Fifth Avenue Forum

I have now passed day 17 of my car being at the dealership. There is something causing the battery to drain completely dead every night. Local Subaru ran tests on it and couldn't isolate the problem so they escalated it. The team they escalated to said "pull a fuse each night. Once you wake up with a live battery, you should know where the problem is isolated." There are close to 50 fuses in that panel. If it ended up being one of the last fuses in the box, pulling one a night would take close to two months.

Subaru of America was hit with a class-action lawsuit concerning the Subaru Outback wagon and Ascent 3-Row SUV last year. The class-action lawsuit filed in April 2020 alleged 2016-2019 Subaru Outback and 2019-2020 Subaru Ascent SUVs have problems with the batteries draining prematurely. The alleged defect may also be present in the 2020 Outback, according to the filing. (Ed. note: oooh, that's me!)

A new report from Car Complaints says multiple lawsuits were filed, and they have been consolidated into a new class-action titled, In regard Subaru Battery Drain Products Liability Litigation.

Several Subaru models are having issues with battery problems. The 2016-2020 Subaru Outback and 2019-2020 Subaru Ascent have batteries that just can’t hold a charge. According to Car Complaints, the affected vehicles “don’t have enough capacity to power the electrical systems when the vehicles are turned off.”

This is a major issue because owners are forced to jump their vehicles off. It’s a frustrating problem that Subaru has yet to fix. It offered to replace the faulty batteries with new ones and did so. Many owners claim that the new batteries are just as faulty as the original, however, and didn’t fix the problem.

Lawsuits aren’t that uncommon in the auto industry, and Subaru is no stranger to facing off against its customers in court. This situation is no different.

There were originally several lawsuits, according to Car Complaints, but they have been consolidated into one that is called In re Subaru Battery Drain Products Liability Litigation.

Car Complaints stated, “The plaintiffs say Subaru owners must jump-start their drained batteries and continue to charge the batteries to keep the vehicles going. The lawsuit also alleges Subaru drivers can become stranded, forced to find alternative transportation, purchase battery jumper cables and pay for battery chargers.”

Naturally, Subaru isn’t going down without a fight. The Japanese automaker has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Its argument is that the lawsuit is too vague. Subaru lawyers are also arguing that the plaintiffs of the original, separate lawsuits voluntarily dismissed the claim when they decided to combine their lawsuits into one.

Unfortunately for Subaru, the judge didn’t agree. According to Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP (CSK&DS), the lawsuit has not been dismissed. Subaru will have to face its customers and argue its case before the court. Whether it is able to prove that there are no real battery issues remains to be seen, but it’s not looking good so far.

News is a week old, but RIP Drivetribe.