Chicobiker

Well, the car has been running great for a week now. The service guy greased the electrical connections between the coil and the spark plug wires. Car runs like it used to. RPMs behave like they used to. Maybe it was just a bad electrical connection? Or maybe it will come back to annoy me at a future time. Hesitation problem is also gone, so I suspect they were related. Chicobiker

110k kms or approx 60k miles. So this sensor senses the amount of oxygen in the air being delivered to the spark area? Can the air actually be controlled or only the fuel? Does "lean" mean: not enough oxygen? Would that mean that the fuel doesn't burn quite as hot? Not quite as much energy delivered to the piston? Oh, when you say mileage, you mean mpg? I'm getting normal gas mileage, same as I've always gotten. typical is 9 to 9.5 liters / 100kms highway driving. Over 10 for city driving, although I don't do much of that. Lemme see, that translates to ... ... 23 - 26 miles per US gallon? I've always had this sort of mileage from day one, and it matches the published expected values. If anything I'm getting better mileage lately because I take it easy on the highway these days with the price of gas. (you americans have it good! price of canadian gas is something like $3.75 USD/Gal!) I drive around 70mph on the highway. Anyway, I appreciate any insights. I like to understand how stuff works! Chicobiker

Hello all. I took my car into the dealer today to have them troubleshoot a hesitation problem. Of course, the car is running beautifully now so there is no problem to solve! They said there was no codes stored in the memory. I did have the check engine light flash several times when it was sputtering until it warmed up, then the light went away. Twice when it happened I counted 11 flashes, but then the car started running better and the CEL went out. Should that have stored a code? They greased the contacts between the ignition coils and wires. I'm hoping this is the problem, but I kinda wish they found something. They said the air/fuel sensor is reading slightly lean. Where is the air/fuel sensor and what is the side-effect of a lean AF mixture? They said the PCV valve was like new and didn't jump at the suggestion of replacing the fuel filter saying that I'd be better off waiting until the problem could be reproduced. That shocked me! I thought they would jump at any chance to do more and charge me more money! They must have ran out of time! Anyway, just trying to learn about the AF sensor, and wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to reproduce or pinpoint this hesitation: Usually cold wet morning car starts fine, idles fine pull out of driveway and pull away normally car sputters and bogs down almost to the point of stalling After about 15 or 30 seconds, the car starts to run better. After a minute or two, everything is fine again. CEL flashed during this episode on 3 or 4 occaisions Was happening about twice a week for a while (and I don't drive to work everyday, only when I need to travel somewhere for work), but now does not seem to be happening as much 2003 5 spd Outback Sport, 110k kms new spark plugs and air filter not sure what else might be relevant .... uh ... it's silver! Thanks, Chicobiker

Hello. I am new to the forum. I posted a question about engine RPM behaviour and shomehow I got looking around and saw this thread. Some of this behaviour is exactly the same as my car! I could not have used a better description for what my car does, particularly #1 and 3. #4 and 5 are happening lately, but it is only a recent thing. I have a 2003 OBS with 110k kms. I always attributed the very brief hesitation to not having enough RPMs for the all wheel drive setup. Never got the problem if I kept the RPMs up high, but it always felt like I shouldn't have to do that. I always assumed the notchy deceleration to be a "feature" of the Subaru. The shifting sure sounds clunky if you don't get it perfect, so I assumed this notchy behaviour to be similarly caused. I'm getting major hesitation now which is annoying me and hopefully the dealer has some luck with it tomorrow. Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this thread to see if you get any revelations. I'm just starting to figure out the mechanics of this car (I'm more of an electrical type!) BTW, what is TPS? Some sort of pressure or throttle sensor? I'll do a search once I post this message. Thanks, Chicobiker

Nope. 5spd. I'm not convinced of the a/c suggestion, although it is the right time of the year! Several times I've noticed this happening only between 2nd and 3rd gear. I find this strange. I find that most times when I push in the clutch, the RPMs go up ever so slightly, hang for a moment, then start to drop down. I got used to holding the clutch in for that brief moment and then letting it out and the shifting was reasonable. (I never found it to be easy to shift smoothly, but I took that as a "feature" of the Subaru!) I've been doing this for 3.5years now. What I'm experiencing now is an immediate drop in RPMs as soon as I push the clutch in. It plummets towards zero and by the time I realize what's going on and let the clutch out it's too late. Car lurches forward and attempts to throw me out through the windshield. Maybe it's trying to trade in its driver?! At first I figured that my brain had somehow forgotten how to drive and I was doing different things with the accelerator pedal, but I've been conscious about it and it is still happening. Anyway, I'm taking the car into the dealer on Monday to deal with occaisional sputtering during the first minute of driving on a cold wet morning, so I'm hoping they find something and that all will be better. Chicobiker

Hello. Somebody on alt.autos.subaru suggested I post this message here: I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed the following behaviour out of their engines. I have a 2003 OBS with 110k kms. Lately I have noticed that the engine RPM seems to drop much faster between shifts than other times. It makes it difficult to shift smoothly since my normal wait time results in the RPMs being way too low. I had noticed this behaviour on hot days last summer, but I have been noticing it more recently. It seems to happen randomly, Sometimes only for one shift, sometimes for a whole drive. Any thoughts? Chicobker