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2018 Forester with 6,000 miles, 2 dead batteries, dealership can't find problem
dbs2018subfor
Member Posts: 1
Brand new Forester, 1st service trip to Matthews Subaru, I informed dealer service dept the battery had difficulty starting and there were some issues with various buttons on the vehicle, like the back liftgate opens at times, but not other times, passenger window doesn't work from driver side...they installed a new battery, telling me that sometimes when the cars come from manufacturer they have weak batteries. 1 week into the new battery, the car dies. The dealership has had the car 3 days, wants to keep it for another week and say they can't locate the problem. A brand new car and I have told them I can't trust it and want a full refund...to which they replied, that's not as simple as you might think! I have just read 8 pages of the same issue other customers are having. Why isn't Subaru doing anything about this issue???
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Seems to me that they could at least verify that you DO have a parasitic drain on the battery, even if they don't yet know the cause of the drain. You might ask them if they've even gotten that far. If they say no to that, then they probably haven't even looked at it yet.
If they have verified the parasitic drain, then that could legitimately take some time to track down. Sometimes there are various modules that don't shut down when they are supposed to---but sometimes they DO shut down--so the test equipment has to be on the car when the problem is actually happening.
I would agree with the dealer though--you aren't far enough along with this problem (yet) to invoke the Lemon Law for your state.
When I worked at a BMW dealership and we had trouble isolating an issue we simply gave the client a loaner that was equivalent or better to his/her car and told them we'd call when we had the issue solved. One time it took a Service Advisor and myself four days to figure out what was going on with a flaky telematics module in an X5-
but the customer was not inconvenienced and the problem was resolved.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
I ask, because I know several people who previously owned significantly older vehicles, and they had a similar issue with new vehicle purchases. In all cases, the primary issue is due to driving habits (combined with the new technologies). On newer cars, there is constant small drain on the battery, and it is much more significant than the small drain older vehicles experienced.
If your commute is short (maybe five miles or less), and you don't use the vehicle much other than that, you are going to draw more juice from the battery overall than it can charge into it. Ergo, you will end up with a "dead battery" before too long. If your battery charge is weak, you may notice some other features not working well with the vehicle off.
In all cases of people I know, adding a "permanently installed" trickle charger to the vehicle and plugging it in overnight once a week (such as Friday night after you get home) solves the issue. Adding a deep cycle battery, which is designed to handle draws better than starting batteries, can help with the problem as well.
If there is a problem with the car, it might be intermittent. I have a 2013 Forester, and, every once in a while, the fuel pump does not shut off with the vehicle. It is a quiet whirring noise that may go unnoticed, but it will kill the battery if not detected within a few hours. I imagine it is bad for the fuel pump, too! Simply switching the car to the 'on' position, then 'off' again, succeeds in turning off the pump. I had no luck resolving the issue with Subaru because they just could not replicate it. To be fair, it does only happen once in a while. Sometimes it will do it more than once in a week, and sometimes it will go for many weeks with no issue at all.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive