New Subaru Ascent Owners Say a Glitch In the SUVs Tailgate Could Leave You With a Dead Battery

Yup! Big problem for us while camping. And it's definitely not the light as we confirmed they were all off and it happened twice. It was a very stressful situation for us late at night while at a campground. Luckily we weren't camping alone in some remote location. When I've brought it up with subaru they just basically said "sorry it's designed that way and functioning fine". No response to the fact that it's not something one would expect of subaru or any car for that matter. I've never had a problem with my GMC Acadia or Town and Country Caravan (both with power lift gates) and we took them camping all the time. I've owned several Subarus and I would never have expected this from them. I wouldn't have purchased the Ascent if I knew about this and now they just shrug their shoulders and say deal with it. I was even told I can't do any kind of fix (better battery, add a switch, etc.) on my own dime without voiding the warranty.

Discovered this "feature" while trying out car camping in July. Same thing happened to us. Happily had jump starter at hand. Got the impression that Subaru thinks Ascent owners don't camp.

Ascent 2019. If I have my key fob in my front pocket (normal position), the rear tailgate is occasionally accidentally activated. Whether at home (it hits the garage door, as many scratches will verify) or it opens and leaves the contents of the vehicle exposed to all in the parking lot. I'd be fine with disabling the function but Subaru says it is not possible. I'm ready to effect my own "disablement" and glue the button in the "up" position. Transparent tape has not helped. Comments???

Ascent 2019 2,600 miles, and have had to call Raodside Assist twice. This not except able. First of I hate all this electronic cramp it draws on the battery and it seems this Ascent has a electrical draw down once sitting. The back switch for the tail gate you can it cycling when you try and start the vehicle. After Roadside assist came today to jump the battery, ran a errand. Restarting the Ascent had issues, like mid winter, on a negative 10 degree day. It’s 77 degrees out. So got home, put the electronic Park on like someone mentioned above, Restarted and stop the vehicle approx 5 times. It still has a slow crank issue, like mid winter. So guess I will be calling Roadside Assistance again, if this thing doesn’t turn over Should of got a Toyota, or Chev Travese.

Same problem with brand new 2019 Outback. Leave the gate open and within 3 hours the battery is dead. We discovered this the hard way while camping. 1800 miles on this brand new car, and the battery was totally dead because I left the gate open for three hours while we slowly packed up to come home. Fortunately our camping companions had jumper cables. Not since the 70's have I had to worry about leaving a car door open and killing the battery. SoA customer service tells me this is a characteristic of the power liftgate system and cannot be changed. Their recommended solution is to not leave the liftgate open for extended periods.This is crazy. Subaru owners are outdoor people. They take their cars into remote areas. There are even tents that utilize the open gate of the Outback for camping. A "designed in" battery drain is dumb design and a safety issue. I would happily give up the power liftgate. I don't need it and no one else does either, but you can't get up-level versions of the car without it. I am a first time Subaru owner and I have completely fallen out of love with this vehicle, which sounds petty, I know. But this issue, which apparently has existed for several model years and the extremely non-helpful response form SoA has me very disenchanted. "Subies" would tell me to get used to it: It's a Subaru.
I can't do that. I think it can be fixed. Easily. In my simple mind, this is a software issue. Instruct the computer to shut off the power to the liftgate after a few minutes.... same as it already does for the interior lights.
Step up Subaru. This is a flaw. Fix it.

I have a 2019 Subaru Ascent

Anyone experience the back just randomly opening? It's happened three times now. This time the back remained open over night (24° outside). Was thankful the car started in the morning.

We have a 2019 Outback and already know about the battery drainage with open hatch, we've learned to live with that. Now we have a doubly worse issue where the back hatch sensor thinks the hatch is open when it is not. We got this fixed under warranty a week ago but it has happened again. The car is totally dead in the driveway right now and we're headed back to the dealer tomorrow, unhappy.

I purchased my 2019 Subaru Ascent Limited in February 2019. In November my trunk started opening by its self when I would start the car. At times I would be able to close the trunk but now it stays completely open. The first time I wasn't able to close it I had to drive 10 mph at 12 am (after my shift) to get myself safely home. The next day I got it secured with rope and brought it to the dealer. Everything was fine until today, Christmas Eve, and my trunk wont close. I have 3 kids that I constantly have in the vehicle hence the reason I got the vehicle.
If I knew this would be a problem I wouldn't have purchased the vehicle! $20,000 was put down and I feel now that it was just a waste of money.

Happened to our 6 month old 2019 Forester twice on camping trip. The second time 2 days later was as we tried to to evacuate from bushfires, so quite concerning. I had had the tail gate open while I packed up for approx 3 hours WITHOUT the tailgate light being on. Luckily this Australia and plenty of folks around with jump leads. Thank heavens the stop start feature didn't activate after the jump start - something I hadn't considered until I was some way down the road.

Outdoorsy car for outdoorsy people. Design is is not fit for purpose. Come on Subaru - just fix it!!

The same situation for my 2019 Subaru Forester Limited.

I have a 2019 Subaru Outback and only had it for a week, same issue with tailgate. I went to a dog trial all day, went to leave, dead car... I am disappointed in my new car, every cat I’ve had in history never had this shitty problem. They need a fix, or recall...

I have a 2020 Ascent with less than 600 miles on it. I accidentally left the rear hatch open overnight in my garage and the next morning the battery would not start the car. The light was not on. Wish I had read this forum before I purchased the vehicle.

Turn the lights off manually. (!)
Problem solved.

My Subaru bought in March and ready to get rid of it already, sad....

I lose battery intermittently when I leave the tailgate open. The first time it happened, I was not sure whether it was caused by the tailgate, or something my kids had done. I was able to start the car using a portable battery jumper I have. To test the problem, I left the tailgate open on Saturday night after packing for a day trip. On Sunday, yesterday, the car started fine. So I left the tailgate open again last night, and late this morning I found the battery had drained again.

I have no reason to think the problem is with the battery itself. A flaw in the electrical system is *sometimes* draining the battery when the tailgate is open.

Same here. Found my hatch up in the morning and thought dumb me. Car is dead. On top of it misplaced key. So I have been without car all weekend and now I need jump and Suburu STARLINK Honk everyone is too bus. Have loved thiS car. Hope it isn’t an ongoing no fix.

Same here. Found my hatch up in the morning and thought dumb me. Car is dead. On top of it misplaced key. So I have been without car all weekend and now I need jump and Suburu STARLINK Honk everyone is too bus. Have loved thiS car. Hope it isn’t an ongoing no fix.

The lift gate motor drains the battery of my 2018 Outback in 4 to 5 hours. Subaru’s response, keep the gate closed. That’s a problem as I show dogs and need it open for ventilation. Subaru does not seem to see this as a problem.

Subaru Ascent 2021.

Bought in November and has ~380 miles on it.

Without a doubt, we do not keep the key fobs within 60 feet of the vehicle and inside and not something we keep in our pockets. In other words, no one hit the trunk release on the car fobs.

We got up this AM and found the trunk wide open. All car doors were locked.

2021's are not included in the battery drain bulletin because the updated controller is put in when built. So we know after 20 min the drain moves from ~4amps to ~0.17amps and we already replaced the sucky battery with an Odyssey 1400T 850 cca battery (SOA sending us the check).

So to be clear: trunk opens on its own - huge security issue as we live in a city.

Had my 1 year old 2020 Ascent strand us 4 times now. It has 13,000 miles on it. Why pay $40,000 for a car and then not be able to trust it?

In our case, two of the 4 times involved a liftgate that was mysteriously open (pretty sure nobody pushed the remote to open it). It should not "accidently" open and drain itself. The other two times were unrelated to any tailgate opening.

I own 2021 Ascent and this just happened to mine. I have been a royal Subaru customer as this is my 9th Subarus so this was really shocking to learn that Subaru left this issue unfixed for so long. Do not buy this car!

I've learned to keep the tailgate closed so I thought we had the problem solved, not battery boosts for over a year. We shut off all the automatic lights in the back so they only come on when we click the switch.
But no. Left the tailgate open accidentally over night and it would not start in the morning. I've invested in the inexpensive Lithion Ion booster, It only takes a few seconds to boost it now. Maybe with every $40K vehicle Subaru should at least give us the booster kit { Ya Right!}. I would rather have a reliable vehicle.

Bought a used 2019 Subaru Ascent in October 2021. I didn't know about the battery drain problem until it happened to me. If you leave tailgate or doors open for 30 minutes, the car had to be jump started. Also, just playing music from my phone through the car speakers for 30 minutes. Had to jump start it. Dealership said this a common problem and there's not a fix for it except to keep your doors shut and don't play the radio unless the car is running.