Road conditions: Poor, icy. Vehicle: 2009 Subaru Outback wagon loaded with 4 passengers (2 adult, 2 teen, plus "light" luggage). When the vehicle passed over an icy patch, the car swayed from side to side violently. On Subaru forum websites, this type of loss of control is termed "ghost walking" which is an odd but accurate term for the feel of the situation. I have seen multiple entries on the owners' forum websites describing this phenomena, and it apparently affects several model years. My dealer offers to re-align the back tires which may fix the instability problem (which is attributed to "load") but which will cause another problem: Excessive tire wear. This is a dangerous situation. As Subaru markets the car for the winter driving market, it needs to fix this dangerous design flaw before someone is killed over compensating for the system-driven fishtailing. Please note: Although Subaru attributes this to "loading" of the vehicle, the car was not loaded beyond strictly normal use for a station wagon. This is as dangerous as "sudden acceleration" in Toyota.

- Saint Paul, MN, USA