NHTSA Complaint #11592408 — 2022 SUBARU FORESTER

At 7:30 am on 21May2024 I came out to find the car was dead, no electrical power at all, it would not start. I called Subaru customer service and arranged to have the battery jumped. When the tow driver tried to start the car, my car drained his battery in about 30 seconds. Because of the way my car was parked, the flatbed tow truck could not reach the car & I had to arrange for another truck to come pick up the car. That happened Thursday 23May2024 because my Subaru dealer did not have a loaner car available til then. That tow driver was able to start the car and said it was ok to drive it to the dealer if I didn't turn it off. So I started out and 1/2 mile from my house the battery died again & I had to arrange for another tow. Once I got the car to the dealer and they had a chance to check it out, I got a call about what was wrong. They said the battery was dead and a diagnostic test had confirmed that there was nothing in the car draining the battery, it was just dead and would need to be replaced. When I went to pick up the car and asked for a more detailed explanation of why a 2-year-old car's battery would suddenly just die, I was told that the battery didn't have enough amps for the needs of the car and they put in a battery with more amps (See attached service record). They also mentioned that Subaru was aware of this battery problem and there had been a class action settlement, but that my 2022 Forester was not covered by this settlement. I don't know if the old battery is available for inspection but this incident put me and others at risk when the car died in the middle of the road. My hazard flashers didn't work so there was no safe way to alert oncoming drivers of the hazard in the road. There were no warning lamps, messages or other symptoms of the problem before I found the dead battery Tuesday morning, or when it died on the road Thursday morning.