Anyone having trouble with a bad battery or am I just unlucky? After about 1,000 miles the battery on my 2020 OB Ltd went completely dead. Local dealership tested the battery out and said it was defective. Adding insult to injury, dealership claims there are no spare batteries in my local area (Seattle/Tacoma). After 1 week with a loaner car they locate a battery in Houston and tell me it's going to be another 4 days till they have it on site to install in my car. At this point I suggest they just swap out a battery from one of the new 2020's on their lot. My service guy says the batteries in those cars could have the same issue. He recommends I wait for the "new and improved" one coming from Houston. I reluctantly agree to wait longer. Long story short--it seems there is low level of confidence in the batteries installed in the initial run of 2020 outbacks. After doing a little online research, battery issues may have have plagued various Subaru models for a few years now. Just wondering if anyone else has so more background
dkirivng
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Here is a TSB for 2.4L turbo models for an ECM update: https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/09-117-24
All models stated in TSB 09-125-24 are 2.5L Normally-Asperated (NA). All models stated in TSB 09-117-24 are 2.4L Turbo. I am arming you with the info needed to present to your dealer, so they don't falsely claim your TSB for an ECM update doesn't apply to your car.
Here are TSBs for an ECM update to remedy no crank under freezing conditions for 2020-24MY:
2.5L NA engines: https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/09-125-24
2.4L Turbo engines: https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/09-117-24
No one wants to be stranded at freezing temperatures. But another reason to get the ECM update is that other problems may be fixed too. For example, that the alternator effectively turns off if the running lights are off and the climate control fan is low (regardless of the battery's state of charge or if the stereo is playing). We owners need to be assertive with our dealers to avoid battery failures.
When my service adviser told me that no ECM update was available for my 2023 that he had just replaced the battery on, I talked to the service manager. I complained about no crank under freezing conditions, and he told me it didn't make sense that freezing of the starter could be remedied by a software update. I suggested that the Subaru engineers are quite clever and to read the TSB. He then agreed to try it. He asked me to bring the car back so his tech could read the CID number in my car. When I did, he sent out a senior master tech to the staging area to connect his laptop to the ODB port on my running car. He showed me that only the last 4 characters of the CID matched the updated CID in the TSB, and he said this was the important part, and he said that proves my ECM had already been updated. He even tried to update the ECM on the spot, but his laptop said no updates were available.
Then I switched to plan B. While the car was running, I asked the tech if I could sit in the passenger seat and he agreed. I told him that I have been monitoring the battery voltage in the infotainment display. He had never heard of this, so I showed him factory mode and the voltage display in dealership mode. It agreed with the voltage he saw on his laptop. I turned the AC and fan off, and I showed him how the alternator would turn on and off with the running lights. He also adjusted the fan speed and saw that higher speeds caused the alternator to turn on. He believed his own eyes and saw there was a charging problem at idle. I told him I saw the same behavior while driving -- even when the stereo is playing loudly. He agreed there is a need for an ECM update, but didn't see a way for the dealer to get it. Said it was up to Subaru to fix. He said his own recent Subarus have had early battery failures too. Hopefully, he will be communicating his observations with the service manager and his colleagues.
Hopefully, other owners of 2020-22MY will get an ECM update using one of the TSBs above with their dealer. Please report back if you saw an improvement in the alternator behavior. Please also report whether your CID after the update matches the one in the TSB.
Lastly, is it correct that only the last 4 characters in the CID are important when confirming that the ECM software is up to date?
2.5L NA engines: https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/09-125-24
2.4L Turbo engines: https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/09-117-24
No one wants to be stranded at freezing temperatures. But another reason to get the ECM update is that other problems may be fixed too. For example, that the alternator effectively turns off if the running lights are off and the climate control fan is low (regardless of the battery's state of charge or if the stereo is playing). We owners need to be assertive with our dealers to avoid battery failures.
When my service adviser told me that no ECM update was available for my 2023 that he had just replaced the battery on, I talked to the service manager. I complained about no crank under freezing conditions, and he told me it didn't make sense that freezing of the starter could be remedied by a software update. I suggested that the Subaru engineers are quite clever and to read the TSB. He then agreed to try it. He asked me to bring the car back so his tech could read the CID number in my car. When I did, he sent out a senior master tech to the staging area to connect his laptop to the ODB port on my running car. He showed me that only the last 4 characters of the CID matched the updated CID in the TSB, and he said this was the important part, and he said that proves my ECM had already been updated. He even tried to update the ECM on the spot, but his laptop said no updates were available.
Then I switched to plan B. While the car was running, I asked the tech if I could sit in the passenger seat and he agreed. I told him that I have been monitoring the battery voltage in the infotainment display. He had never heard of this, so I showed him factory mode and the voltage display in dealership mode. It agreed with the voltage he saw on his laptop. I turned the AC and fan off, and I showed him how the alternator would turn on and off with the running lights. He also adjusted the fan speed and saw that higher speeds caused the alternator to turn on. He believed his own eyes and saw there was a charging problem at idle. I told him I saw the same behavior while driving -- even when the stereo is playing loudly. He agreed there is a need for an ECM update, but didn't see a way for the dealer to get it. Said it was up to Subaru to fix. He said his own recent Subarus have had early battery failures too. Hopefully, he will be communicating his observations with the service manager and his colleagues.
Hopefully, other owners of 2020-22MY will get an ECM update using one of the TSBs above with their dealer. Please report back if you saw an improvement in the alternator behavior. Please also report whether your CID after the update matches the one in the TSB.
Lastly, is it correct that only the last 4 characters in the CID are important when confirming that the ECM software is up to date?
The issue addressed in the subject TSBs are unrelated to battery charge voltage. My 2025 has the software update and behaves like prior model years. The battery is correctly described as a consumable part in documentation from Subaru. The reason why the charging system has not been changed is related to emissions certification integrity and corporate ethics.
Just last week I took in TSB 09-125-24 and asked the service dept to install it on my 2.5. The guy looked at it and said I didn't have a check engine light on, so it was only for if I was having problems.
Any techs out there know if that is true? The last page of the TSB says it's covered under the extended emissions warranty. Even if there is no exhibited problem?
Thanks.
Any techs out there know if that is true? The last page of the TSB says it's covered under the extended emissions warranty. Even if there is no exhibited problem?
Thanks.
This (installing updates) has been discussed before, i.e., if you report a problem addressed by the update, the dealer will install it at no charge. If you do not have a problem, some dealers will install it, others will not. Try contacting SoA or another dealer.
EDIT - Perhaps @Devilhog can comment... If the customer reports a problem, the dealer not only will install the update but get reimbursed by Subaru. If a problem is not reported, the dealer installs the update and do not charge the customer, they eat the cost. Just as people do not work for free, IMO, we should not expect the dealer to work for free.
Consider 1) the ECM update and 2) who is going to pay for it? as two separate issues. First, decide how important it is to you to not be stranded with no crank under freezing conditions and maybe improve the alternator algorithm. Second, if you didn't buy the extended warranty, who are the decision makers you can talk to if one tech didn't sympathize?
Because your 2020MY falls under the class action settlement, you may be able to justify it. No crank conditions cause a bad reputation for Subaru batteries.
Remember that dealers make more money from service than selling cars (Henry Ford is quoted as saying he would give away the cars if he could have a monopoly on the service), so general managers of other dealers will be able to do you a favor if you swing your business to them. And your service manager may be willing to do you a favor to keep your business at his dealership. Stress that this is a relationship, and remind them about what experience you have had with your early Gen 6 Subaru.
Joined
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4,042 Posts
I wonder if it’s worth your time to invest in a Noco battery tender or something like that. It might be better than so many trips even though they’re warrantied.
I’m at 62000ish on the original battery. It is 5 years old in service in December. Battery was probably manufactured a few months ahead of that.
I drive everywhere with parking lights on (or headlights). I asked at my last service to update the ECM algorithm and they did not.
I’ll see what my dealership mode screen says for the voltage with the engine off. Not sure what it’s supposed to be. I never used auto start stop on this vehicle.
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56 Posts
I wired in a CTEK charger to my OBW and plug it in like you do a block heater when I feel the need or the temps get below 60. I too keep my lights on park whenever I drive.
Got this in an email from Subaru today:
![Image]()
Remote start is I think limited to 10 minutes of runtime. Would 10 minutes at idle really recharge a depleted battery?
Another factor is that the car is programmed to go into a very deep sleep after a certain number of days. If you remote start the car it will prevent that deep sleep.
If you're an infrequent or short trip driver that's going to leave your car to sit for an extended period of time it would be better to ensure that the battery is fully charged beforehand using an external charger, and if practical, a high quality charger that will trickle in a way that can't harm the battery. CTEK chargers do not do a continuous trickle. It will monitor the battery and top it off as needed. A constant trickle can damage a battery.
Another factor is that the car is programmed to go into a very deep sleep after a certain number of days. If you remote start the car it will prevent that deep sleep.
If you're an infrequent or short trip driver that's going to leave your car to sit for an extended period of time it would be better to ensure that the battery is fully charged beforehand using an external charger, and if practical, a high quality charger that will trickle in a way that can't harm the battery. CTEK chargers do not do a continuous trickle. It will monitor the battery and top it off as needed. A constant trickle can damage a battery.
This is shocking and terrible for the engine. There is so much written on the subject I wouldn't know where to begin.
Yes, a 10 minute idle then shut off is terrible for the oil. Let's say you run it once a day for a 10 minute idle. It will be accumulating fuel and moisture (water) in the engine oil. This will both thin the oil and possibly cause corrosion in the engine if it is left this way for too long.
Some resources say to periodically start the car when in long term storage, but that is intended to be starting the car and DRIVING it, not just idle for 10 minutes and shut down. It is best to just leave it alone.
Some resources say to periodically start the car when in long term storage, but that is intended to be starting the car and DRIVING it, not just idle for 10 minutes and shut down. It is best to just leave it alone.
Considering the collaboration dynamics between Japanese and American cultures, I hope this isn’t an indication of deeper divisions within Subaru. This is clearly a well intentioned idea to mitigate warranty costs that did not get vetted by the appropriate engineering staff at Subaru.
The problem is that the naive user will assume that everything Subaru says is correct. As time goes on, frankly, at every level, information is being degraded. Information is no longer about accuracy, but about the sentiment it generates. It feels good to think you can do something to assure yourself that the battery will work when you get back. The downsides on the oil and engine are ignored so that we can feel good about the battery situation. This was clearly not written by an engineer, but a marketing person (or AI).
- Deflect battery issues
- Encourage Starlink remote start subscription.
This is a tangent but information is being dumbed down across the board. People are no longer expected to understand anything, but simply to react. It's not about what's true or not, but what you agree or disagree with. It's about how it makes you feel, not about information transfer.
The use of buzz words convey nothing but sentiment. They do not describe anything tangible or factual. Notice that marketing speak is becoming the same everywhere. Vague proclamations that it will "empower users" or give a better "experience" Many words, but nothing said. Okay that was exaggeration. In a 90 minute presentation there might be 5 seconds of (cherry picked) fact.
If you have expertise in a field, you will easily spot that there's a vacuum of reliable, factual information to the public. Just realize that for those things which you are not really an expert in, you will be influenced by communications that are not necessarily factually true, and you won't know. Half-truths, misconceptions, opinions, distortions, cherry picking, and sometimes fabrication. Gullible people are being driven to psychosis by using chatbots that are very adroit at communicating, but the content itself is questionable. That's why if you use a chatbot to "learn" about something, it's likely not to give you a clear picture. If you check the references, articles, facts it gives you, you will discover that it made them up, or misinterpreted them. Google's AI summaries are often WRONG.
Have you noticed that articles these days don't say what they mean or mean what they say? An article will vaguely describe something, go into tangential minutia, and at the very end, if you are lucky, there will be a tidbit of actual information. Many times there isn't any at all. The article is engineered to keep you reading, hoping to reach the pot at the end of the rainbow. This is because Google search prioritizes listing websites that people stay on for minutes. If they simply gave you the information at the beginning (for example, a recipe) you will read it and then leave the page. Instead you get a life story, the country they grew up in, what their grandmother's house smelled like, the animals they saw while driving around on vacation. At the end is a recipe that was AI generated, nobody actually made, but sounds plausible. Our entire information ecosystem is being corrupted.
To be fair, there are legitimate concise sources of information, but they are very low ranking in search results. You'll have to scroll through pages and pages of results to find something like that. Google profits from having you linger on a page that has Google Ads on it, whether it's their own search engine, or the websites that have their advertising in them. It's called the attention economy.
Yes I still use Google, but it's getting worse and worse over time. I believe that it is damaging society cognitively. When real information is hard to find, then real thinking becomes onerous. We are being worn down. Engagement algorithms add another dimension to all of this, and now we have AI slop flooding the information stream, including in scientific journals. If anyone wants citations message me privately and I can go over it in detail. I doubt anyone wants that but I don't want to make this post too long.
The use of buzz words convey nothing but sentiment. They do not describe anything tangible or factual. Notice that marketing speak is becoming the same everywhere. Vague proclamations that it will "empower users" or give a better "experience" Many words, but nothing said. Okay that was exaggeration. In a 90 minute presentation there might be 5 seconds of (cherry picked) fact.
If you have expertise in a field, you will easily spot that there's a vacuum of reliable, factual information to the public. Just realize that for those things which you are not really an expert in, you will be influenced by communications that are not necessarily factually true, and you won't know. Half-truths, misconceptions, opinions, distortions, cherry picking, and sometimes fabrication. Gullible people are being driven to psychosis by using chatbots that are very adroit at communicating, but the content itself is questionable. That's why if you use a chatbot to "learn" about something, it's likely not to give you a clear picture. If you check the references, articles, facts it gives you, you will discover that it made them up, or misinterpreted them. Google's AI summaries are often WRONG.
Have you noticed that articles these days don't say what they mean or mean what they say? An article will vaguely describe something, go into tangential minutia, and at the very end, if you are lucky, there will be a tidbit of actual information. Many times there isn't any at all. The article is engineered to keep you reading, hoping to reach the pot at the end of the rainbow. This is because Google search prioritizes listing websites that people stay on for minutes. If they simply gave you the information at the beginning (for example, a recipe) you will read it and then leave the page. Instead you get a life story, the country they grew up in, what their grandmother's house smelled like, the animals they saw while driving around on vacation. At the end is a recipe that was AI generated, nobody actually made, but sounds plausible. Our entire information ecosystem is being corrupted.
To be fair, there are legitimate concise sources of information, but they are very low ranking in search results. You'll have to scroll through pages and pages of results to find something like that. Google profits from having you linger on a page that has Google Ads on it, whether it's their own search engine, or the websites that have their advertising in them. It's called the attention economy.
Yes I still use Google, but it's getting worse and worse over time. I believe that it is damaging society cognitively. When real information is hard to find, then real thinking becomes onerous. We are being worn down. Engagement algorithms add another dimension to all of this, and now we have AI slop flooding the information stream, including in scientific journals. If anyone wants citations message me privately and I can go over it in detail. I doubt anyone wants that but I don't want to make this post too long.
Peace brother. We just spent (printed) 7 trillion on advertising, stock buy backs, and diabetes; but hey, we’re humans and we survived the bubonic plague…bring it on!
I just knew I could get a conversation started. I do not personally use Remote Start. I do use a NOCO Genius to keep batteries healthy when equipment is temporarily not going to be used such as over the winter months. During my working years I was always amazed when my coworkers would go out on their lunch break to start their vehicles and run it for a short time. The amount of battery energy used to start the engine would never be fully replaced by the alternator during the short run time and the accumulation of water and unburned fuel in the sump did untold damage.
14.7v is out of spec and not optimal for hot summer weather. The factory service manual specifies a range of 14.0v to 14.6v at 68 Fahrenheit. Was the light switch stalk off/auto?
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