Hi, I'm troubleshooting some interesting symptoms on a '93 2.2L Legacy.
The car has been regularly serviced at a dealership and has 272k miles on it. Its owner doesn't plan on keeping it "forever" but I'm hoping to keep it comfortably drivable until she does decide to sell or trade in.
Known problems: Hesitation under load. Unless the gas pedal is finessed a bit, it can be very juddery to start and while still cold, low idle when cold, and definite hesitation under about 3k rpms, warm or cold, but mostly cold.
The other interesting problem is that if it's switched between different vent settings (dash/defrost, defrost/floorboard, etc) the RPMs drop sharply and then come back up, and if the climate control is set to "vent", the car doesn't like to start. It will start and shudder at low rpms, then die again. It'll take a couple of tries, but it will stay running eventually on 'vent'.
The car has had a complete tune-up recently at the stealership- air filter, spark plugs, oil change, and that didn't change the hesitation.
Poking around the forum has me suspecting the plug caps and/or wires, the low idle when cold has me wondering about the PCV valve and/or the IAC valve, but I wanted to ask you all.
The climate control/vent problem has me stumped, though.
Thanks for your time!
