Manual transmission has 50/50 torque distribution through the center viscous clutch.
Have your alignment checked. Especially if the rear is misaligned, the car will feel OK on dry roads but will feel unstable on wet, icy or snowy roads.
AWD vehicles are very criticle as far as tire sizes! Even if the tires looks good, they should measured the thread wear on all tires and compare them with max out of tolerence limit for AWD cars. Studs and AWD with VDC is not a good combination.
.
I agree completely, I would extend your model range of traction control issues to the 09 Outback. Before we bought our 05 Outback we also had a brand new 2.5i last year before I left my job to pursue continuing education. I felt that same uncontrollable feeling with all season tires with less than 10k miles on the car driving home from Colorado. That led me to buy my first set of studded tires ever while stranded in Idaho feeling like I would risk life and limb if we continued on to Oregon. If you come up with any answers to what the problem may be I would really appreciate some insight because the Subaru dealer has told me the same thing, the local tire shops have told me the same thing and this posting has given me some help but nothing concrete yet.
I’m going to take this stab based upon what others have said. The Outbacks of those years and previous, may have come with a mechanical LSD (limited slip differential) in the rear. The Outback sport may have not. Everything else said is true, but IMO, if you have it, it’s the main culprit.
Though excellent off road, in mud, snow and over all handling on dry, on ice it can be disconcerting to say the least. Being a mechanical device, it will immediately respond to loss of traction in one wheel as both rear wheels “spinning” will have less lateral traction than one free wheeling w/o LSD. Lack of regular maintenance (fluid change) may cause an “over reaction” of the LSD (see below). The newest models using better calibrated electronic traction control on all 4 wheels w/o LSD do a better job.
Outback forum…regarding rear LSD,"Starting in 2003-2006 all Outback trim levels included the Cold Weather package as standard equipment. So all Outbacks between 2003 and 2006 have a rear LSD."
This ice traction issue was of concern on the forum as well… for a variety of reasons, all related to the rear LSD. http://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/66-problems-maintenance/11267-2005-2009-outback-dangerous-ice-24.html