Giovara

Fluid is full and clean and yes I can put it in sport manually. I put it in D and it drives aggressively like its in sport mode. I move the shifter to the left and the sport light comes on the dash and it drives normal shifting around 4k rpm. I'm stumped. I have an appointment with Subaru at 2:30 today. I'll see what they think and post back.

I'm working on a 2005 Subaru Legacy GT. It seems to be shifting like it's in sport mode when it's not but then when I put it in sport mode it shifts normal. I couldn't find any mention of this on the Internet and I called Subaru and they couldn't tell me anything over the phone except to bring it in and have them check it out. I have no check engine light and I've scanned the car through the transmission and engine and I'm getting zero codes. I also tried resetting everything by disconnecting the battery overnight. In drive it won't shift until redline and it stays in a high rpm when I let off the gas but when I put it in sport it drives like it should shifting around 4000 RPMs and idling properly. Any clues to what might be going on?

I also replaced the front O2 sensor

Hey, I have a 2002 Legacy L wagon 160k, automatic. Im getting a p1518 code. The car is driving horribly. It starts fine but when you gas it, it cuts out like the fuel is shutting off. Sometimes once I start it, it immediately stalls. Almost killed myself pulling out into traffic and it stalled. First I checked the battery post's and the positive side was heavy corroded. As I was cleaning it I noticed the post connector on the positive wires had a broken spot, so I replaced the connector. I removed the starter and cleaned all the connections there also. Hooked everything back up and its still driving like crap and cutting out. I figured it must be the ECU so I replaced it and it's still driving like crap and still giving the p1518. Anyone seen anything like this before?

After looking closer Im really thinking its the heads or head gaskets. I can see that whoever did the work didnt even put the intake gaskets on correctly. They are backward. They didnt even notice to put the alignment hole around the little alignment pin. If they didnt notice that then who knows what else they could of done. Probably didnt torque the head bolts correctly either. I had a water pump and thermostat in the garage so I just swapped them out and am still getting the boiling reservoir. I have a set of heads I have been saving for an occasion like this. Guess Ill be swapping them out. Im betting they were warped and never shaved.

I bought a 1999 Forester with 147k miles at an auction. On the way home it overheated. I pulled over and saw the reservoir boiling and overflowing. I know thats the tell sign of the head gaskets but the head gaskets were just replaced. You can still see the shiny blue felpro gaskets in there and I can also see the timing belt is new but not the water pump. I see no external leaks anywhere. Something else I see is that there is only one bolt holding the thermostat housing to the water pump. The other bolt is broken off in the water pump. So I went to remove the thermostat and was expecting the coolant to pour out of the motor and when I removed it nothing came out. Thats why Im writing. Why would there be no coolant in the motor? Also the thermostat was a cheap advance auto thermostat. I put a torch to it and it did open and close.

I had the same problem and it ended up being my throttle position sensor. I was able to remove mine and clean it and it fixed the problem. It had a lot of nastiness on the end of it which was making it give the computer a wrong reading and causing the car to bog. Its located on top of the throttle body, held on with two phillips head screws. Easy to remove and clean.

195 60 15 on the front and 195 65 15 on the back. All four of them are a different brand and the tread patterns are all different. New tires tomorrow. Thanks for the tip. I didn't even think about the tires once I thought diff. From the way it feels, I doubt this will eliminate my problem but it sure as hell looks like what caused the problem. Ill see what new tires do and then change the fluid a few times if it's still binding. Thanks for the heads up.

Hello again everyone. Im having a problem with a Legacy I just bought. I bought it at an auction so I don't know any of the vehicles history. It is a 2.2 automatic with 199k miles. The problem Im having is that the FWD light was on in the dash. The fuse was in the FWD slot. I pulled the fuse and the wheels started binding. It feels like its binding in the front but that doesn't make sense to me since the fuse just disengages the rear wheels. The weird thing is that everyones description of torque bind sounds like it only binds when taking slow sharp turns. When I pull the fuse, it binds all the time. Especially going straight up hill when there is more torque. When I put the fuse in, it drives fine. Front and rear diff is full of oil and oil is very clean. Also the trans fluid is very clean. I drained a quart of trans fluid and replaced it with a Lucas no-slip additive. I haven't noticed any change. Ive had a lot of subaru's and with yall's help have been able to fix pretty much every problem Ive had. Im thinking I should replace the center diff with a used one. Does this sound like the right direction or am I having something weird going on since it's binding all the time? Thank you for any knowledge y'all can share with me.

Ill probably just get two new motors but I had to take them apart so I would know what actually broke. When I took them apart it was obvious what happened. The carbon motor brushes were wore down in both of them. It reminded me of the spring loaded flint in a bic lighter. Once the flint is wore down the lighter is shot. These carbon pieces have a copper wire that comes out of them. The copper wire stays on a track and when it hits a certain point on that track it comes to a stop. I noticed there was still a lot of carbon left, it was just being restricted by the copper wire. So I decided to frankenstein it just to see what would happen. I cut the copper wire and grinded down the nub on the carbon pieces(two carbon pieces per motor). Then I soldered the copper wire to the spring that pushes on the carbon. Now the carbon is not restricted by the wire and it gave it some more room to wear. I put them back together and they both are working great now. I think you are right GD. One must of gone out and the other followed. I always have the A/C on so that fan must of been keeping everything quiet until it finally went out. Thanks for the help guys. I hope this might help someone else if they come across a similar problem.

I took both fan out of the car and tested them on my work bench. I found out that when I tap on the motor it will come on. There seems to be a short inside both motors. Does anyone know how to rebuild these?

Is the A/C and the cooling fans linked? If the cooling fans quit does the A/C quit? I notice in the fuse box the A/C relay is located between the main fan relay and the sub fan relay. I wouldn't of thought that they needed each other to work though. Does anyone know anything about this or have had a similar experience? I don't want to replace the fans if I really have a different problem that will short them out again. Thanks for any light yall can shed.

I have a 2002 Legacy L wagon with 140k miles. It is an automatic. Today I was running errands with it and it overheated. I heard some noise with the A/C and then it idled funny and started blowing warm air. I started going down the road and the air got cool again and was fine until I got to the grocery store. I left it running because my wife and son were staying inside. When I got back my wife had turned off the car because she said it started making the noise and running rough again. I got in the car and started it up and noticed the temp gauge was 3/4 of the way up. I parked it in the shade and let it cool. I turned off the A/C and headed home which was about 8 miles away. I got it home fine and the gauge stayed right where it was supposed to. I let it cool in the driveway and then I turned it on and turned on the A/C. It was not blowing cold. I could hear the compressor click on then immediately click off. I looked online for a bit and found some info about the cooling fans. I tested my fans by unplugging them and running a positive and negative wire directly from the battery to the fan motors and neither fan would come on when I did this. What would cause both fans to stop working? Could the compressor of shorted out my fans?

OK. That makes sense. Thank you for explaining.

It was that TPS. I moved it around in a couple different positions and bingo... the light went off and all its power was back. That scared me. I thought for sure the timing must of been a tooth off or something. I cant believe that sensor would effect the car like that. You would think that they would make it fit just one certain way instead of having all that slack to where you have to guess around to position it correctly. Im just glad it was an easy fix.

I have a 1997 Legacy L wagon. It has 170k miles and it is an automatic. I recently pulled the engine and replaced all the front and rear seals and the timing belt. I also had a transmission put in that I got at a junk yard. We got it all in and I took it out today and Im getting a check engine light for the TPS P0122. It drives fine but it seems to not have as much acceleration as it use too. When I was going up a hill today the speed limit was 55mph and I could only get it up to 50mph. When I push the gas to the floor Im not getting any torque. It just slowly goes up to speed. Could it have something to do with that TPS?

Well that sounds like my problem. Thank you all for clearing that up for me. I guess I gotta learn the hard way. I appreciate your quick replies. You guys are always right on.

I have a 1997 Legacy Wagon L, 2.2L. It is an automatic and it has 170k miles. It was doing great except for an oil leak. It had a major oil leak that was slinging oil everywhere which made it hard to tell exactly where the leak was coming from and if it was just coming from one place or from multiple places. I decided to pull the engine and replace the front and rear engine seals, rear main, oil separator plate, torque converter, timing belt, the o ring that is in the cover located to the left of the rear main, and I think thats it. I know I replaced the oil pump seal but I think that is considered a front engine seal. Anyways, when I put the engine back in, it started right up nicely and it was not leaking anymore from what I could tell. So I went to take it around the block to warm it up and it would not move. It feels like the transmission went out. I went to look at the transmission fluid and it was very nasty and black, like old oil. Now before I go buy a new transmission I just wanted to post here and see if this may have happened to anyone else. Maybe I did something wrong and its a simple fix or maybe my trans was on its was out and the work that I did to it just made it go? Im not sure but any help would be appreciated. Also when I had the engine out I pressured washed everything to clean all the oil that was everywhere. Could that of messed something up? Before doing the work I never noticed any slipping or anything but I have heard of cases where people wont feel any slipping but then they go to replace the fluid and it makes the whole trans go out. Thank you for your time and help.

192k miles on mine.

Yeah, those were the same four that were a little loose on mine also the one under the plug was a little loose. I drove fifty more miles today and no light on.

Hey, so I took out my speedo and sure enough there where five screws that hold the speedo head and they were all about a half turn loose, when all the other screws were snug tight. I started her up and she idles perfectly! Ive only driven twenty miles since and the light hasn't come on yet. It use to come on after about three miles. Ill drive it more today and see what happens and report back. This could have been really expensive if I would of given it to a mechanic. Thank you 987687 for your post and everyone else for all your help. This forum is a life saver!

My dome light does work. Your the first I have seen that is having the same symptoms as mine though. Please let me know if sensor #1 is the answer. Ill do the same if I find anything else out. Thanks everyone for your help. Much appreciated!

Thank you for that info and quick reply? So should I be looking for sensor #1, since my speedo works fine? I think I have located sensor #1 but I wanted to be a little more confident before replacing it since those sensors cost so much. Also has anyone ever heard of a speed sensor causing an intermittent rough idle?

I have an automatic 96 legacy outback. The code p0500 is on and the speedometer works fine. All the threads I have found about this code seems to state that their speedo does not work and that is not the case with mine. I understand that there are two speed sensors. I was told that one controls the speedometer and the other sends info to the ECU. Im thinking the one that sends info to the ECU is the one I should check. The subaru has a low idle sometimes and seems to hesitate sometimes in the morning. Could this be caused by the speed sensor? P0500 is the only code on right now. Could you also tell me where the sensor Im looking for is located?