from Hacker News

Tell HN: 3G sunsetting is remotely killing every Subaru Outback battery

by siftrics on 10/21/23, 10:25 PM with 215 comments

• by adambatkin on 10/22/23, 1:02 PM

  Can confirm. Had 3 or 4 batteries replaced (under warranty) before the local dealership informed me that "some DCMs cause parasitic battery drain". I brought it in, they ran some sort of test, and ordered me a new DCM (also under warranty). It took a while for the part to arrive, so they pulled the fuse. As other posters have noted, it took out one of the speakers (music sounded only mostly normal) and both the mic and speaker for Bluetooth comms were dead.

  Previously, there were times that I would drive 100 miles one day, and I couldn't even open the doors using the automatic locks on the following day. It's been about a month on the new DCM and so far I haven't had any issues, so here's hoping...

• by johnklos on 10/23/23, 3:02 PM

  This is an excellent example of how large corporations can't plan products normally any longer. You could take a college class in embedded systems design and you could ask all the students to come up with examples of edge cases where an SOS system in a car could have issues, and you're pretty much guaranteed that someone will mention both being out of range of cell towers and being old enough to be incompatible with cell towers.

  Discussion would then lead to what to do about it, and busy-waiting in a loop trying to contact cell towers again and again would certainly not be a solution.

  But can a corporation do this? Apparently not. I honestly wonder if designers are actively discouraged from caring about anything beyond the projected life of a product, because it could negatively impact later sales.

• by greenyoda on 10/22/23, 8:11 AM

  I searched for Subaru Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) mentioning "STARLINK", and found this one:

  https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/WQZ-61R

  It mentions a "3G Sunset Update".

  A further search for "3G Sunset" turned up a few TSBs that apply to various Subaru models and years.

  You can search for TSBs here: https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru

• by hulkmusic on 10/22/23, 2:56 PM

  I have a 2016 Subaru Forester with a seemingly parasitic drain issue. Every time I go to start the car, it's like rolling the dice whether it has enough battery power to fully start. I have a portable jump starter that I've had to use at least 20 times or so in the last couple of years. This has been happening even well before the 3G sunset period, so that is not the only source of the battery drain problem, for which there is a class action lawsuit: https://www.subarubatterysettlement.com/.

  Everything I've read online about the issue points to the STARLINK system, and the common wisdom in this thread and elsewhere is to pull the DCM fuse. Unfortunately, my Forester has no such fuse, so I'm at a loss what to do with my car.

  It's so frustrating, because my wife has a Subaru Crosstrek of the same year that has never had a battery problem, even with the OEM battery. She has a base model without any additional "upgraded" electronics, so that's the likely culprit in my case. I'm currently on my third or fourth higher CCA battery and had to jump it again a few days ago.

  I haven't taken my car to the dealer for the parasitic drain issue, but previously tried to get dealership service for an unrelated entertainment system issue related to USB media playback freezing up the entertainment system. That fix was unsuccessful, and I have no faith in Subaru mechanics being able to diagnose and fix a potentially more nebulous battery drain issue. It doesn't help that the dealership is now 45 minutes away, so I'm not interested in wasting even more time on a hit and miss solution.

  Ironically, I bought Subaru because reliability was my number one concern when purchasing a vehicle, and I'm not sure I would do that again.

• by Lio on 10/22/23, 8:05 AM

  I would get the battery replaced at a main Subaru dealer.

  Then keep coming back to get the battery replaced when it "fails to hold charge".

  If every owner did that it would end up like the region restriction in DVD players.

  i.e. The retailers would force the manufactures to turn it off because they don't want to deal with the cost of fixing an artificial problem.

  Oh and I would start posting to car websites and forums about how unreliable my car was. Marketing teams do care about getting that reputation.

• by otterley on 10/22/23, 6:48 PM

  Subaru has published a Technical Service Bulletin that appears to offer a free firmware update to switch the Starlink system to use VoLTE. Affected vehicles are:

  2016-18MY Legacy/Outback 2016-18MY Impreza 2016-18MY Crosstrek 2016-18MY Forester 2017-18MY WRX

  See https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2021/MC-10189606-0001.pdf for details. And, yes, Subaru is reimbursing dealers for this work.

• by morkalork on 10/22/23, 5:27 PM

  Kind of crazy that they push the whole outdoorsy camping image in all their ads and build something so flawed. How does that work? Go explore the great outdoors but don't go too far, or you're battery is gonna die if there's no cellphone service? I don't know about the US but it's not hard to go that far out in Canada!

• by bicepjai on 10/22/23, 6:39 AM

  I had the battery failing recently. Took it to the service, they did not know what the reason was and said they would test the whole car to find where the drain happens for 500 USD. I was about to drop it off next week and I read this. So is there any official help from Subaru ?

• by RecycledEle on 10/22/23, 6:56 PM

  Please allow me to suggest engineering fixes:

  1. All vehicles with 12v starter batteries should also have deep cycle batteries to power the accessories. Chevy Suburbans had that for decades, but some people laughed at vehicles designed to actually run and drive. That's fine. Enjoy the vehicle you picked.

  2. It's my car darn it. Any and all communication with it needs to be easily read by my in plain English. I also need to be able to veto any communication, in an easy-to-use, plain English system. This second option would require legislation. The new law should apply to everything made. If the owner is also the operator, then the owner can read and veto all communications.

  3. In the interest of national security, all products made must have a minimum of reliance on the outside world. Those connections that do exist must be as standard as possible. Once against, this requires legislation.Any device that refuses to operate without an Internet connection should be illegal. Phone-home DRam should be illegal.

  We get what we deserve. The only downside to my ancient pickup truck is that I have to clean the hybrids out of the wheel wells about twice a month.

• by totetsu on 10/22/23, 7:36 AM

  This seems to be a very common type of software bug. On fail retry, without any limits of how frequent or how many time.

• by alphabettsy on 10/22/23, 11:03 PM

  Outback’s of this generation also have an unresolved battery drain issue where if you leave the tailgate up, like you might while tailgating, the battery will drain even if all lights are off.

  The solution is to put a carabiner or similar in the latch so it believes it’s closed.

  Completely ridiculous issue with an otherwise great vehicle.

• by SanjayMehta on 10/22/23, 7:42 AM

  A compelling reason to avoid “connected cars.”

  Better to go with one which pairs with your phone if you even need this functionality.

• by bsbdbkeks66554 on 10/22/23, 4:16 PM

  there’s another design flaw in the outback where the battery drains if you have the rear lift gate open too long. happened to me the day i was moving my family out of state and loading up the car all day, we were about to leave and the battery was totally drained. later looked it up and its apparently a common issue

• by ashirviskas on 10/22/23, 3:44 AM

  I just found out my country also started deprecating 3G last year and will deprecate 2G in 2025. That is a bit sad, as I've just powered on some old 2G phones and they seemed to work just fine, but I guess it allows us to move forward without the tech debt.

• by seeg on 10/22/23, 7:29 AM

  That's pretty lame. What IP you wanted to drive where there is no cell connectivity rt all, say Mongolia?

• by CrendKing on 10/22/23, 7:15 AM

  Maybe you could disconnect the battery cable every time you stop, and reconnect before you go?

• by ksec on 10/22/23, 7:31 AM

  This is strange. I know a lot of countries are sunsetting 3G and 2G in terms of consumer mobile usage. But they leave IoT alone for a few more years because of contract and money in it.

• by op00to on 10/22/23, 1:29 PM

  I have a 2017 Subaru with STARLINK. It works just fine. It does run the battery down if the key is close enough to the car to wake it up, but far enough away that the signal is broken and the car goes back to sleep. Keeping the battery 5 feet away from the door instead of next to the door solved that problem.

• by nzealand on 10/22/23, 4:37 PM

  According to Subaru's website & TRB, this only impacts vehicles from 2016-2018

  https://www.subaru.com/support/3g-network-retirement.html

  https://www.tsbsearch.com/Subaru/15-291-22

• by CrankyBear on 10/30/23, 5:47 PM

  It's not just Subaru. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39301678/3g-internet-suns...

• by manuelabeledo on 10/21/23, 11:01 PM

  They offered a free upgrade a couple years ago.

• by bobchadwick on 10/24/23, 2:57 PM

  I never got confirmation that it was related to 3G sunsetting, but I had this issue when I stopped driving my 2017 Outback regularly at the beginning of the pandemic. The first trip to the dealership resulted in a "software update" that didn't seem to do anything. On the next visit, with photos I'd taken of my voltmeter showing parasitic drain, they replaced the DCM. I think they charged around $800 for that and a new battery since the original was toast from too many total discharges.

  I reached out to Subaru of America and as a one-time "goodwill gesture," they refunded me for the cost of the DCM.

• by doktorhladnjak on 10/23/23, 5:47 AM

  Crazy reading about this here. I just had this problem. Spent a couple hundred bucks for the local mechanic to track it down to parasitic drain from the SOS module (“Starlink”). He just disconnected it since I don’t pay for the subscription anyways.

• by lathiat on 10/22/23, 7:45 AM

  Somewhat related in 2006 I had a Motorola A1000, very early iPhone sized full screen smart phone with Stylus.

  I took it to New Zealand on roaming and despite having a connection it spent so much time looking for the home network (“Three” in Australia) the battery would last half a day.

• by block_dagger on 10/22/23, 8:41 AM

  This probably explains recent battery issues on my 2022 Outback. Took it in, they admitted it happens frequently but didn’t explain. Replaced with larger battery for free.

• by DLA on 10/25/23, 1:12 AM

  I have a 2018 Subaru Crosstrek. Just this weekend I stopped for lunch and had XM on until it timed out ~ 10 minutes after key off. I’ve done this since I got the car. But when I went to start the car the battery was low voltage (which really freaks the computer out) and would not start. This story fits the fact pattern!

• by onewheeltom on 10/23/23, 11:48 PM

  My daughters’ 2014 Volt that had a bug that would trigger a warning system that would turn off charging until it was reset. Paid a dealer $400 to reprogram (and didn’t do it right the first time and follow the service bulletin. Had to take it back). Write crappy code, get paid over and over.

• by WirelessGigabit on 10/22/23, 7:48 PM

  How is 3G turning off different from people parking their car underground and not driving it for a week?

• by userinanother on 10/21/23, 11:35 PM

  Can you pull the breaker or cut the wire. Seems like it would be a simple ish hack but maybe access issues

• by Der_Einzige on 10/22/23, 6:05 PM

  3G sunsetting fking over cars is not exclusive to Subaru. My 2017 lexus was also hit by this.

• by mjan22640 on 10/22/23, 5:19 PM

  How difficult is to make a 3g proxy, something like the Stingray?

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker

• by cushpush on 10/22/23, 3:25 PM

  What's the [sustained] financial incentive to produce an unbreakable product?

• by Noumenon72 on 10/22/23, 4:29 PM

  I just paid $98 for a tow last week for a 2015 Outback that went so dead the doors wouldn't open. They said my year-old battery was mysteriously worn down so I bought a new one.

  Is this a different Starlink from the Elon Musk one?

• by Kon-Peki on 10/22/23, 5:12 PM

  I’m pretty certain that the battery lawsuit happened before the 3g shutdown.

  So while I totally believe this is killing batteries, I also believe that these cars have more electrical problems than just this.

• by faebi on 10/23/23, 6:54 PM

  These days you can buy a battery bank which can jump start a car a few times. They are not so expensive (70USD), at least cheaper than road aide assistance.

• by kenaz on 10/28/23, 9:15 PM

  Is this just Outback, or other Subaru models with STARLINK?

• by scarface_74 on 10/22/23, 7:12 PM

  So instead of complaining on HN, it was a simple Google search to find out that Subaru has already offered a free repair for affected vehicles.

• by sasaf5 on 10/23/23, 9:25 AM

  > Will a brand ever produce a reliable, mechanical car?

  Take a look at Dacia.

• by uberman on 10/21/23, 11:31 PM

  "Even if you drive your car every day, its battery will die and you won't be able to start it."

  How do you figure this? Seems unlikely to me that a 15 min drive would not bring a car batter drained my occasional failed phone connections back to full

• by smoyer on 10/22/23, 6:03 PM

  This is also happening with my (old) Mercedes SUV.

• by EMCymatics on 10/22/23, 8:03 PM

  Why are we shutting down 3G coverage?

• by egberts1 on 10/23/23, 4:52 PM

  Why do people continue to buy poorly-engineered vehicles?

  -- Slick marketing.

  Always pay attention to Consumers Report ratings.

• by mouse_ on 10/21/23, 10:42 PM

  No, IoT is here to stay. Makes way too much money.

• by rootsudo on 10/22/23, 8:26 AM

  Just pull the fuse and be done with it, not that hard.

• by tetrti7475 on 10/22/23, 8:35 AM

  This is called parasitic battery drain. There are two low tech solutions:

  - install small solar panel behind back window. That will trickle charge battery, and will counter ballance drain

  - hard switch off on battery, disconnect battery everytime car is not used for couple of days (weekend).

• by clnq on 10/22/23, 4:51 AM

  This is because large corporations must provide infinite growth to their investors, or a good number of them will dump the stock and raising investment might become very hard.

  For the sake of infinite growth, many lines have been crossed and many decisions that make no sense if not looked through the lens of money have been made.

  I think companies will start doing truly unethical things in the pursuit of this in the future. What if the dashboard could show ads before the car starts? It’s just a second of your time. What if a gas station network like Circle K could sponsor your car so it tells you to get a specific type of gasoline? Why not subscription for “optional” safety features that were standard? Why not a way to remotely disable cars with a warning light on the dash “for your own safety” until they visit a certified dealer? Why not coded car parts so the customer gets a “genuine product” and doesn’t “accidentally” install a cheaper generic counterpart? Why not pay as you go features instead of paying upfront? Why not track places you drive to with your car, the conversations you have in it, the people you call, and whether you drive with your wife and/or kids for behavioural advertising elsewhere? What about an eco mode subscription that saves you money when compared to not buying it, despite that it is always free with cars today?

  Maybe we could also disable some people’s cars to align with certain political demographics and identities, like we cancel, deplatform, and get people fired for slights online now? Could that paint us in a positive light in certain demographics? One client lost for a thousand gained!

  Maybe an auto-911 crash detection subscription? You wouldn’t want to be the mother whose kid dies in a car crash so you’d save $19.99 a month, would you? Anything if it moves more cars or at a higher marginal revenue, right?

  And let’s not forget marginal costs - what could be cheaper? Maybe some parts are too durable. A lot of things could be digital - break lines, steering, the accelerator, door locks, seat belt mechanisms, mirrors and so on. And we could save doubly by outsourcing all this work to the cheapest bidder, whether they specialize in automotive safety or web design.

  Anything for the sake of growth. And it’s coming. Sooner or later, there won’t be a company in the auto industry providing appealing returns unless they charge their users more, exploit them more, or save up for a nicer dividend by cutting some corners. Not today, not this year, maybe not in the immediate future. But this is the natural conclusion of the flavor of capitalism we do.

  I don’t blame capitalism for everything. It’s good for a lot of things. But it totally fails humanity when large corporations are involved. We should change it before a bunch of our industries collapse under their self-destructive behaviors driven by greed. Because right now, a good investment strategy is to constantly keep investing in companies who irreparably harm themselves and their customers long-term for a quick buck. You just need to build your portfolio of these and dump them once their sell-out is over. And this makes money. An investor would be unwise not to pick a money-making strategy.

  It is in everyone’s best capitalistic interest to exploit others to the max. And when all that could be exploited is, well… no one managing companies thinks about this. The investors want returns now, all the time. The executives know how to sell-out for this and golden-parachute into the next company to do it all again. The employees are laid off and customers are mistreated, but hey - capitalism is to acquire capital. It’s not called moralism.

• by simonebrunozzi on 10/22/23, 8:03 AM

  Until car companies are sued to the tunes of hundred of millions for something like this, their attitude will never change. Sigh.