ampsucker

update: finally got the dealer service dept to take a look. the said they could not smell the coolant smell and could not duplicate the missing in the engine. obviously, i have a few problems with that. first, the smell of coolant was so strong in their shop, i wouldn't be surprised if they couldn't detect the little bit coming from my car. must have been radiator flush special day! i could definitely smell it with the hood open when it was parked outside, but their mechanic couldn't be bothered to come out there with me. second, they didn't test drive the car under the types of conditions where the problem is most evident. i'm not sure they could tell there was a slight miss in the engine at idle. they were pretty busy and probably just looking for an excuse to move on to the next job. the service writer even told me up front that if there wasn't a CEL or code stored, there wasn't much subaru would do for me. i told him i wasn't sure how a coolant leak or intermittant plug/injector/coil pack problem would throw a CEL, but that didn't stop him. any ideas? i may try the exhaust gas temp trick some day when i have some time. otherwise, it is just irritating that you can't get any results.

sorry to be clueless about this, but i'm having a hard time understanding how the fuel can leak around the injector into the cylinder head? i thought the o-rings sealed the fuel rail line onto the injector, then the injector pulsed the fuel into the manifold. if the injector is working correctly, how can fuel leak past it into the manifold?

well, here are the results of a couple of hours of work. spent a good deal of time going over the entire engine from top and bottom when engine was cold. visually checked all vacuum lines, coolant lines, sensors, etc. found..... nothing. it was interesting to find my way around the h-6, though. it's laid out a bit differently than others i'm familiar with. so, tried sniffing around every place i could reach with my nose. coolant smell strongest at bottom of radiator and near where the heater hoses go towards the heater core at the back driver's side of the engine compartment. only evidence of a leak i could find looked like it might be a mild weeping from the bottom of the radiator itself. there were some dried on water streaking lines coming from that area that could have just been road dirt or hard water deposits, though. started up engine. during the warm up, the missing was evident. idle settled right down and coolant hoses started to heat up. no signs of leakage anywhere. after idle stabilized, got out the mist bottle and sprayed down all vacuum lines, intake fittings, etc. with water mist. no change in idle rpm, no vacuum leaks. engine continued to run rough occasionaly at idle just like it was catching a bit when a cylinder misfired. i laid my hands on the intake runners and could feel it most noticably on the drivers side cylinder bank. the injector sounds seemed rythmic and normal with no wierd marbles rolling around in a jar sound or anthing odd like a knocking or pinging or anything else suspicious. i couldn't find anything wrong with the engine related to the problems. i did find what looked to be a very very small crack in the aluminum housing just above the oil filter. there was definitely oil coming from somewhere near there. i wiped it down real good and will check on it again during next oil change to see if it is truly a through and through crack. not related to problem at hand, though. also noticed i should have replaced the crush washer on the oil drain plug. it was seeping a bit. next time i'll know. from an electrical view point, it seems like it would be pretty difficult to troubleshoot the coil packs and plugs on this engine without some special tools. i'm leaning towards that as the problem. thinking it's probably one of the three on the driver's side. i assume the plugs can be gotten out with a regular socket and ratchet once the coil packs are removed, but it's a pretty tight fit. even if i could get them out, i couldn't test the coils. am thinking next step is to try the premium fuel as recommended and then a trip to the dealer. maybe they will humor me and swap out a new coil pack or i can get some new plugs put in. thanks again for the feedback and ideas! any more suggestions i can try for next weekend before heading off to the dealership?

thanks for all the responses! i was thinking the same thing about a vacuum leak. i will have to try that next time i have a few minutes with the car. as far as premium vs regular octane, if the manual says you can use regular, we are going to use it. there just is no way mom is going to justify the higher cost of the premium. it's not a pre-ignition thing or a performance thing so much as a cylinder that is dropping out occasionally. she's already marginally unhappy with the monthly gas cost. i might try changing the plugs in case there is a bad one with an intermittant problem. i think that would be about the cheapest approach. then it would be coil packs or injectors, i guess? can someone post the procedure for checking the electronics with a scope? is this something i could maybe do with a good fluke test meter? it's not a scope but can measure resistance and low currents very accurately. what about this adding an extra engine ground i've heard about? is that something that might affect the h-6's? again, thanks for the all the ideas! i'll post back after this weekend when i've had a chance to check out a few things.

hi all, my mom has an 05 outback with the h6 engine. we are generally very happy with the car, but it has a few, hopefully minor, problems. she's taken in to the dealer without much help from them. here is what is going on. i'm hoping someone with more subaru experience can give us some ideas. i've searched these forums for any clues, but so far havn't found anything. 1. when the car is warmed up and sits at idle, there is a very slight miss or hesitation in the idle sound. i wouldn't have thought much of it, except i started noticing when the car would bog down a bit in fourth or fifth gear, it would seam to have a slight jerkiness to the forward motion. it reminds me of an intermittant miss in one cylinder. the car isn't throwing any cel codes and otherwise runs great. i've tried running a little heet or injector cleaner but doesn't seem to have any effect. i was thinking there might have been a little moisture in the gas. the car only has 13,000 miles on it so it's definitely under warranty and seems too new to have the usual carbon deposits or throttle body gunk that can sometimes be responsible for this. i'm thinking bad/clogged injector, intermittant spark problem or something along those lines, but its hard to get the dealer to do anything without a solid lead. 2. i've also noticed when the engine is warm (especially in the summer) that there is a fairly strong coolant odor in the back wash from the engine fan. you can notice it by the drivers and passenger side doors coming from under the car. in the winter when the electric cooling fans aren't on, i smell it most strongly by the drivers side firewall in the engine bay near where the steering linkage goes through. it looks like there are several coolant hoses there (ones going to and from the heater core, one going up near the intake manifold, etc.), but none seem to have obvious leaks. also, i don't have to add coolant so if there is a leak, its very small. fwiw, i don't smell anything around the coolant overflow bottle so anybody thinking it's just normal escaping hot vapor through the radiator cap, i don't think that is what is going on here. my first thought was that the two might be related. i read on this board about the 4 cylinder engine head gasket problems and thought, well, maybe a little coolant was seeping into a cylinder and causing the intermittant miss. but, from what i read, this head gasket problem doesn't seem to apply or be very common on the h-6 engines. another clue is her mileage is a little lower than we expected. we do have a lot of hills and curves in our area but she averages 18.6 mpg when she drives the car. i can do a bit better in "manual shift mode", but we rarely get above 20. we run regular octane gas and mobil 1 engine oil. havn't really done much to the car at all except had the transmisison shift module flashed with the update from the dealer. any input or ideas would be much appreciated! we really enjoy the car and are hoping the dealer won't give us the runaround and we can get this minor glitch fixed.

as in the link above, here is the parent company of both outfits: Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd. Group, Saitama, Japan

i'd get the cheap steel rims now and put the snow tires on those. then, come spring, use your nicer rims with the summer tires. remember, for snow, it's counter-intuitive. a thinner (narrower), slightly taller tire is best for traction in snow. it puts more pressure (per square inch) on the contact patch for better ice grip and cuts though the snow instead of "floating" on top. then, get wider, shorter sidewall tires for spring, summer and fall performance.

not to be a buzz kill, but i think a lot of you are missing some points about the thermostats. modern engines are designed to run at a single, specific temp. the only time you should change the thermostat to a different set point is if you put on some aftermarket gizmos (chips, different turbos and boost,mostly) that remap the air/fuel ratios based on a new, custom thermostat setting. running without a thermostat basically makes the engine always run at radiator capacity minus outdoor temp. only on a very very hot do would it actually get up to operating temp. on spring, fall and winter days, it will get at best up to a warm level, because the radiator is dumping heat as fast as it is produced. there is no thermostat to shut off coolant flow and maintain a constant internal engine temp. in addition to moderately helping your headgasket problem, running without a thermostat is also: costing you gas mileage because the a/f ratio is wrong for the variable temps your engine is running; keeping your auto tranny from coming up to operating temp (it circulates through the bottom of the radiator); possibly fouling your catalytic converters with unburnt hydrocarbons; probably carbonizing your valves and injectors. thermostats on a fuel injected engine are very important parts of the engine managment system and i wouldn't mess around without one too long.

yes, replace the boot and make sure you get plenty of the correct type of brake lube in and around the pin when the rubber is on. here's what i think is causing your "warped rotor" vibration. i think the stuck pad(s) is (are) heating up causing the pad glue to partially liquify. when you stop or park, the pad is leaving a slight imprint of glue on the stopped rotor causing a rough spot. i think if you get the caliper working right again, you should be able to rebed the pads by doing some semi-agressive breaking to slough off the stuck on material. if that doesn't work, i would try cleaning the rotor with some steel wool or a mildly abrasive pad (both inner and outer surfaces). resurfacing would work too if it's bad, but that removes metal causing you to have less mass on the rotor. if you don't have any grooves and plenty of pad material left, i would try to salvage what you have. if these simple steps don't work, you can always ramp up the efforts with new pads, rotors, etc..

i may be wrong, but isn't most coolant already flourescent? all you need is a black light and a dark place to inspect around the engine.