vs
Battery OEM Subaru or OEM Mercedes
Reviews
I’m in the UAE, where summers hit around 50°C. This Forester is my first car with auto start-stop, and I’m impressed that the battery lasted a solid 4 years. With my driving habits (lots of short runs), my previous cars’ batteries would barely survive 1–1.5 years. This one lasted more than double that.
Pros: long lifespan, good in hot climate
Vehicle:
Subaru Forester
Still on vanilla battery. As part of my wife's start process is start car, press button to turn off auto off. Seems to be working.
Pros: long lasting, working well
Vehicle:
Subaru Forester
Mileage: 120000 km
Our car straight up died on the road twice, to the point it couldn't be jumped, with my kids in the back seat. Subaru eventually gave us an upgraded battery.
Pros: problem solved, upgraded battery
Vehicle:
Subaru Outback
Of course, you can get a new battery, and I recently had a new battery 80% covered by the dealer, since this is a very well known and documented problem. (My battery was going on 6 years old, so I felt like the discount made it a good time to replace it anyways. The discount was specifically because it is a known issue, and supposedly the new battery is more powerful and “solves” the problem, per the dealer.)
Pros: more powerful, solves problem
OEM Subaru batteries and not the best. When it's time for replacement go with a 3rd party battery.
Pros: 3rd party battery better
Cons: OEM not the best
The OEM Subaru battery does not have a lot of reserve power.
Cons: low reserve power
Vehicle:
Subaru
It’s the battery problem. Had same thing happen 3x. No issues after battery upgrade that subi paid for.
Pros: no issues after upgrade
Cons: repeated battery problems
this happened to me on Michigan Ave in Chicago during traffic. I have a 2020 forester as well. Has happened about 4x in the past few weeks; brought it to the dealer, they told me I just needed a new battery!
Pros: new battery fixed issue
Cons: repeated failures
Vehicle:
Subaru Forester
As I came to a stop, my car shut down as it does normally but the traffic began moving just as that happened. So as my car auto-stopped, I took my foot off the gas and the entire car seized - My Eye Sight was disabled, dashboard lights lit up and a high-pitched "There's clearly a fucking problem" chime screamed out at me. I had to put my car in to park (on a 4-lane highway in Boston traffic), stop the engine, restart and then recommence my drive. Fuck this feature in traffic. I'm turning that shit off from now on. EDIT: A huge "thank you" to this Sub for informing that this is a battery issue, and there was a battery drain settlement that should cover this - I specifically called that out in my service notes, and they replaced the battery under that warranty at no charge.
Pros: battery replaced under warranty
Cons: car seized, terrifying experience
Vehicle:
Subaru Forester
I don’t have an AMG, but a 2024 CLA 200d and having battery drain problem is annoying to say the least and haven’t even had the car for a month when it all started happening. It’s been at the dealer for the past 3 days and no voltage drop there. They gave me the signal blocking key case and they upgraded the software and still can’t find the problem. Third visit in the month and new battery installed too.
Cons: battery drain problem, annoying, problem persists after new battery
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