pacey

There apparently was a change in the PCV valve that the parts houses didn't pick up. After going to several parts houses and consistently getting the wrong part for my 2002 Legacy GT sedan, I finally went to the dealership and paid about $18 (ouch!) to get the correct one. The dealerships's parts guy didn't even look up the number, he just said it would be between one of two different ones that Subaru seemed to use on everything. I could tell from the size of the hose barb fitting which one it was and it fit fine. I'm pretty sure that there would be an equivalent one at the parts houses if they only knew which one it was. I decided to be safe and use the one from the dealer. Best of luck to you. Pacey

I'm not sure if it was exactly the same kit that you are referring to, but I did use a similar kit to remove some fairly deep scratches from a windshield that the previous owner had used the bottom of a ceramic coffee cup to scrape off the frost with. The scratches were really deep and I didn't get them completely removed, but it made a real improvement. One caution that I remember from the person that loaned me the kit was to not get the glass too hot when buffing it, as it would cause a problem at the interface between the laminated layers of the safety glass. Good luck and let us know how it works if you decide to do it.

The pinging under load after the ECU reflash reported by mrk610 makes me wonder even more if the reflash reduces the sensitivity to engine knock. The onset of pinging after the reflash makes this seem plausible. In response to sregor13, our elevation is 1100 feet. Since first posting, I have installed new spark plugs, spark plug wires, PCV valve, and O2 sensor and the hesitation seems to be much less, but I have only driven it a very limited amount. I did these changes in steps, and the biggest improvement seemed to come after installing the new O2 sensor. Does anyone else have any experiences, good or bad, related to getting the ECU reflashed? Pacey

I have seen a couple of references here on the forum that piston slap might be picked up by the knock sensor and interpreted as preignition knock and cause the ECU to retard the ignition timing. Can anyone shed any more light on this? The reason that I am wondering is that I have a 2002 Legacy GT with 40,000 miles that exhibits a cold startup noise (not yet confirmed as piston slap) and also idle hesitation. We have scheduled the car at the dealership next week at a time that a SOA tech rep can observe the car during a cold startup. The service manager at the dealership has told me that piston slap will likely not be considered a warranty issue as it is considered nondestructive if it goes away when the engine warms up. He did say that they might be able to reflash my ECU to get rid of the idle hesitation. I’m wondering if anyone knows if this reflash makes the ECU less sensitive to the knock sensor so that it doesn’t respond to piston slap (and also possibly less sensitive to preignition knock as well). If this is the case, I’m reluctant to let them reflash the ECU, which seems like a Band-Aid to cover the more serious problem of piston slap. Comments? Pacey

My 2002 Legacy GT with 40,000 miles has a hesitation to accelerate from idle so I am watching this thread with interest. I'm assuming that the bad knock sensor on scarlet27's engine didn't even trigger the check engine light. I haven't had mine into the dealer yet as I'm going to replace the spark plugs, spark plug wires, fuel filter, PCV valve, and O2 sensor on my own and see if any of those make a difference. I discussed the idle hesitation briefly with the service manager at the dealer and he said that mine might be a candidate to have the ECU reflashed. I need to do more reading here on the forum about this, but am really interested in anyone's thoughts on a fix to idle hesitation. Thanks, Pacey