Battery OPTIMA or OEM Subaru

My car previous to that ('98 Z/28), had an Optima Yellow top. The car sat in garaged for several months with a map light left on, and the battery was dead. It took about 15 minutes of jumping to get interior lights, and another 10-15 minutes to start. After this, I drove that car for another 4 years with the same battery without any other issues.

The OEM tundra batteries only last me 3.5 years at best. I always replace with an Optima battery.

Subaru OEM batteries can be pretty shit in cold weather. Even the service department at my dealership admits this. I eventually fed up with my Subaru batteries chugging in cold weather and replaced them with Interstate AGM batteries (with more CCA). I haven’t had any troubles since.

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 always buy an Optima battery for all my cars cuz they last a lifetime.

The battery is an Optima Yellowtop 5.5 75h, I changed it in 2018. It has central poles and the negative pole near the windshield. Now given the very high prices of the Optimas and since their lifespan disappointed me, I wanted to get a cheaper battery.

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.