Battery OEM Subaru or OEM Volvo

Subaru are known for using cheap batteries, winter just makes it even worse. within the first 2 weeks of buying a 2022 Outback, i junked the battery and put in a great aftermarket one.

Wife’s Ascent had a factory battery that last maybe 2 winters. Replaced it was a yellow top and haven’t had any problems since. Subaru even gave us credit for it so that was nice

I only just replaced the Subaru branded battery a couple weeks ago with another Subaru battery. It comes with a 30 month warranty and supposed to have a 55 lifespan.

Yeah they use undersized batteries, but just buy a good one and that's the end of it. my 2019 Legacy had is original battery after 4 years when I traded it in.

Any tips or advice before I fork out money for a new battery? I have some anxiety hoping its not the alternator dying, or less likely the starter. All things point to a slowly dying battery but I want a second opinion.

This happened to me during rush hour on a busy street! 2020 Legacy, they told me it was a known issue with the battery and replaced it for free. It was an incredibly stressful morning though.

I had this problem with my 2019 Forester in stop and go traffic on the Dallas North Tollway. I was able to force the car into park and shut it off and back on manually, and this happened about a half dozen more times before my dealer finally admitted that there was a class action on those batteries. I’ve since had it replaced two additional times under a labor warranty. Like I guess it’s fine because it’s free, but very annoying that I bought a Subaru for reliability and I’m in the shop at least every 9 months for a new battery.

The auto start/stop failed to start the car today while waiting in a left hand turn lane at a red light in traffic. Potentially dangerous situation for anyone. Fortunately the person behind me got out of his car and pushed my car across two traffic lanes to the right curb. The Subaru dealer told me last week when I had the 42k mile maintenance done that the battery was fine based on a battery test. I had specifically asked for the battery to be checked because the starts sounded weak. Now I’m back at the dealer after the failure incident and the diagnoses is a bad battery. It is not safe to have the car automatically shut down on the road when the battery does not have the power to auto start.

Subaru's factory batteries suck. I've had to replace them in several Subaru's that were only like 2 years old. Doubly tough if the car is just sitting for a period of time between uses.

I had Subaru batteries last me only 2 years in upstate NY. I kept getting them for free under warranty. I probably got 4 this way. Finally, the dealer said your alternator is bad and that's why they are going bad (completely bogus). I started going to a local mechanics soon after that and they told me that super OEM batteries are complete garbage.