 139 complaints reported mileage
14%
Of classified component entries name engine · group n = 34
33th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 47 model years

What the numbers tell you

Understanding the 2005 Subaru Legacy complaints

Which systems appear most often?

The largest component group is engine: 34 entries, or 13.7% of classified component entries. Next is brakes: 30 entries, or 12.1% of classified component entries. A complaint can name several components, so these percentages describe the entries in the file, not the percentage of vehicles affected. Only the leading component groups are displayed.

At what mileage were problems reported?

The median reported mileage is 74,000 miles, based on 139 complaints with usable mileage (76.4% of the 182 complaint incidents). Half of those reported mileages are at or below the median and half at or above it. This sample excludes missing or unusable mileage and does not predict when another vehicle will develop a problem.

Use these patterns to prepare questions about a particular vehicle's service history. Complaint reports describe submitted experiences; they do not establish the cause, repair cost, or condition of every 2005 Subaru Legacy. Read the symptom groups below alongside the source documents and a VIN-specific recall check.

Engine · 13.7% of classified component entries

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Engine14%

Engine reports

Subaru Legacy · model year 2005

Component entries in this group34
Share of classified component entries13.7%
Leading component groups shown6
Open the failure files

From the record · recurring narrative clusters

Reported problems with the 2005 Subaru Legacy

How clusters are built
Brake performance · 37 reports

37 of the 182 2005 Subaru Legacy complaint incidents were assigned to the brake performance group.

20.3% of this model year's complaint incidents matched this group first in the keyword screen. This is a text classification, not a confirmed diagnosis.

Cluster 1 of 32005 Subaru Legacy
Airbag concerns · 12 reports

12 2005 Subaru Legacy complaint incidents were assigned to this group: 6.6% of the 182 incidents on file.

Cluster 2 of 32005 Subaru Legacy
Fire or smoke · 11 reports

11 2005 Subaru Legacy complaint incidents were assigned to this group: 6.0% of the 182 incidents on file.

Cluster 3 of 32005 Subaru Legacy

Each complaint is assigned to the first matching keyword group, even if it mentions several symptoms. Only the leading published groups are shown. Unmatched reports and other groups remain in the total, so these percentages need not add to 100%. A keyword match can miss context; it is not an owner quotation or proof of a defect.

Sources and further research

Research the 2005 Subaru Legacy

This page summarizes owner-submitted NHTSA complaints through 2026-07-19. Complaint patterns do not establish a defect in every vehicle. The complaint counts here are not recall counts, and this page does not determine whether a particular vehicle has an open recall. Check a VIN for open recalls at NHTSA and read how MotorCensus processes the complaint data.

Records through 2026-07-19Published 2026-08-02 · Page updated 2026-09-21

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NHTSA consumer complaint records can reveal recurring patterns across published model years. MotorCensus summarizes those records as one complaint-signal index, with a 95% interval and sample size, updated with each data snapshot.