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5 Reasons Why Subaru Outback is Hottest-Selling Car in U.S.

The 2016 Subaru Outback is moving off dealer lots quicker than any other car in the US. How long does it hang around?
2016 Subaru Outback

The Subaru brand is hot and the 2016 Outback wagon is the hottest-selling car in America. It stays on dealer the lots less time than any other vehicle. 24/7 Wall St did a study to determine America’s fastest-selling cars and used days to turn figures provided by Kelley Blue Book. The KBB figure measures the average number of days a particular model spends on dealers’ lots following its arrival until it was sold in 2015. They looked at figures on U.S. sales by model for 2013, 2014, and 2015.

Outback has shortest days to turn

The Subaru Outback is the model above all others with the shortest days to turn of any car in the US. The Subaru multi-purpose wagon had an average days to turn of just 16.0 days. With a starting MSRP of $24,995, the Outback was up 9.7 percent from 2014 to 2015 in sales. Outback sales are just behind the Forester as the most popular vehicle in the hot Subaru lineup. Outback sales increased 22.7 percent through the first three months of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015.

Top 5 vehicles

What are the top five vehicles on the list with the shortest days to turn? #1 is the Outback at 16.0 days to turn, #2 on the list is the Honda HR-V at 17.7 days to turn, #3 Toyota Highlander- 18.2 days to turn, #4 Mercedes-Benz GT- 18.7 days to turn, #5 BMW i8- 19.3 days to turn. Subaru has two vehicles in the top 15 with the Legacy sedan #13 at 24 days to turn.

Why is the Subaru brand hot?

Tim Fleming, analyst at Kelley Blue Book, says that quality is the most important factor consumers are looking for when buying a vehicle. Fleming said, “If you have good products out there, it gives the dealers a better chance to sell.” In a recent quality ranking by Consumer Reports, Audi and Subaru, were the top two automakers with the highest quality ratings. The two brands manufacture four of the fastest selling cars in the U.S.

In creating the car brands Report Card, Consumer Reports says they aggregate road-test performance, reliability, safety performance, active safety aids, and owner satisfaction. The Subaru brand and the recreation-purposed Outback scored high in all five key areas. Read the full report here.

Subaru is one of the hottest car brands in the country, breaking its annual U.S. sales record in 2015 for the eighth consecutive year. The multi-purpose 2016 Subaru Outback is helping Subaru achieve top status and is flying off dealer lots faster than any car in America.

Source: 24/7 Wall St.

Image source: Subaru

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Comments

Frank J Campanell (not verified)    May 2, 2016 - 7:49AM

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I own a 2016 Outback. I love the car but am very frustrated with some of its electronics. Both USBs are unusable with my Samsung S5 phone. They try to link my phone with Subaru Mirrorlink (part of the Eyesight system ) and then it locks up my phone making it unusable. The navigation system is so cumbersome to use that I gave up and put a hook on the dash for my cell phone so I could use it for navigation. Not one one of the 3 12v power ports is permanently on so I can't use them when I'm camping without turning the car on.

Brian Foster (not verified)    May 4, 2016 - 3:42PM

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Greetings sir!

I'm very sorry to hear of the troubles that you are experiencing with the electronics. Very unusual, and not in step with what should be expected, and what others are experiencing. The StarLink system works very well with Samsungs and all other Android devices. Have you tried using a regular phone charger, and accessing your audio via Bluetooth audio? Also, the navigation is VERY easy to use. Were you given a demonstration on how to use the NAV features before taking delivery? Starlink navigation won an Editor's Choice award not too long ago because it's just that good.

Subby (not verified)    June 3, 2016 - 2:25PM

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"Not one one of the 3 12v power ports is permanently on so I can't use them when I'm camping without turning the car on. " You didnt address this part of the comment . And if the car works so well with android your saying not so well with APPLE ? Getting a dealer to to any updates is futile and perhaps if Mirrorlink worked or was replaced ... but like you said it works ha .

Christine Weber (not verified)    May 10, 2016 - 7:17PM

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I'm a delivery specialist for Subaru and we've seen this issue pop up on specific phones. The solution that works as close to 100% from what we've found is actually a phone setting.

Make sure the phone is NOT connected to the in-car USB. On your phone, go to Settings>Connections>More Connection Settings and click on Mirrorlink in that list. Next, plug the phone into a direct USB connection in the car. Now you should have the option to click OFF where it says "Connect to vehicle via USB" and once this is set to OFF the issue should be eliminated.

Mirrorlink is an older, pretty much outdated, app originally designed to work like Android AutoPlay or Apple's CarPlay. However, it didn't catch on well here in the U.S., primarily due to the rapid update rate on most cell phones; the changes in operating systems (not to mention firmware) for Android alone outpaced the ability of the more static system in the vehicle to keep up. I believe the only device now even capable of syncing with Mirrorlink is Galaxy 3 running Ice Cream Sandwich OS, which places it roughly pre-2012 - aka ancient, in terms of technology!

C Weber (not verified)    May 10, 2016 - 7:40PM

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I'm a delivery specialist with Subaru and we've seen this issue with certain specific phones. The best solution we've found actually involves a setting on your phone.

Make sure the phone is NOT connected via USB to the car. On the phone, go to "Settings>Connections>More connection settings" and click on "Mirrorlink" in the list. Next, plug the phone into a direct USB port in the car. You should now be able to click "OFF" under "Connect to vehicle via USB" and that should solve the issue.

Mirrorlink is an outdated application originally intended to function like Android AutoPlay or Apple's CarPlay to sync device content to the vehicle's screen. It never really caught on here in the U.S., probably due to the rapid update rate on cell phones; the operating system changes (not to mention the firmware updates) on the Android alone far outpaced the ability of the more static system in the vehicle to keep up. The only device I know of at this point that can sync and use Mirrorlink is Galaxy 3 running Ice Cream Sandwich OS, which puts it roughly pre-2012 and ancient in terms of technology!

As far as the power ports go, that can be a mixed blessing. I can't count how many times I've seen people run their battery dead just simply forgetting they had that electric cooler plugged in the back!

Marla (not verified)    October 30, 2016 - 1:25AM

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We read great things about the outback and decided to buy our first Subaru. We've owned it a year (2015) and it has spent a handful of times at the dealership having cosmetic issues fixed. I will start with the dash speaker. It pops up and is an eye sore! Dealership has tried unsuccessfully to fix it. Second, new rattle has started in the eye sight area, need to take it in again to get that looked at. Driver seat makes a squeaky noise all the time. Just got it back from the dealership and while they are replacing the seat under warranty I'm extremely concerned by these issues when the car is barely a year old. My Nissan and Toyota are over 10 years old and I never once had to take them in for any cosmetic issues. Thinking of ditching this Subaru before more expensive problems start and I am out of warranty!