Ambrose

This sounds like what my car is doing. It's a 2000 Outback as well. Wonder if that ended up working long term.

Kinda sounds like what my car is doing. Have had the problem for years and no one has been able to figure it out. It will shift at the wrong times. Varys a bit but will drop gears with a thud feels like being rear ended always when coasting on flat ground often going slow or slowing down. Does your oil at temp light ever come on? Mine will also shift when the rpms are too high. If I pull over turn off the car and press the gas twice it will usaully stop.

When it first began to happen the computer said the Throttle Sensor Assembly was faulty so that was replaced with no improvement. I kept the part so we wouldn't replace it again. Once I was able to take it in to my mechanic while it was acting up and he had no idea what it was. Since then I have asked many mechanics and no-one seems to know what it is. It doesn't always cut out before acting up sometimes it just starts shifting badly. Today I was coasting down a back street when it just unexpectedly thumped down into gear. The car has 268890 miles on it. This problem began about 6 years ago at around 190,000 a few months after purchasing the car. The timing belt was changed at 189,000 just before we purchased the car. A tune up with wires and spark plugs was done about 3 years ago. The previous owner was very meticulous about maintenance. I really appreciate you taking the time to think this over. Often the car will goes for 2 or 3 months with no problems but has been acting up much more lately. Otherwise is runs well and I'd like to keep it on the road for a few more years.

I have a 2000 Outback 4 cylinder that has been acting up for a few years. No one has been able to diagnose the problem. The car will randomly start running very poorly. It will cut out briefly and then start shifting gears at the wrong time. Either it will jump into gear reving too high or thump into gear reving too low. The car cannot be driven this way. I put it in neutral pull over, turn it off, press the gas 2X and restart. This seems to reset something and the car runs fine till the next time. The oil at temp light aways comes on when this happens. I don't know if this has anything to do with the problem but the car runs fine in the winter when it is very cold, and tends to act up more in warmer weather, perhaps fog conditions, or dusty conditions. Some days it will act up repeatly and then it will go for weeks with nothing. For the most part it appears to be random. It would be so nice to have this problem fixed. I don't think it's the transmission because most of the time it runs fine. Somewhere on this forum someone else had a simuliar problem and intermittent Duty C failure was suggested. Anyone here have suggestions. Any help would be appreciated.