Owners have filed 1 complaints on the Subaru Brat, covering 1982–1982. The system named most often is Tires (1 reports). Worst years by volume: 1982; cleanest: 1982. On average the car was 19.0 years old when the problem happened.
What breaks on Subaru Brat
Grouped by the system owners named — percentages are shares of all 1 Brat complaints. Open any row for the full reports in owners' own words.
Tires 1 Read
Consumer was traveling about 60 mph on highway and heard a loud noise, left front tire tread had separated. Uniroyal , p185/80r13. Dealership was aware of problem.*ak on another occasion, the left rear tire experienced tread separation at 30 mph, DOT number anjkbb0165
Brat years to avoid — and the clean ones
Complaints per model year. More reports usually means more cars on the road as well as more trouble, so read the crash and fire columns alongside the count.
| Model year | Complaints | Top system | Crashes | Fires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Tires | — | — |
Owners reported these. Find out if yours is one of them.
- Complaints matched to the exact production run, not just the model
- What the car is worth given what tends to fail on it
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How we count
Every figure here comes from complaints owners filed with NHTSA — 1,100,006 of them, covering 1,982 models built between 1981 and 2026.
A complaint is an unverified report: someone wrote down what happened to their car. It is not a confirmed defect and not a recall. What makes the volume useful is the pattern — when thousands of owners of the same build describe the same failure, that is a signal no marketing brochure will give you.
Two things we do that the source does not. First, we compute the age of the car at the moment of failure from the incident date and the model year. Second, we group complaints by the first 11 characters of the VIN — the production series — so a bad plant run does not disappear into a model-wide average.
Frequently asked questions
What are the worst years for the Brat?
By complaint volume, 1982 drew the most owner reports. Bear in mind that popular years put more cars on the road, so check the crash and fire columns too.
Which Brat years are the cleanest?
1982 have the fewest complaints on file. For recent years that can simply mean the cars are young.
How many complaints does the Subaru Brat have?
1 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, covering 1982–1982. Of those, 0 describe a crash and 0 a fire.
Are these complaints verified?
No. They are unverified reports from owners. NHTSA publishes them as filed and investigates only a fraction. The value is in the pattern, not in any single report.
Can I check complaints for one specific car?
Yes — enter its VIN above. We match the first 11 characters, which identify the plant, year, body and engine, so you get complaints on that exact production series rather than the whole model.