2022 Subaru Outback

The volume 2022 Outback Premium uses the naturally aspirated 2.5L FB25 BOXER four rated at 182 hp, unchanged for the sixth generation's third model year; the 2.4L turbo fitted to the XT trims and the new-for-2022 Wilderness makes 260 hp. 182 hp sits near the bottom of the wagon band, where luxury and performance wagons run 250–500 hp.

The volume 2.5L makes 176 lb-ft and makes it high in the rev range at 4,400 rpm, so a loaded Outback needs revs rather than a squeeze of the pedal on grades; the turbo's 277 lb-ft arriving at 2,000 rpm changes the car's character entirely and is the single strongest argument for stepping up to an XT.

The 2022 car's powertrain is unchanged from 2020, and instrumented runs of this 2.5L/CVT/AWD combination cluster tightly at 8.5–8.8 s (2020 Touring 8.5 s, 2020 Limited 8.7 s, 2023 Touring 8.6 s); 8.7 s is the representative figure for a ~3,650 lb permanently all-wheel-drive wagon. The 2022 Wilderness with the turbo has been timed at 5.8 s.

At light throttle the 2.5L boxer is quiet and unobtrusive, but with peak torque at 4,400 rpm any real demand sends the CVT to high revs, and reviewers of the 2022 car describe the base engine as adequate around town yet strained and loud when asked to pass or climb. Merging and grade-climbing require planning; nothing about the 2022 model year changed the powertrain.

Subaru's Lineartronic CVT with an 8-speed manual mode and steering-wheel paddles is among the better-calibrated units of its kind — decisive and unfussy in ordinary driving, and it keeps revs relaxed at cruising speed — but sudden throttle still produces the rubber-band sensation and the simulated ratios do not disguise the drone under hard acceleration.

Symmetrical full-time all-wheel drive is standard on all eight 2022 Outback trims with no front-drive version sold anywhere in the range, paired with 8.7 in of ground clearance (9.5 in on the new Wilderness), standard X-MODE with Hill Descent Control, and the dual-function X-MODE calibration on Onyx Edition XT and Wilderness. Only the absence of a true low range keeps it below the top of the band.

Two genuinely distinct gasoline engines — the 182-hp 2.5L NA and the 260-hp 2.4L turbo — span economy to real thrust across eight trims, and 2022 broadened the hardware around them with the Wilderness. But there is no hybrid, plug-in or electric Outback for 2022, leaving it behind wagon and crossover rivals that all offer at least one electrified option.

The volume 2.5L AWD Outback is EPA-rated 29 MPG combined for 2022 — a strong figure for a vehicle with permanent all-wheel drive and no electrification, and one MPG better than the 2023 rating that followed. The 2.4L turbo trims give up 3 MPG and the taller, all-terrain-tired Wilderness 5 MPG.

26 MPG city is competitive for a non-hybrid all-wheel-drive wagon, but the city cycle is where the absence of any electrified assist costs the Outback most — auto stop-start is the only recovery mechanism, with no regenerative braking or electric creep.

33 MPG highway is the Outback's best cycle and the foundation of its long-haul range, helped by the wagon body's lower frontal area than an equivalently sized SUV; the lifted, knobbier-tired Wilderness drops all the way to 26 MPG.

An 18.5-gallon tank against the 29 MPG combined rating yields an EPA total range of 536 miles, comfortably above the wagon midpoint and a genuine road-trip strength; steady highway running stretches past 600 miles.

EPA's standard 15,000-mile assumption puts the volume 2.5L Outback at $2,100 a year on regular fuel — a mid-band result that reflects paying for standard all-wheel drive with no electrification to offset it, and several hundred dollars a year more than a hybrid wagon or crossover.

Every 2022 Outback engine runs on regular 87-octane unleaded — the 260-hp 2.4L turbo and the Wilderness included — so there is no premium surcharge anywhere in the eight-trim range and no plug or charging arrangement to manage. The only caveat is the XT owner's manual recommending 91 octane when towing, which nudges it just below a perfect flexible-fuel case.

The 2022 Outback holds NHTSA's top 5-star overall rating, with 5 stars in both the frontal and side programs and 4 in rollover — the usual result for a tall wagon, where the rollover star is a calculated risk figure rather than a crash outcome. Only the frontal passenger sub-score (4 stars) sits below the top grade.

The 2022 Outback is a 2022 IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+ with Good in all six crashworthiness evaluations — both small overlap tests, moderate overlap front, the original side test, roof strength and head restraints. It sits above a bare TSP+ on one specific merit: when IIHS ran its much harder updated side test (4,200-lb barrier at 37 mph, 82% more energy) against seven midsize cars, the Outback was the *only* one to earn Good, so the body structure clears a bar its whole peer group failed. Held short of the very top because the same generation's rear-seat protection in IIHS's updated moderate overlap test — run on the following model year of this unchanged structure — came back Acceptable and was later revised down to Marginal, with the rear dummy submarining beneath the lap belt.

EyeSight is standard on every 2022 trim including the $26,945 Base, so the forward-facing half of the suite is complete on the cheapest car: pre-collision braking and throttle management, Advanced Adaptive Cruise Control with lane centering, lane keep assist, and lane departure/sway warning. Everything behind the driver is a trim walk. Blind-Spot Detection with Lane Change Assist and Rear Cross-Traffic Alert is not offered at any price on Base, is a $1,400 option on the volume Premium, and only becomes standard from Limited up — so a Premium as commonly ordered has no blind-spot coverage at all. A notch below the following model year, which paired the same trim walk with a wider-field-of-view EyeSight camera and added Automatic Emergency Steering.

IIHS rates the 2022 Outback Superior in both front crash prevention programs that counted toward the award — vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian — which is the top grade in each. The nighttime pedestrian evaluation, new for 2022 and where camera-based systems typically give ground, returns Advanced rather than Superior: strong, but one step down and the reason this sits at the low end of the top band rather than alongside the following model year's clean sweep.

Where fitted, the system does the job — mirror-mounted Blind-Spot Detection with Lane Change Assist, Rear Cross-Traffic Alert, and Reverse Automatic Braking as a genuine intervention behind the car — but the availability is the problem. It cannot be bought at any price on Base, costs $1,400 on the volume Premium, and only becomes standard from Limited up, coverage most rivals at this price make standard; lane-change assistance itself is alert-only, with no steering intervention (Automatic Emergency Steering arrives with the following year's refresh) and no trailer-aware mode.

Lane departure and sway warning plus lane keep assist are standard on every trim, and EyeSight adds lane centering whenever the adaptive cruise is engaged — a real advantage at the Base price, since rivals routinely gate centering behind a package. Execution is the weak part: 2022 owners consistently report the centering ping-ponging between the lane markings, hugging the left line, correcting right hard enough to trip the lane departure warning, and behaving erratically wherever the striping is discontinuous, with enough of them switching it off to keep this in the middle band rather than the top one.

Advanced Adaptive Cruise Control is full-speed-range with traffic stop-and-go and is standard on every trim including the $26,945 Base — there is no trim walk to reach it, which is the most valuable thing about the system and the reason it clears the middle band. What it is not is an integrated highway-driving mode: centering is hands-on and the two functions are stacked rather than blended, and the pre-refresh camera calibration draws the same owner complaints about wandering and abrupt corrections in curves that keep the lane function short of trustworthy.

Subaru offered no hands-free highway driving on any 2022 Outback trim. EyeSight is hands-on throughout, and the DriverFocus camera fitted to the upper trims watches for distraction and drowsiness rather than granting hands-off permission; Subaru's Highway Hands-Free Assist arrives on a later generation of this car.

IIHS rates the 2022 Outback's headlights Good, and the LED steering-responsive projectors with High Beam Assist are standard from Base up — no trim-dependent downgrade, which is the usual way a car loses points here and what satisfied the TSP+ requirement that every trim carry good-or-acceptable headlights. Short of the very top only for the absence of an adaptive-driving-beam/matrix system.

The wagon body is the advantage — a low beltline, tall side glass, an upright rear window and slim pillars give sightlines that crossovers of this size cannot match, and reviewers rank the 2022 Outback at the top of its two-row class for outward visibility with sightlines described as unhindered. Camera compensation is the thin part: a rear-vision camera with adaptive guidelines is standard, but the 180-degree Front View Monitor is confined to the XT and Wilderness trims, the full LCD smart rear-view mirror to Touring, and no true 360-degree surround view is offered at any price.

IIHS rates the Outback's LATCH ease of use Good with extra anchor positions — its top grade, awarded for usable positions beyond the two required outboard sets. Wide rear door openings, a flat floor and the wagon's low load height make rear-facing installs straightforward, and the rear bench has the width to take multiple seats without a fight.

Every 2022 Outback trim from the $26,945 Base to the $39,945 Touring XT is a five-passenger two-row wagon with a reclining 60/40-split flat-folding rear bench; no captain's-chair or third-row configuration is offered. 2022 is the third model year of the sixth generation launched for 2020 and is pre-refresh — the facelift arrives for 2023.

40.1 inches of front headroom on the volume Premium tops the wagon band and beats most compact and mid-size crossovers — the Outback's tall, upright greenhouse is the whole reason to buy the body style. The optional power moonroof costs about an inch of it.

42.8 inches of front legroom on a 108.1-inch wheelbase is a solid mid-pack figure — enough that tall drivers never run out of seat travel, without the limousine-like front stretch of the largest crossovers.

39.1 inches in the second row sits at the top of the wagon band and beats most two-row crossovers — the roofline runs flat to the tailgate instead of tapering, so back-seat passengers sit upright with real space above their heads.

39.5 inches of rear legroom seats two adults behind two adults without negotiation and leaves room for rear-facing child seats — well clear of the segment midpoint and several inches better than the compact luxury wagons the Outback is cross-shopped against.

32.6 cubic feet behind the rear seat is an enormous figure for a wagon — more than most mid-size two-row SUVs offer — opening to 75.6 cubic feet with the seat folded. It is the single strongest number on the 2022 Outback's scorecard and the reason the body style still sells.

Storage is a deliberate strength rather than an afterthought: a covered console bin with tray, eight cup and bottle holders, an underfloor cargo well beneath the load floor, a removable cargo tray, a retractable cargo cover, grocery-bag and tie-down hooks, and integrated roof rails whose crossbars swing out of the rails themselves rather than needing to be carried separately. What holds it below the top band is the absence of any onboard AC power outlet and of any innovation beyond well-executed conventional storage — no 2022 trim offers a factory wireless charging pad, which is catalogued only as a dealer-installed accessory.

Consumer Reports' 2022 road test finds the front seats comfortable and the controls easy to use, and the volume Premium gets a 10-way power driver's seat with power lumbar as standard; the flat, reclining rear bench is genuinely usable for three across. It stays short of the top band because the passenger seat is only manually adjustable until the Limited, and Consumer Reports itself advises Premium shoppers to step up for the more supportive leather seats fitted higher in the range.

Long suspension travel and 8.7 inches of ride height give the 2022 Outback a genuinely absorbent ride that Consumer Reports rates above some luxury SUVs, and the balance is the point — potholes and drainage ditches are rounded off without the car going floaty. The tall body still leans more in corners than a conventional wagon, which is what keeps it just short of the very top.

Wind and road noise are well contained for the class at a steady highway cruise and Consumer Reports describes the cabin as quiet in ordinary use. The deduction is entirely the powertrain: the 182-hp 2.5L fitted to the volume trim becomes loud under duress, and because peak torque does not arrive until 4,400 rpm the CVT holds high revs on a grade, turning a brief acceleration into a sustained drone.

Cold-weather equipment starts early and is a genuine Subaru strength: dual-zone automatic climate control, heated front seats and the All-Weather Package's wiper de-icers and heated mirrors are all standard from the volume Premium, and 2022 is the year Premium gains rear ventilation outlets in the centre console. It sits mid-band because the heated steering wheel is merely optional on the Limited and unavailable at any price below it, ventilated front seats are limited to the Touring trims, and owners report the rear console outlets are fed by long, narrow ducting that produces minimal flow.

Subaru held 2022 pricing almost flat — the base Outback rose just $150 over 2021 while gaining standard LED fog lights — so the entry car lands at $28,070 delivered with Symmetrical AWD and EyeSight already included. That is the cheapest entry point of the sixth generation's later years and about $1,550 below the 2023 car that followed the refresh.

Premium is the Outback's volume trim and rose only $100 for 2022, adding rear center-console ventilation on top of the 11.6-inch portrait touchscreen, All-Weather Package, dual-zone climate and power driver's seat. At $30,270 delivered it undercuts every other AWD wagon on sale and most comparably equipped compact crossovers.

The hardware is conventional and well understood — a naturally aspirated boxer four and a Lineartronic CVT on ordinary service intervals — but standard all-wheel drive means four matched tires and a driveline the front-drive wagons don't carry, and Subaru of America includes no factory scheduled maintenance to offset the early years. Published estimates disagree by nearly a factor of three, so this is a blended figure toward the middle of the spread.

Retention is one of the Outback's real strengths, and the 2022 car had the most favorable circumstances of the generation: low MSRPs set before the inflation run-up, sold into the tightest new-vehicle market in modern memory, which props used values up rather than eroding them. It is also comfortably mid-generation — the seventh-generation redesign was still three years from being revealed — so no run-out discount is baked into its residuals.

Subaru's standard 3-year/36,000-mile basic coverage, unchanged for 2022 and sitting at the floor of the segment band. Hyundai, Kia and Genesis all beat it on the basic term and nothing about the Outback's positioning earns any of it back here.

The standard 5-year/60,000-mile powertrain term is the bottom of the band and half the mileage Hyundai and Kia offer. The one genuinely above-average line is corrosion coverage — 5 years with no mileage cap — which matters for a car sold heavily into salt-belt states, but that is not what this item measures.

Subaru of America offered no factory complimentary scheduled maintenance for 2022 — every oil change is out of pocket from day one, unlike Toyota's 2-year ToyotaCare (some individual retailers run their own 2-year/24,000-mile programs, but that is a dealer promotion, not brand coverage). What the buyer does get is 3 years of roadside assistance running with the basic warranty, a 3-year STARLINK Safety Plus trial (automatic collision notification, SOS emergency assistance, enhanced roadside, maintenance notifications and diagnostic alerts), a 6-month Safety and Security Plus trial, and a SiriusXM trial. That is basic roadside plus connected-services trials and nothing more, which lands just under the mid band.

$30,270 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (58% retained, or about $17,557) leaves about $12,713 in depreciation. Add the projected $4,400 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $17,113 in total.

2022 is a carry-over year in the sixth-generation (2020–2025) Outback — no refresh, the Wilderness trim added — and it is the weakest reliability vintage of that generation after the 2020 launch. Consumer Reports rates it only "about average reliability compared to other cars from the same model year," a full step below the 2023 car's "more reliable," with in-car electronics, electrical accessories and body hardware as the named trouble spots. The three-year data on these exact cars backs the softer read: Subaru placed outside the top ten brands in J.D. Power's 2025 VDS, which surveys 2022 model-year owners, against a 202 PP100 industry average — and the 2022 car's own NHTSA field record is 461 complaints, second only to the 896 on the launch-year 2020 and more than five times the 88 on the 2023.

The studies contemporaneous with a 2022 Outback put Subaru in the upper-middle of the field rather than the upper third it would reach a year later. Consumer Reports' November 2022 Annual Auto Reliability Survey ranked the brand seventh, behind Toyota, Lexus, Mazda and Honda. J.D. Power's 2022 Initial Quality Study — which measures 2022 model-year cars at 90 days — put Subaru at 191 PP100 against a 180 industry average, below par and a step backwards from 182 PP100 the year before; the brand would not clear the IQS average until the 2023 study. The three-year verdict on this model year is the same story: Subaru fell outside the 2025 VDS top ten while a 2023 Subaru would go on to place sixth at 181 PP100 in the 2026 VDS.

NHTSA lists four recall campaigns against the 2022 Outback, and the count overstates the exposure at both ends. Two are tiny build-batch actions — 15 cars with a damaged engine harness that can stall the engine, and 42 cars whose mis-applied clearcoat left the windshield insufficiently bonded, severe enough that Subaru's remedy was a repurchase or exchange rather than a repair. The other two are fleet-wide and real: 118,723 vehicles whose occupant-detection sensor can crack and short, disabling the front passenger airbag, and 95,830 whose inhibitor switch can admit water and kill the reverse lights and backup camera. What actually drags this year down is the complaint and litigation record rather than the recall sheet — 461 complaints on file, of which roughly 280 are windshields cracking without an impact, the same defect Subaru settled a class action over covering 2020–2022 Outbacks (~1.4 million vehicles across four nameplates, final approval April 2025). Electrical stalling, no-starts and premature 12V battery failure make up most of the rest.

The volume Premium trim's FB25 2.5-liter naturally aspirated boxer is a long-running, high-mileage-proven engine, and the FA24 turbo in the XT trims and the new-for-2022 Wilderness has run without red flags across Outback, Ascent and WRX duty since 2019, so the engines themselves are not the concern. The Lineartronic CVT is — matured well past the warranty extensions on 2010–2015 cars, but a chain-drive CVT behind full-time symmetrical AWD in a roughly 3,600 lb wagon remains the component long-term trackers flag, and the FB family still carries an oil-consumption reputation from earlier variants. The 2022 car's own field record is mixed rather than alarming: 21 engine and 17 power train complaints out of 461, several describing intermittent stall/no-start events, against one 15-car recall for a damaged engine harness that causes exactly that failure.

Reviewers of the 2022 car describe soft-touch materials across the dash and doors, switchgear with a high-quality feel, and stitched simulated leather on the dash, doors and center console even on the base trim, with StarTex water-repellent upholstery on Onyx and Wilderness and Nappa leather at the top — materially stronger than Subaru's past. What holds it mid-band is that none of it stands out: this is the pre-refresh sixth-generation cabin shared with the Legacy, plainly styled and repeatedly described as nicely finished but not especially attractive, and 2022 still splits the lineup with the base trim on dual 7.0-inch screens while the 11.6-inch portrait Starlink unit starts at the volume Premium trim. Equipment changes for 2022 were minor — standard LED fog lights across the range, rear console ventilation added to Premium.

Assembly is competent — reviewers call the cabin well made and solidly finished, and it is built on a settled line at Subaru Indiana Automotive — but 2022 is the year the initial-quality evidence goes the wrong way, and that is what separates it from the rest of this generation. J.D. Power's 2022 IQS put Subaru at 191 PP100 against a 180 industry average, below par and worse than the year before. The 2022 car's own defect record is heavy on the things this item measures: windshields cracking without impact dominate 461 NHTSA complaints and became a class-action settlement, and Consumer Reports owners additionally report seat stitching separating, tailgate and keyless-entry faults, and 12V batteries failing at 20–30k miles. Road and wind noise remains the standing press criticism.

Service is Subaru's strongest suit, and the study that actually surveys owners of this car says so: J.D. Power's 2023 Customer Service Index — fielded on 2020–2022 model-year owners, so 2022 Outbacks are in the sample — ranked Subaru highest of all mass market brands at 866, ahead of Mazda and Honda. The roughly 630–640 retailer network is dense in the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Mountain West and Colorado where the Outback actually sells and thinner across the Deep South and rural Texas. A point off the higher marks this generation carries elsewhere, because the contemporaneous 2022 CSI (2019–2021 model years) did not place Subaru in the mass market top five.

Outback volume means OEM and aftermarket parts are stocked everywhere and repair frequency is low, but running costs sit a shade above average rather than cheap: RepairPal puts average annual repair and maintenance at $607 against roughly $573 for the midsize-crossover set, with standard symmetrical AWD, a boxer layout that makes routine jobs like spark plugs more labor-intensive than an inline-four, and CVT service behind the gap. The 2022-specific cost is glass: with EyeSight's stereo camera mounted to the windshield, each of the many replacements these owners report needs a calibrated OEM unit rather than a cheap aftermarket one, and owners were paying out of pocket until the class-action settlement opened reimbursement in early 2025.

The volume Premium trim carries the 11.6-inch portrait STARLINK Multimedia Plus screen, standard on every 2022 trim except the entry Base car, which keeps the dual 7.0-inch setup. 11.6 inches is the maximum offered for 2022 and stays so through the end of this generation.

This is the 2022 Outback's worst feature and the evidence is not merely subjective preference — it is a reliability finding. Consumer Reports' own test car had the screen freeze on at least two occasions, taking the climate controls with it, and names in-car electronics as a trouble spot for the model year, with owners reporting the display freezing right after start-up and rebooting itself while driving. Almost all climate control including the heated-seat switches lives in a strip at the bottom of an 11.6-inch portrait display the driver must look down and reach for. Physical volume and tuning knobs plus the temperature buttons flanking the screen are the only things keeping this out of the bottom of the band.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard on every 2022 trim including the $26,945 Base, but wired only — no 2022 Outback offers wireless phone projection at any price or in any package. That is precisely the gap the 2023 refresh closed, when the Outback became the first Subaru with wireless CarPlay and Android Auto standard on the 11.6-inch system. Universal wired availability puts it at the floor of the middle band rather than below it.

Built-in TomTom-sourced navigation is standard on the Touring and the upper XT trims and is orderable on the volume Premium as part of a $2,995 option package, so a buyer who wants native maps can have them without a large trim walk. It sits mid-band because the volume trim does not get maps as standard, the native voice assistant handles fixed commands for audio, phone and climate rather than natural language, most owners default to phone projection anyway — and the what3words integration that broadened location entry arrives only with the 2023 car.

The Harman Kardon system is a real upgrade — twelve speakers on a 576-watt-equivalent GreenEdge amplifier — but it is tied to leather-trimmed trims and cannot be reached from the volume Premium at all: Premium, Onyx Edition XT and Wilderness buyers get six speakers with no upgrade path at any price. That closed door is what keeps this below the middle of the band despite a good premium option existing higher up the range.

No 2022 Outback trim offers a digital gauge cluster. Every car in the range, up to the $39,945 Touring XT, uses analog speedometer, tachometer, coolant-temperature and fuel gauges with a colour LCD screen among them, supplemented by a separate multi-function display on the dash top. The full-digital cluster arrives only with the 2026 redesign.

The 2022 Outback does receive over-the-air updates, but only for the multimedia head unit and navigation maps — infotainment software and nothing else. The update is pulled over the owner's home Wi-Fi with the car parked rather than through the vehicle's own cellular connection, making it a deliberate manual errand, and none of it reaches vehicle systems the way a whole-vehicle OTA architecture would. It sits at the bottom of the middle band because the freezing and reboot faults that most needed fixing on 2022 cars were addressed through dealer service tooling rather than over the air.

STARLINK Safety and Security Connected Services is standard from the volume Premium up and covers the expected ground — remote engine start with climate control, remote lock/unlock, vehicle locate, diagnostic alerts, maintenance notifications, automatic collision notification, SOS and Concierge — with a trial period that means most 2022 buyers never pay during their first ownership cycle. It sits mid-band rather than higher because the remote functions sit on the paid Security Plus tier once the trial expires, the Base trim gets nothing at all, and there is no digital-key or phone-as-key capability on any 2022 Subaru.

Device power is where the 2022 car has visibly aged: the front console carries a pair of USB-A ports and the volume Premium adds rear USB-A charging ports, but there is no USB-C anywhere in the vehicle at any trim level — Subaru added USB-C only with the 2023 refresh — no factory wireless charging pad on any trim, and no household AC outlet. The Base trim drops the rear ports entirely. Two rows of powered ports is the whole of the provision, and they are the slow, outdated kind.

Keyless Access with Push-Button Start is not standard on the trim most people buy — on the 2022 Premium it is bundled into an option package, and the Base car cannot have it at all, using a conventional key. From the Limited upward it is standard and the package is complete, with PIN-code access, the hands-free power rear gate and app-based remote start covering the rest, but a volume Outback can and often does leave the lot without proximity entry.

A rear-vision camera with adaptive guidelines is standard on every 2022 trim and the Touring trims add a full-LCD Smart Rear-View Mirror, which is genuinely useful with the cargo bay loaded to the roof. But the 180-degree Front View Monitor reaches only the upper trims, no 2022 Outback can be had with a 360-degree surround-view system at any price, there is no automated parking of any kind, and the volume Premium gets neither the front camera nor Reverse Automatic Braking, which is standard only from the Limited.

No head-up display is offered on any 2022 Outback trim, at any price, in any option package. Subaru introduced one on the Outback only with the 2026 redesign.

The Outback is close to a benchmark for the daily mechanics of family life: IIHS rates its LATCH hardware Good — the top grade — with extra seating positions served by borrowable anchors, and the wide, nearly square rear door openings, flat floor and low seat height make buckling a toddler a step rather than a climb. Behind the seat, 32.6 cubic feet swallows a full-size stroller without folding anything down, and the 28.4-inch liftover means it goes in at hip height. The low, flat load lip is what a crossover of the same footprint cannot match.

The credentials are excellent: NHTSA 5 stars overall and an IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+ with Good in every crashworthiness test including the updated side evaluation — where Subaru's own release notes the Outback was the only model tested to earn the top rating — plus EyeSight's pre-collision braking, adaptive cruise and lane centering standard on every trim including the $26,945 Base. Two gaps keep it out of the top band: blind-spot detection with rear cross-traffic alert is a $1,400 option package on the volume Premium and unavailable on the Base, and 2022 predates the Automatic Emergency Steering and wider-field-of-view EyeSight cameras the 2023 refresh brought in.

The combination that matters on a long family drive is here: an absorbent ride, 39.1 inches of rear headroom and 39.5 of legroom, rear USB charging ports and — new for 2022 — rear ventilation outlets in the centre console on Premium and above, heated rear outboard seats from the Limited up, and 32.6 cubic feet of luggage space that does not require folding a seat a child is sitting in. What it lacks is any rear-seat entertainment provision, real rear climate control beyond those weak console outlets, USB-C for modern devices, and quiet — the 2.5L's noise under load intrudes on a loaded car climbing a grade.

The mechanical side of daily driving is easy company — the CVT is smooth and undramatic in stop-and-go, controls are light, the driving position is high and outward visibility is genuinely excellent for a modern car. What drags this below the 2023 car is the infotainment: Consumer Reports' 2022 test vehicle had the screen freeze twice and take the climate controls with it, and owners report the display freezing right after start-up. When climate and heated-seat switches live only in that screen, a routine adjustment becomes a multi-step reach at best and unavailable at worst.

29 MPG combined from a permanently all-wheel-drive wagon on regular 87-octane is a good result in absolute terms — about $2,100 a year at EPA's 15,000-mile assumption — and it is a rating point better than the 2023 car managed, with no premium-fuel surcharge on any trim including the turbo XT and Wilderness. It cannot reach the top band because no hybrid Outback was offered for 2022 while several rivals in and around the segment are electrified, and Subaru includes no complimentary scheduled maintenance, so every service interval is out of pocket from day one.

At 191.1 inches long the Outback is a mid-size footprint, but a 36.1-foot curb-to-curb turning circle is tidy for that length and the wagon greenhouse — low beltline, tall side glass, big upright rear window — gives better all-round sightlines than nearly any crossover of the same size. The offsets are a slow steering rack that needs more wheel-winding than expected in a parking structure, no 360-degree camera at any price, and a 180-degree Front View Monitor the volume Premium buyer cannot order.

This is a wagon, and the ceiling shows: the volume 2.5L tows 2,700 pounds with a 270-pound tongue weight — enough for a small utility trailer, a pair of jet skis or a teardrop camper, and no more — while the 2.4L turbo XT trims and the new Wilderness reach 3,500 pounds on the strength of a standard transmission cooler. There is no bed, no meaningful payload headroom, and the 182-hp engine works audibly hard with anything behind it. It scores a little above the luxury wagons in the segment purely because 2,700–3,500 lbs over 75.6 cubic feet of flat cargo floor does constitute light work capability.

The hardware underneath is proven and unglamorous — the FB25 boxer has been in continuous US production since 2011 and the Lineartronic CVT has years of service in this platform — and Outbacks are common in park-service, utility and rural-agency fleets precisely because they survive gravel roads and winters. StarTex water-repellent upholstery on the Onyx Edition XT and Wilderness and available rubber liners take abuse. It sits mid-band and a notch below later years of the generation because the interior is trimmed for private buyers rather than for hosing out, a CVT is not the transmission of choice for sustained hard duty, and 2022 carries four NHTSA recall campaigns alongside a Consumer Reports electronics trouble spot.

The roof is the useful part: integrated rails whose crossbars swing out of the rails themselves rather than being carried separately, with the Wilderness adding heavy-duty rails rated for a rooftop tent, plus one of the deepest accessory and third-party rack ecosystems of any vehicle sold. Cargo tie-down and grocery hooks, a removable cargo tray and a factory hitch are all available. It stays mid-band because there is no onboard AC power, no bed or bulkhead, and nothing designed to be upfitted in a commercial sense.

As a mile-eater the 2022 Outback is genuinely strong, and its 536-mile EPA range is the best of this generation — an 18.5-gallon tank against a 29 MPG combined rating, stretching past 600 miles at the highway figure. Consumer Reports calls the ride comfortable enough to outshine some luxury SUVs and the front seats comfortable, and EyeSight's adaptive cruise with lane centering is standard on every trim rather than a trim-walk away. What keeps it out of the top band is powertrain noise on long grades, lane centering that owners describe as ping-ponging between the lane markings, and an EyeSight generation that predates the 2023 car's wider field of view and electric brake booster.

This is what the Outback is for, and it is the best score on the card — 2022 is also the year the theme got its own trim. Symmetrical full-time all-wheel drive is standard on every trim with no front-drive version sold, ground clearance is 8.7 inches — more than most compact SUVs — and X-MODE with Hill Descent Control is standard right down to the $26,945 Base. The new Wilderness adds 9.5 inches of clearance, dual-function X-MODE, Yokohama Geolandar all-terrain tires, a raised final drive, a transmission cooler and heavy-duty roof rails. Only the absence of a low range and locking differentials keeps it from the very top.

32.6 cubic feet behind the second row opening to 75.6 with the 60/40 seat down, over a flat floor with a 28.4-inch load lip and an underfloor storage well, is exceptional gear capacity — more behind the seats than many two-row SUVs offer, and reachable without lifting anything to shoulder height. The wide tailgate aperture takes long items, and standard integrated roof rails with swing-out crossbars, a retractable cargo cover and an available hitch cover the rest.

The 2022 Outback is secure and predictable rather than agile: the low-mounted boxer engine keeps the centre of gravity down for a vehicle with 8.7 inches of clearance, Active Torque Vectoring is standard on every trim, and reviewers come away calling the handling confident and composed. But the soft, long-travel suspension that makes it ride well also lets it lean noticeably in corners, and it does not feel as planted through quick direction changes as the lower wagons it competes with.

The electric rack is accurately weighted off-centre and tracks straight on the highway without correction, but it is geared slowly and tells the driver almost nothing about the front tires. Reviewers of the 2022 car call it numb, and it needs more wheel movement than expected both on the road and in a parking lot.

Stopping performance and pedal feel are unremarkable in the good sense — ventilated discs at all four corners, progressive and consistent, adequate to the car's modest performance, and IIHS rates the EyeSight system's own automatic braking Superior against vehicles. It sits a notch below the later years of the generation on two counts: the 2022 car uses the vacuum-boosted system that the 2023 refresh replaced with an electric brake booster to smooth EyeSight's interventions, and owners report driver-assist braking triggering for roadside objects that are not obstacles, which undermines confidence in a pedal the driver did not press.

At light throttle the 2.5L and Lineartronic CVT are genuinely smooth — no shift shock, no creep drama in traffic, and the transmission mimics traditional gear steps better than most CVTs manage. Ask for anything more and the calibration shows its limits: peak torque does not arrive until 4,400 rpm, so revs rise well ahead of road speed and the simulated ratios feel invented rather than mechanical. The turbo XT masks most of this; the volume 2.5L does not.

The boxer four is quiet enough at a cruise, but the combination of a high torque peak and a CVT means any real demand — merging, passing, a long grade — parks the engine at high revs and holds it there, producing a sustained drone rather than a brief flare. Consumer Reports singles out the base 2.5-liter as the source, and the turbo XT is the trim walk that fixes it.

36.1 feet curb-to-curb is a tidy figure for a 191.1-inch vehicle and better than both wagon rivals scored so far, making U-turns and parking-garage ramps less of an event than the Outback's footprint suggests. The slowly geared rack means more wheel-winding to use it.

The driving position is one of the Outback's quiet strengths: a high, commanding hip point without the climb of a truck-based SUV, a 10-way power driver's seat with power lumbar from the volume Premium up, a tilt/telescoping wheel on every trim, and outward visibility — low beltline, tall side glass, big upright rear window — that most modern vehicles cannot approach. The deduction is the control layout, with climate and heated-seat functions pushed into the bottom strip of a portrait touchscreen that on 2022 cars is both slow and prone to freezing.

Nobody buys an Outback for the drive, and the volume 2.5L does nothing to change that: roughly 8.7 seconds to 60 mph, a CVT that mutes what character the boxer has, slow numb steering and a suspension tuned for comfort and gravel. It is competent, unflappable and completely uninvolving — the 260-hp turbo XT trims and the Wilderness add real pace and real capability, but not real engagement.

Every 2022 Outback, including the $28,070 base car, carries Symmetrical all-wheel drive and the EyeSight driver-assist suite standard — pre-collision braking, adaptive cruise and lane centering — content most rivals charge for or gate behind a trim walk, and LED fog lights became standard line-wide for 2022 at essentially no price increase. The base trim is genuinely spare elsewhere, though: dual 7.0-inch screens rather than the 11.6-inch portrait unit, cloth seats, no heated seats, blind-spot detection reserved for Premium and up, and this is the pre-refresh car so phone mirroring is wired rather than wireless. A shade below the 2023 refresh, which made the latest EyeSight hardware and wireless CarPlay/Android Auto standard.

On sticker this is the strongest value year of the generation: a $30,270 Premium buys standard AWD, an 11.6-inch touchscreen, the All-Weather Package, a top-tier standard driver-assist suite, wagon cargo space and 8.7 inches of ground clearance — roughly $1,650 less than the equivalent 2023 and thousands under any rival wagon. KBB's cost-to-own math backs the dollars rather than just the equipment list. Held short of the standout band because the value case thins as you climb — Wilderness and XT trims run past $38,000, where sharper infotainment and stronger base engines exist elsewhere — and because in practice 2022 buyers rarely paid under sticker, which blunts the on-paper advantage.

Eight published trims from $28,070 to $41,070 with two engines — the 182-hp 2.5-liter and the 260-hp 2.4-liter turbo XT — and, new for 2022, a genuinely differentiated off-road variant in the Wilderness with 9.5-inch ground clearance, all-terrain tires and dual-function X-MODE. The ladder is well spaced with no large holes; a point behind the 2023 car only because the naturally aspirated Onyx Edition that filled the gap between Premium and Limited did not exist yet. There is one body and one drivetrain layout — no FWD, no hybrid, no long/short variant.

The Outback remained the best-selling wagon-bodied vehicle in the United States by an order of magnitude — 147,262 deliveries in calendar 2022, with nothing else of this body style within a factor of five. Just short of the top band because the year was a supply-constrained retreat rather than a rise: volume fell about 5% from 2021's 154,623, and the Crosstrek passed it to become Subaru's top-volume nameplate. The constraint was semiconductor supply, not demand — Subaru was running a 45,000-unit order backlog.

Subaru's image — all-wheel drive, safety, outdoors, dogs — is unusually coherent and converts into some of the highest brand loyalty and owner-satisfaction scores of any mainstream marque, and the Outback is the nameplate that image is built on. It stops short of the top band because the pull is affection and trust rather than aspiration: there is no premium halo, and the badge does not command a price premium the way Volvo's does.

The worst year of the generation to be shopping for a deal, and worse than the 2023 that followed. The entire 2022 model year sold through the peak of the chip shortage with Subaru inventory in single-digit days of supply, an order backlog growing by roughly 10,000 vehicles a month, and effectively no manufacturer rebates or promotional financing; MSRP was the good outcome and some retailers asked above it. The mitigating fact — enough to keep this out of the floor band — is that Subaru's national incentive spending stayed low rather than being replaced by factory markups, dealer addendums were less extreme than at several rival brands, and the lineup-wide $500 medical-professional and PreK-12 teacher rebates always applied.

Third model year of the sixth generation, which launched for 2020 — squarely mid-cycle, one year ahead of the refresh that brought the revised fascia, latest EyeSight hardware and over-the-air updates. What lifts it above a plain carry-over is the all-new Wilderness variant, the first factory off-road Outback, plus standard LED fog lights line-wide. Redesign risk for a 2022 buyer was remote: the seventh-generation car was not revealed until the April 2025 New York show.

A strongly decorated year. The 2022 Outback was a 2022 IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+ — the institute's top award, in the 14th consecutive year of Outback recognition — and then, in the updated and much tougher side-impact test, was the only one of seven midsize vehicles evaluated to earn a Good rating. Car and Driver named it to the 2022 Editors' Choice list as best station wagon, and KBB added its 2022 5-Year Cost to Own and Best Resale Value segment awards. Held out of the top band because it wins a category of two or three rather than comparison tests against the crossovers it actually competes with, and because reviewers were uniformly pointed about the base engine's pace and the touchscreen.