Less headaches.

Laughter is the key to happiness

 

5th generation Outback factory batteries are crap. After experiencing repeated slow cranking starts in winter (the car was just 2 years old) I replaced it with a Costco battery ($100 Canadian) that has 650 cold-cranking amps. . . . . Haven’t had any issues since.

 

Yes, many have.
Search is your friend.

 

I saw some "dead" battery threads, but wrongly assumed they were dead for a different reason.

 

If you do a search here, there's a ton of posts about dead batteries. Search for "dead battery" or see this huge post about it.

I bought my Outback last week and on Monday I replaced the battery with an Optima Red Top 25. Did the replacement at Autozone. As bad as the battery is for the 6 cylinder, it is even worse for the 4 cylinder (just 365 CCA).

More Info about Optima Red Top 25 at Amazon

As for why, the stock battery - despite being new - barely started the car when the headlights were in "auto." And this is in a semi-heated garage. Didn't take a genius to figure out that starting in cold weather was gonna be iffy, at best. Plus, I didn't want to worry about having a dead battery in the remote locations I like to visit.

New battery = one less problem at inopportune times to worry about.

 

I bought my Outback last week and on Monday I replaced the battery with an Optima Red Top 25.

jimh009 You will have to let us know how the Optima works for you in a few years. I had one many years ago and loved it but recently I watched Scotty Kilmer say something about how the company was sold and the new owners cheapen the batteries. This steered me to a normal lead-acid battery. But Scotty is not always right but he is enough I usually go with what he says when I don't have conflicting information. I guess I would not own Subaru's if I believed everything he says!

 

Is there anything special that needs to be done after replacing a battery like radio codes, etc.?

 

Nope. You might lose your saved stations, but that's about it.

Yes, replaced 2 days after we bought ours. Has 800 CCAs I believe.

Sent from my SHIELD Tablet K1 using Tapatalk

 

I did not loose radio presets but you I did need to reset the diver & passenger auto window. Very simple. You just manually raise halfway then back down then all the way up. Something like like. Smart move to put in a good battery. I also use a group 34 800 CCA.

 

Dumped my OEM 356 CCA battery for a Group 34 Optima Yellow Top with 750 CCA. Around $200 right now at Amazon, but they periodically go on sale for around $180.

https://www.amazon.com/Optima-Batteries-8014-045-YellowTop-Purpose/dp/B000MSBUA4/

Just be forewarned, some of the Amazon distribution centers don't have a clue about how to properly pack a battery for shipment. My first battery from them arrived dented due to poor packaging. The bright side was they sent me a second battery and didn't ask for the first battery in return. That slightly dented battery works great in my Dad's workshop attached to a solar panel.

 

When I went to the link in Amazon and entered auto info, there was an indication that this battery didn't fit. Same on the Optima website. Is this battery small/large?

 

OEM battery is working just fine for me, so no, i will not replace it until it stops doing what it's designed to do. I also dome leave the battery on for extended periods of time without the car running. Seems like common sense instead of blaming the battery. I've never had to replace the stock battery on any of the three new Subarus I've bought in the past until many, many miles down the line until it was required. No sense in wasting your money on something that's working just fine now. Sounds more like user error to me, but hey, if you've got money to burn, y all means go for it! I also have been in the habit of turning off the heater/AC/fan and heated seats before shutting the vehicle off in previous vehicles I've owned. Battery seems fine so far in the OB.

 

Good points...


Cheers!

 

The OEM may last a while and it may not. But there is no denying it is cheap and has low CCA's / reserve.

 

Great.

Thanks

 

I recently changed mine out (2015 - 2.5L). I had to go to autozone and just got the Duralast Gold (I think it is 525 CCA), but I was in a bind. Wife is pregnant and the car had been consistently not starting recently. She'd start, drive 20 minutes home, park it in the garage, and then it wouldn't start. And it always felt like it was struggling to start. Took it to the dealer, and they tested it, and said everything is fine and we must have left something on.

We double checked and we weren't leaving anything on. After getting stranded once, you start paying better attention to that. Overall, it died about 5 times while still testing OK.

That battery is junk.

 

I'm going to wing it with mine (2.5). Maybe it will fail in the 3 year warranty period and get dealer replaced with the 3.6 battery they stock for replacements (urban legend). After that, I guess I'll still wing it.

 

The less I have to visit a dealer, the better. Having a tech tell me that a 356 CCA battery is testing 'ok' is a waste of my time.

 

OEM, 2 years, 30k miles, extreme heat and cold, never a hesitation. It's even hard wired to my outlets so it can power a portable XM receiver (40 hours a week with the car off while I'm at work). Not so lame in my book, but I will upsize a bit when it comes time to replace it.

 

Your 3.6 has the larger battery.

 

A month short of 4 years on the OEM. Perhaps Subaru changed the battery in the Gen 6? but no problems here.

 

Same here.

 

Personally, I would just make your battery a 3 year preventive maintenance item. This is what I do. Have not had a battery die on me in 16 years using this method. Why pay double for an AGM?

 

Because many of us would prefer not to contribute to needless hazardous waste if we can avoid it. Recycled or not, returning working batteries and replacing with new is wasteful. At least that's my reason. I run them until they die. The OEM battery in my last Toyota lasted through 9 years of New England winters.

Yes, I replaced my battery in my 2.5 with an Optima yellow top group 34. But the OEM battery is happily powering a small solar setup in my shed where the demands are less: just a few fluorescent lights once in a while.

 

Was doing some work on our 3.6 and after 2 hours with the dome lights on (yes, my fault for not shutting off) a dead battery quickly ensued. While charging I saw it had all of 490 CCA, which to me says it may be weak and underpowered.

CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) is the measure of the number of amps a battery can deliver at 0*F for 30 seconds and not drop below 7.2v. IOW, the rating is for very high amp draw over a very short period of time (as in starting the engine).
Your dead battery occurred as the result of a very different symptom; a low amp draw over a long period of time. This is a function of the battery's RC (Reserve Capacity) and/or Ah (amp hours) rating.

So while changing to a higher CCA battery may help start the car on a cold winter's morning, it has nothing to do with how long the battery will last with a parasitic drain.

 

Excellent point. I think when talking batteries, most of us just fall back on the Cold Cranking Amps rating. Much like referring to an engine's horsepower rating when in reality it's the Torque rating that really counts.

 

I will not say 99% but the majority is recycled, that was the reason for return refund policy. @GrumpySquatch I am also a person who refreshes batteries every three years and keeps the old batteries for extra duties. They are used to emergency AC to run lights or give them to individuals who need a good battery which may not be as fortunate as I am. My personal preference are deep cycle batteries for me they seem to handle a lot of charging/tendering.


Laughter is the key to happiness

 

Don't want to completely sidetrack the thread, but... I understand that in theory ~97% of the lead in a battery can be recovered if done well. And that ~99% of lead-acid car batteries in the US are "recycled." But the reality of a gloabalized world is that most batteries are shipped to Mexico and recycled poorly, leaving a trail of waste. (see As U.S. tightens rules on lead emissions, battery recycling has moved to Mexico | McClatchy DC for one story). Many are shipped to Asia and other parts of the world as well. From the story:

Johnson Controls has two huge recycling plants in Mexico, one in Cienega de Flores, about 10 miles north of Monterrey, an industrial hub, and another newer facility in Garcia, on the city’s western outskirts. The two plants receive nearly three-quarters of the spent batteries sent to Mexico for recycling.

U.S. watchdog groups say the Johnson Controls plant here emitted more than six metric tons of lead into the air in 2010, 33 times the level of emissions expected for a much cleaner plant it opened in Florence, S.C., in September.

Plus it takes a lot of energy to recycle and remanufacture a battery. Hence the "reduce, reuse, then recycle" phrase. Not recycling a good battery is far better than recycling one is all I'm saying.

 

I've no personal experience with the yellow top but from looking at the specs, two things jump out, it's a combination or dual-purpose battery with a price tag to match.
There are two main types of chemical storage batteries; a starting battery and a deep-cycle battery. Automotive applications use a starting battery while, say, some marine applications (electric trolling motors for example) would use a deep-cycle battery. The difference between the two is that a starting battery does not recover very well (sometimes if at all) when it is fully discharged whereas a deep-cycle battery is designed to be fully discharged and recharged many times over. The Optima yellow top is a combination of both types. On paper, a dual-purpose battery appears to be the bee's knee's but again, I've no personal experience with this battery type.

A medium compression 6 cylinder engine (such as the Subaru 3.6) should not require a CCA battery of more than some 500 amps (the 2.5 engines even less). 700-800 CCA batteries are more suited to high compression big blocks (but they will work in a Subaru). On a sidenote, I think the 365 CCA (or is it 385 - don't remember) battery issues in the 2.5 cars is NOT a CCA issue but one of RC.

Having rambled on enough, there are a number of owners who have posted here that the yellow top is a very good battery and are quite happy with it. Can't argue with that. So it may just boil down to warranty and/or price. As long as the RC of any battery is good, leaving a dome light on for a few hours should not be a issue.

 

I have very good experience with the Yellow Top and Red Top Batteries from Optima and the prices through Amazon are fair.


https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Optima+34&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AOptima+34

Laughter is the key to happiness

 

I say 12 volts is 12 volts. So I'm replacing my OEM battery with this one.

 

The most significant contributor to early battery failure hasn't been brought up here. That is the errant assumption that the alternator always keeps a battery fully charged.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, particularly when a car is driven primarily on short trips. Such as to the store down the road. Or to dinner at a local restaurant. Or to the church that is only a few blocks away. Combine that sort of driving style with all the parasitic drainage that modern cars pull from a battery, and the result is a battery that is almost constantly at perhaps 80 - 85% charge.

Then all it takes is a single odd event, such as running an aftermarket high performance stereo for a couple hours. Or using a compressor to pump up a totally flat tire. Do these without the engine running on an already low battery, and it's no wonder that even a fairly new battery can fail.

With a driving style of short trips keeping the battery from ever getting fully charged, an over-sized battery will only delay the inevitable. The most important thing in avoiding early battery failure (and all the nasty stress that comes with a dead battery experience) is regular battery maintenance.

Or, as a few here have shared, the wasteful practice of replacing a battery well before it's useful life. Because, after all, that is easier than proper maintenance. Right? :spend:

 

The most significant contributor to early battery failure hasn't been brought up here. That is the errant assumption that the alternator always keeps a battery fully charged.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, particularly when a car is driven primarily on short trips. Such as to the store down the road. Or to dinner at a local restaurant. Or to the church that is only a few blocks away. Combine that sort of driving style with all the parasitic drainage that modern cars pull from a battery, and the result is a battery that is almost constantly at perhaps 80 - 85% charge.

Then all it takes is a single odd event, such as running an aftermarket high performance stereo for a couple hours. Or using a compressor to pump up a totally flat tire. Do these without the engine running on an already low battery, and it's no wonder that even a fairly new battery can fail.

With a driving style of short trips keeping the battery from ever getting fully charged, an over-sized battery will only delay the inevitable. The most important thing in avoiding early battery failure (and all the nasty stress that comes with a dead battery experience) is regular battery maintenance.

Or, as a few here have shared, the wasteful practice of replacing a battery well before it's useful life. Because, after all, that is easier than proper maintenance. Right? :spend:

Other than adding what one should do, I'd say you nailed it- BMW had real issues and was replacing batteries quite a bit.

Perhaps you could elaborate on what proper maintenance is for a battery. We don't add water anymore, so what does one do?

 

I'll be heading up north in a week or so and didn't want to take a chance of mine dying (been a little sluggish lately). I ordered a red top series 34 from Amazon.

 

I keep a Battery Tender in my garage for monthly battery maintenance. Works great for keeping the car and motorcycle batteries topped off if they are being used for only short trips.

 

Has anyone replaced the OEM lame battery with a better one?

Was doing some work on our 3.6 and after 2 hours with the dome lights on (yes, my fault for not shutting off) a dead battery quickly ensued. While charging I saw it had all of 490 CCA, which to me says it may be weak and underpowered. Just replaced battery in my older Legacy with whatever Sears unit Consumers liked. Something like 700 CCA and, I perhaps wrongly assume, has more capacity. About $100. The battery tray has ample room it would seem.

Anyone dump the factory battery for a bigger and, I hope,, better one? If so, why? What did you get?

They replaced mine under warranty with a 600 CCA (IIRC) battery. It is definitely larger capacity than the OG. It is visibly quicker to start also. When I go to pay for a new one, I plan on buying one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00249CSS2/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A9C3XVKHZ6G15

I'll see how the new one holds up first.

 

They replaced mine under warranty with a 600 CCA (IIRC) battery. It is definitely larger capacity than the OG. It is visibly quicker to start also. When I go to pay for a new one, I plan on buying one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00249CSS2/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A9C3XVKHZ6G15

I'll see how the new one holds up first.

Good battery, but does not fit the 2017 Outback I have.

 

My usual maintenance is...Tendering my batteries usually once a month.

Laughter is the key to happiness