Subaru OEM batteries can be pretty shit in cold weather. Even the service department at my dealership admits this. I eventually fed up with my Subaru batteries chugging in cold weather and replaced them with Interstate AGM batteries (with more CCA). I haven’t had any troubles since.
Subaru are known for using cheap batteries, winter just makes it even worse. within the first 2 weeks of buying a 2022 Outback, i junked the battery and put in a great aftermarket one.
Wife’s Ascent had a factory battery that last maybe 2 winters. Replaced it was a yellow top and haven’t had any problems since. Subaru even gave us credit for it so that was nice
Have a Chevy Volt. The battery is only good for 22-40 miles depending on outside temp. It gets plugged in at night and costs $14-18 a month. For the past 3 years we have used less then 25 gallons of gas.
Not many cons. The car is much better on electricity than when the gas motor has to kick in. Much quieter and has a bit more throttle response so I don't like it when the battery runs out.
I'm still running on the original battery, which does surprisingly well until subzero temps set in, and then the poor thing just cries a lot and breaks my heart, so I jump it with my Noco and things are fine.
I had this happen in my 2020 outback around 37k miles. Dead battery was the culprit. Fortunately I shut off all my electronics and lights and it had just enough power to get it to restart. I got the battery replaced by Subaru under the extended 5 year warranty from a settlement for premature battery failure. It failed right after my 36k service at the dealer I think the car was about 4 years old at the time.
This happened to me during rush hour on a busy street! 2020 Legacy, they told me it was a known issue with the battery and replaced it for free. It was an incredibly stressful morning though.
I had this problem with my 2019 Forester in stop and go traffic on the Dallas North Tollway. I was able to force the car into park and shut it off and back on manually, and this happened about a half dozen more times before my dealer finally admitted that there was a class action on those batteries. I’ve since had it replaced two additional times under a labor warranty. Like I guess it’s fine because it’s free, but very annoying that I bought a Subaru for reliability and I’m in the shop at least every 9 months for a new battery.
The auto start/stop failed to start the car today while waiting in a left hand turn lane at a red light in traffic. Potentially dangerous situation for anyone. Fortunately the person behind me got out of his car and pushed my car across two traffic lanes to the right curb. The Subaru dealer told me last week when I had the 42k mile maintenance done that the battery was fine based on a battery test. I had specifically asked for the battery to be checked because the starts sounded weak. Now I’m back at the dealer after the failure incident and the diagnoses is a bad battery. It is not safe to have the car automatically shut down on the road when the battery does not have the power to auto start.
Subaru's factory batteries suck. I've had to replace them in several Subaru's that were only like 2 years old. Doubly tough if the car is just sitting for a period of time between uses.
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