I just had to replace my batter in my 4 year old Forester, with only 44,000 miles. The dealer said it was because of the auto start feature putting stress on the battery. I've never replaced a battery so young in a car's life. Has anyone else had this issue? I was told that Subaru came up with a "heavy duty" batter to handle this - and it cost $400! Another first - I've ever paid that much for a battery. Just curious if I got a dud of a battery, or if this is an issue others have.
2020 Forester Battery dying due to autostart
- Thread starter Josied
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There was a recall that dealt with excessive parasitic drain in Subarus killing of batteries early. There is also some info on YouTube regarding it. Don't trust dealers to know anything or even be up front about it if they do. Honesty is not a common trait these days as it once was.
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Just like anything, a battery can have a premature failure… a connection inside is weak and it goes.
I bought a battery from Costco which are Interstate, and it failed after 4 months! That is unusual, but not unheard of…$15 later, I walked out with a new one.
Arizona is a battery killer state, the extreme heat takes them out faster than most other regions of the country. It used to be at Costco, if you bought a battery before the warranty was up, they handed you the cash back to buy a new battery instead of pro rating. After several years, they went to pro rating route.
If you think the auto start/ stop is the culprit, look at my post in the newbie introduction thread, for $100 and five minutes of my time, I installed a new module… no more annoying start/stops.
I bought a battery from Costco which are Interstate, and it failed after 4 months! That is unusual, but not unheard of…$15 later, I walked out with a new one.
Arizona is a battery killer state, the extreme heat takes them out faster than most other regions of the country. It used to be at Costco, if you bought a battery before the warranty was up, they handed you the cash back to buy a new battery instead of pro rating. After several years, they went to pro rating route.
If you think the auto start/ stop is the culprit, look at my post in the newbie introduction thread, for $100 and five minutes of my time, I installed a new module… no more annoying start/stops.
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Yep happened to me also 2020 Sport at 38,000 miles . I put in a red. top Optima for half that and the Subie runs fine , starts now.
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Of the AGM batteries and after looking into them in depth, I started using Odyssey batteries. A good battery for my then pastime of rock crawling. It's a hard life for batteries with all the bouncing around and the high loads of winches, welders and stuff. And they're still made in the USA too. Not the cheapest but you do get what you pay for.
I own a 2020 Forrester Touring and I received a mailing from Subaru that the battery was covered longer due to issues. I had it replaced for free it was well before 40K miles at the time. The battery is a "Heavy Duty" one as I was told by Subaru designed for Auto Start systems. I always disable the Autostart on each drive by using the button provided. There is also a wiring harness add on not from Subaru that can be installed to disable the auto start with out having to press the button each time just do a search on the web.
Bob
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I disabled the auto stop system in my 2021 forester touring by installing an auto stop disable unit that plugs into the CAN bus in the car. If you switch auto stop off it stays off through successive shut down restarts unless and until you switch it back on via the AS push button. Then it returns to stock behavior. Easy to find on the internet buy and install. They are avaliable for specific makes, models and trim levels. Install instructions are on their website. As I recall it was about $100. Works as advertised and I don't have to remember to turn auto stop off because it's off until I turn it back on. Disconnecting the battery for service however will cause you to turn it off again but that's to be expected. Best thing is, you don't have to screw around with the cars wiring. Say if you sell the car or something, just unplug it and take it with you. https://www.autostopeliminator.com/
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d
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I previously owned a 2018 (new) ford Escape with auto stop/start and my battery died after 3 years, in the dead of winter with 40,000 km’s. Got a battery at my local mechanic and paid $300.00+ it didn’t have enough cranking power and died shortly after, went to the ford dealership and paid $400.00 for an oem battery #$@%. My 2020 sube has 70,000 kms and I it will probably die this winter, I will make sure the replacement has enough cranking power. All that to say spend the extra $ for a good battery. BTW the Escape was poorly designed and it cost me $200.00 for installation, 2.5 hours labour. The sube battery is very accessible.
Check the battery sensor device on the battery. According to my Berks county AAA magazine article by ‘AskDave’ this is the likely cause. Warning. It may be back ordered. Hope this helps. Subaru has been really remiss in finding the real problem with the battery drain issue. I don’t know that I could ever buy another Subaru bc of this. I currently own a 2018 forester. 91000. I have front end shimmy issue but I suspect another bad bushing and or control arm.
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I think auto start stop is a really idiotic feature that is forced onto the automotive industry by idiotic gubberment DAs who know next to nothing about cars or automotive technology and worse yet they don't care as long as the parasites can keep their jobs at our expense. Some things are good, like safety mandates for example but auto stop isn't one of them. In the end it does more damage to the environment than what little bit of good it could possibly ever do.
EVs are another DA idea with little to no real thought or knowledge applied to it. Sounds good until you look at the whole picture and apply real world physics.
EVs are another DA idea with little to no real thought or knowledge applied to it. Sounds good until you look at the whole picture and apply real world physics.
Batteries nowadays have about a 4 year lifespan due to all the monitoring systems that constantly run, even when the car is off. I just replaced my 4.5 y/o battery on my 2020 Ascent. The worst part is there is no warning that the battery is going bad (unlike the old days when the battery would give a slow crank letting you know it was time to replace the battery). Now they go from starting to DOA without any warning . I now replace my batteries every 4 years just so I’m not stuck somewhere in the middle of the night.
I added an after market module (just click click, insert in the fuse box) that defaults the 'feature' to off. I think the start/stop is the dumbest thing I ever heard of ... But at least I can get around it.
Another pet peeve is you don't get a 'choice' on what safety features you want. Just comes with them. Some people love them all, but I for one would like to pick and choose. More electronic junk on a vehicle, the more that can go wrong... And then more expensive to 'fix' down the road. Oh and all the 'dings' are already starting to just be background noise to me, Ie. I am starting to just 'ignore them' ....
Another pet peeve is you don't get a 'choice' on what safety features you want. Just comes with them. Some people love them all, but I for one would like to pick and choose. More electronic junk on a vehicle, the more that can go wrong... And then more expensive to 'fix' down the road. Oh and all the 'dings' are already starting to just be background noise to me, Ie. I am starting to just 'ignore them' ....
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I’ve only saved 7.4 litres in 7,000 km’s…that’s roughly $10.00 cdn… 206 grams of carbon monoxide… a cows fart is more
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Yeah there isn't much real science behind a lot that garbage but then again you dont find many able scientists or engineers working for the guberment. Only parasitic DAs that can't get or hold a job in the real world.
Maybe a bad battery but....
I have a 2014 Audi A7 TDI with Auto start/stop and a whole lot more fancy electrical stuff. About 117k miles and the original battery someplace under the spare tire. I by have no clue what it looks like.
One thought is did you have a grounding kit installed or a bad battery condition sensor often part of the original negative or positive lead (or both). A typically grounding kit if added will bypass the sensor which leaves the voltage regulator in a default state. A missing or bad sensor will do the same.
I just push the button to turn it off as part of my pre-drive actions. You have to do this each time you start the car but it stays off until the car is turned off. I don't find it to be too onerous a task since I also turn on the brake hold right after I start the car. It is just a matter of pushing one button, two if you count the brake hold, too.
Thanks for all of your replies. What I was more disappointed in is the lack of knowledge and/or transparency from the Subaru dealers. The first one I took it to - when I had an issue with the car stopping and bells and whistles going off - just said there were no issues and never even checked the battery. When it ended up dead, i took it to a different dealer who told me about the auto start sapping the battery, but they never mentioned that Subaru knew this was an issue and had issued coverage for it, but that expired last year. I guess I'm naive to think Subaru dealers would be more honest than other car dealers, but that is disappointing to me. Thanks again, Subaru Community. I appreciate all of your help.