diff --git a/cmd/podman/kube/play.go b/cmd/podman/kube/play.go
index 37ab8cc886..2e21074d02 100644
--- a/cmd/podman/kube/play.go
+++ b/cmd/podman/kube/play.go
@@ -251,15 +251,6 @@ func play(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
 		return errors.New("--force may be specified only with --down")
 	}
 
-	// When running under Systemd use passthrough as the default log-driver.
-	// When doing so, the journal socket is passed to the containers as-is which has two advantages:
-	// 1. journald can see who the actual sender of the log event is,
-	//    rather than thinking everything comes from the conmon process
-	// 2. conmon will not have to copy all the log data
-	if !cmd.Flags().Changed(logDriverFlagName) && playOptions.ServiceContainer {
-		playOptions.LogDriver = define.PassthroughLogging
-	}
-
 	reader, err := readerFromArg(args[0])
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
diff --git a/pkg/systemd/quadlet/quadlet.go b/pkg/systemd/quadlet/quadlet.go
index d138a0dd15..8724eb0e15 100644
--- a/pkg/systemd/quadlet/quadlet.go
+++ b/pkg/systemd/quadlet/quadlet.go
@@ -745,6 +745,9 @@ func ConvertKube(kube *parser.UnitFile, isUser bool) (*parser.UnitFile, error) {
 
 		// Use a service container
 		"--service-container=true",
+
+		// We want output to the journal, so use the log driver.
+		"--log-driver", "passthrough",
 	)
 
 	if err := handleUserRemap(kube, KubeGroup, execStart, isUser, false); err != nil {
diff --git a/test/e2e/quadlet/basic.kube b/test/e2e/quadlet/basic.kube
index 727ab84a56..aeac1bdaf4 100644
--- a/test/e2e/quadlet/basic.kube
+++ b/test/e2e/quadlet/basic.kube
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 ## assert-podman-final-args-regex /tmp/podman_test.*/quadlet/deployment.yml
 ## assert-podman-args "--replace"
 ## assert-podman-args "--service-container=true"
+## assert-podman-args "--log-driver" "passthrough"
 ## assert-podman-stop-args "kube"
 ## assert-podman-stop-args "down"
 ## assert-podman-stop-final-args-regex /tmp/podman_test.*/quadlet/deployment.yml
diff --git a/test/e2e/quadlet_test.go b/test/e2e/quadlet_test.go
index d04121ea8c..c19fb00a54 100644
--- a/test/e2e/quadlet_test.go
+++ b/test/e2e/quadlet_test.go
@@ -393,6 +393,7 @@ var _ = Describe("quadlet system generator", func() {
 				"## assert-podman-final-args-regex /tmp/podman_test.*/quadlet/deployment.yml",
 				"## assert-podman-args \"--replace\"",
 				"## assert-podman-args \"--service-container=true\"",
+				"## assert-podman-args \"--log-driver\" \"passthrough\"",
 				"## assert-podman-stop-args \"kube\"",
 				"## assert-podman-stop-args \"down\"",
 				"## assert-podman-stop-final-args-regex /tmp/podman_test.*/quadlet/deployment.yml",
@@ -413,7 +414,7 @@ var _ = Describe("quadlet system generator", func() {
 				"Type=notify",
 				"NotifyAccess=all",
 				"SyslogIdentifier=%N",
-				fmt.Sprintf("ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/podman kube play --replace --service-container=true %s/deployment.yml", quadletDir),
+				fmt.Sprintf("ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/podman kube play --replace --service-container=true --log-driver passthrough %s/deployment.yml", quadletDir),
 				fmt.Sprintf("ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/podman kube down %s/deployment.yml", quadletDir),
 			}
 
diff --git a/test/system/250-systemd.bats b/test/system/250-systemd.bats
index d345765464..d928596890 100644
--- a/test/system/250-systemd.bats
+++ b/test/system/250-systemd.bats
@@ -414,10 +414,10 @@ EOF
     run_podman 125 container rm $service_container
     is "$output" "Error: container .* is the service container of pod(s) .* and cannot be removed without removing the pod(s)"
 
-    # Verify that the log-driver for the Pod's containers is passthrough
+    # containers/podman/issues/17482: verify that the log-driver for the Pod's containers is NOT passthrough
     for name in "a" "b"; do
         run_podman container inspect test_pod-${name} --format "{{.HostConfig.LogConfig.Type}}"
-        is $output "passthrough"
+        assert $output != "passthrough"
     done
 
     # Add a simple `auto-update --dry-run` test here to avoid too much redundancy