Subaru Baja, Subaru Legacy, Subaru Outback, model years 2003 to 2004. Filed by Subaru of America, Inc. and reported to NHTSA on 25 May 2016. 62,940 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Subaru of America, Inc. (Subaru) is recalling certain model year 2003-2004 Legacy, Outback, and Baja vehicles originally sold or that have ever been registered in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, …
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Subaru's own number for this recall: TKC-16. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 16V361 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 16V361 cover?
- Subaru Baja, Subaru Legacy, Subaru Outback, model years 2003-2004.
- What is wrong with them?
- Subaru of America, Inc. (Subaru) is recalling certain model year 2003-2004 Legacy, Outback, and Baja vehicles originally sold or that have ever been registered in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota,...
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- An inflator rupture may result in metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Subaru will notify owners, and dealers will replace the passenger frontal air bag inflator, free of charge. The recall began August 24, 2016. Owners may contact Subaru customer service at 1-856-488-8500. Subaru's number for this recall is TKC-16.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Subaru calls this recall TKC-16, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “An inflator rupture may result in metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants resulting in serious injury or death.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 16V361 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Subaru of America, Inc. |
| System at fault | Air Bags:Frontal:Passenger Side:Inflator Module |
| Reported to NHTSA | 25 May 2016 |
| Model years | 2003-2004 |
| Vehicles named | SUBARU BAJA, SUBARU LEGACY, SUBARU OUTBACK |
What the notice says today
The consequence
An inflator rupture may result in metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
The remedy
Subaru will notify owners, and dealers will replace the passenger frontal air bag inflator, free of charge. The recall began August 24, 2016. Owners may contact Subaru customer service at 1-856-488-8500. Subaru's number for this recall is TKC-16. Note: This recall covers vehicles that were not previously covered in 16V-358 for Zone A or 16V-359 for Zone B.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 846 notices in the record whose component field names air bags. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 46 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2016257, recorded 25 May 2016 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on TKC16, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
The models named here, across their whole recall history
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 16V361, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/16v361/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Subaru notices we hold
- 26V436: 2026 Crosstrek Hybrid, 2025-2026 Forester Hybrid, Forester, and 2019-2026 Ascent
- 26V346: 2026 Forester and Forester Hybrid
- 26V106: 2026 Crosstrek hybrid, and 2025 Forester hybrid
- 25V889: 2026 Forester
- 25V419: 2025 Forester
- 25V033: 2025 Forester
- 24V227: 2020-2022 Outback and Legacy
- 23V755: model year 2021 Crosstrek, 2022 Forester, 2021-2023 Legacy, and Outback
All 110 Subaru campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 16V361 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
db9615ba - Consequence
d5c46a8d - Remedy
4cff1cb5
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 16V361 · how the whole register is watched
This notice names one vehicle among several registers that have written about it. Every notice this site holds for the Subaru Outback, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
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Owners of these cars
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