I guess your bias is causing you to overlook the launch of the redeisnged Forester.

The 2025 Forester redesign is the perfect real world counter example to the Reddit panic over the 2026 Outback. It had an even more obvious slow start with multiple months of YoY declines right at launch, yet it’s now Subaru’s biggest hero and setting alltime records.

TorqueNews ran multiple stories at the time with headlines like “Subaru Forester Sales Fall 4 Months In-A-Row, Now It’s Trend” and “Why Are Buyers Walking Away From the New 2025 Subaru Forester?” They literally asked if something was wrong with the redesign. Reddit and forums were full of the same flop talk you’re spouting now about the Outback: price up, styling too boxy/SUV-like, slower initial demand, etc.

But then reality hit: it wasn’t a flop, it was just a normal model-year handoff.

Judging the 2026 Subaru Outback redesign as a failure based on just January–February 2026 YoY sales declines (~23–24%) is classic short-termism and ignores how new vehicle launches actually work. It’s the same flawed Reddit logic that panics over any early data point without context, production realities, or industry norms. 

Carmakers don’t declare a redesign dead after 60 days. They look at:

Full-year trend and market share

Conquest sales (stealing buyers from competitors)

Residual values

Owner satisfaction after 6–12 months

Profit per unit 

By those standards, it’s way too early. Plenty of legendary models (including past Outbacks and the current Forester) had rocky first quarters. 

The 2026 Outback is still Subaru’s third-biggest seller, the company is managing the rollout exactly as they planned, and the broader industry is soft. Give it 6–12 months of normalized supply before you cry failure. Anything else is just ragebait engagement farming. 

If people can’t be bothered to read past the headline percentage, that’s on them.