A little background, this is my first Subaru, I've had it for 3 months. I traded my top heavy Blazer in for better handling and MPG. It's a 2000 Legacy Outback, 129K, 20-22mpg - I was hoping for better MPG and power and wanted the manual, but found a very clean auto tranny, loaded out for 8 grand:brow: .
I don't hot rod, mostly hwy miles. CEL came on next day after buying so I replaced the knock sensor, no biggie, no more cel's. I has new tranny fluid, fuel filter, plugs, valve cover gaskets, spark plug oil seals, and belts. I also confirmed that it has a new timing belt.
On to the problems.
1st issue, CEL came back on a few weeks ago, went to advance, said it was oxy sensor, didn't know which one, so I took it to the local general auto mechanic (good guy, but doesn't know subies) and he hooked it up to his big snap-on computer and said it needed the front cat. OK, so I started saving up for the big oem purchase cause I heard aftermarket cat converters don't flow correctly and they will cause cels. Any truth to that:confused:
It started running progressively worse in the next 2 weeks. First it just started stumbling right off idle when it was cold. A few days latter it started falling on it's face from idle all the way up to 2K rpm, stumbling and spitting back like the timing is off. No power until 3K where it smooths out. I figure, man this cat is really getting clogged, I better fix it soon, so I sold my RM250 to pay for the thing, take it back to the mechanic for the new cat. He says there are new codes, misfire and whatnot, finds the plug is submerged in oil and replaces the Valve cover and spark plug seals, plugs, fuel filter and adds a bottle of Lucas fuel injector cleaner. So for 400$ I'm out the door and it's running ok. I drive half a tank out of it and it's doing it again. same stumbling/spitting back until higher RPM's. I pull the plug wires and no oil in there. I have a suspicion that the plug wires or ignition coils are the problem. It's back at the mechanic right now.
What do you guys think I should do? I'm decent with a wrench and could have easily done the things that he did if I had known what it was. I took it in for a cat, remember?
:banghead: :banghead: