It could be a faulty battery, Subaru has had the occasional issue with duds. Take it to your local AutoZone and they'll test it for free. If it's bad, Subaru will replace it under warranty.

 

". . .It could be a faulty battery. . ."

There have been many reports of batteries in the Gen-6 Outbacks which fail prematurely. These are the 620 CCA batteries. Subaru has been replacing these under warranty with 640 CCA batteries, which seem to hold up better. You might check with your dealership as to what they can do to assist you and that failing, check with Subaru Australia (?) to see if they will help.

 

Dave,

Lots of short trips like you are doing are no good for a battery either. It slowly gets drained due to the high draw from the initial start and the alternator never gets to catch up and fully charge it again.

 

While car is parked at home... is the keyfob too near the vehicle? (The electronics will not fully go to 'sleep' and eventually drain battery)

Read owners manual for more details.

 

Hi all.

Thank you for your reply

In relation to my key fob I usually put my fob to sleep about 50% of the time. My fob is always inside the house, even though the car is always garaged.

 

So many battery discussions! Installed Ancel BM300 yesterday to help get a grip on State of Charge (SOC) and consumption. Got home from town and needed to get chicken feed out of the boot. For the heck of it, checked SOC before and after opening/closing back hatch door. Cost was 0.22V. While phantom losses are real, it's pretty easy to discharge battery doing extra motor (and light) activities.

 

Bear in mind that the initial voltage sag from a load tends to recover all by itself to some degree, so the .22v cost might be misleading. Also, with so many electronics in the car, the simple act of opening the hatch may waken a whole bunch of subsystems on the canbus and they may still be active when you take the "after" measurement.

 

The battery problem is all fixed. My dash cam wasn't wired correctly and was draining the battery. My battery hasn't had any further problems sinced my installer rewired the connections a couple months ago.

Thank you to all who responded.