Greetings all.

My wife has a 96 legacy and very randomly the engine cuts out. It will drive fine then suddenly loose power-cut back on -lose power-over and over again.

Then it will drive fine for 15 minutes or five days. The engine just completely temporarily dies when this happens. ( or runs-dies- runs- dies...) Its not a misfire-it has a new coil- fuel pump and filters. Its not backfireing. This can happen when its cold or hot. I think it may be a sensor. The transmission fluid was low and after I filled it up the car ran fine for a week- now my wife is broken down again. PLEASE HELP me figure this one out!

Welcome to USMB.

 

I've never had your exact issue.

 

I have had bad crank sensor failure cause intermittent starting issue though.

 

Try and see if you have spark when this happens. I"m expecting not, and don't know how much that'll help, but it's a start. The crank sensor, ignitor, coil pack, or computer couls all cause no spark.

 

Miles?

 

Car?

 

COil pack brand?

 

Spark plug wire brand?

 

Spark plug brand?

 

Miles since last tuneup?

Do you have a check engine light (CEL)? I had one lead me to a bad crank angle sensor causing my engine to shut down.

Yes do you have a CEL/MIL at all? Not saying this is your issue, but yes I too have a '96 Legacy 2.2L and had the crank position sensor go bad on me. One time at a traffic light it just stalled out and it would not restart. Then people started honking at me because they thought I wasn't paying attention to the green light even though I put the flashers on.

 

I kept fiddling around with it and it eventually restarted. But it did throw some code for crank angle sensor circuit. After that sometimes it would refuse to start and throw that code. Fortunately the thing never died like say in the middle of making a left turn in heavy traffic, that would be 'bad' as they say. I replaced with a new genuine sensor.

I just replaced mine on the side of the road... I keep a bunch of sensors and stuff in my car for when thingn break.

96 legacy l wagon

 

No check engine lights are on.

I had it checked anyway to no avail.

Another thread on this site said mass air flow sensor could be bad.

Its been a while since the last tune up but I do have new plugs.

MAF could be bad; but at this point there are probably a lot of possibilities. It not throwing any codes is interesting since it means the ECU isn't detecting any issues; she's just dying. I've heard but not tried that if you tap the MAF housing with the butt of a screwdriver and the vehicle stumbles it means the MAF is faulty. I believe she'll still run with the MAF unplugged, maybe not quite as well since it's calculation of airflow into the engine won't be very good, but might be something to try.

 

I just replaced mine on the side of the road... I keep a bunch of sensors and stuff in my car for when thingn break.

 

That's an excellent idea. I keep a box of stuff like that too, sensors, hoses, belts, etc., all the used stuff I took off to replace on previous jobs. Just by carrying that stuff with you it decreases your chances of having a problem with any part you're carrying by at least 50%.

 

I don't know if you remember MadMike from that car show on MTV, but on this one episode they showed the cast's 'rides'. He had a small motorhome he claimed was his daily driver. Then inside in one of the storage areas he showed his spare parts. The guy had everything, a power steering pump, alternator, belts, and lots of other major components in there.

I carry common failure spares... Like accessory belt for me GL. It won't run without that, if it breaks on the legacy whatever, the WP isn't on it. Sensors that'll make it stop running like CAS, etc.

 

And yes, it will run without the MAF. But it will have very retarded timing and run grossly rich. And it'll also go into limp mode (at least my car is obsessed with going into limp mod...). But it will still run and drive to get you home.

So can I just take the MAF off and the car will still drive- just not quite optimum ?

It will run, poorly. But a failing MAF won't usually make the car just stall while you're driving. It's conceivable it would stall when you idled down maybe because it doesn't know what to do at idle, but rarely will a failed MAF cause the car to just stop running. They don't usually fail that way. It would have to suddenly report a very high airflow or something like that.

Thanks for the replys all- I will try the screwdriver trick

It would be unplugging the MAF. Not sure it's a good idea to drive it like that on purpose but was just thinking that next time it happens of trying it or doing it as a troubleshooting step. The other thread about the MAF sounds promising, as it does sound just like what you are describing.

 

Also on '96 2.2L there is supposed to be a couple harnesses/ground points with known issues. I've seen them on endwrench. Subaru publishes stuff like that if they get more than a couple reports from dealers of it happening. The first was connector B22, and the other was about losing one or two grounds for the ignitor at the ECU.

 

Let's see what I can dig up.

Ok here's the B22 that can cause some sort of wierd problem I would have to look at what the reported issue was:

Whatever is wrong with the car happens very randomly- out of no where- fast slow-warn -cold...

could the sensors just not work some of the times?

B22 - possible needing a cleaning or replacing?

Thanks for the diagram

Possibly. Maybe there's an intermittent connection in there somewhere. Sometimes with the vehicle idling a person will 'disturb' the wiring harnesses with a stick (Being careful to avoid moving parts of course), to see if they can duplicate the issue. If it's a sensor, it might be getting faulty information from the sensor, i.e. the sensor is telling lies to the ECU, but the ECU can't tell that the part is faulty so no CEL/MIL.

Someone was posting an issue about an intermittent dying problem in right hand turns I think it was, and a member suggested the pickup for the fuel pump had fallen off.

Cleaning, maybe, I guess it couldn't hurt, if done correctly. Correctly doesn't mean using a q-tip anywhere in there. Like the Dr says for my ears, don't go sticking anything smaller than your elbow in there. The hot wire MAF's apparantly do have a finite lifespan to them. It tries to burn the junk off the wire each startup I think but eventually the wire degrades, the film degrades, etc.

I will check the wiring with the stick method- thankyou for helping me out

Had something like this when I bought my car, but I had a CEL P0100 I think. Maf sensor had a broken solder joint that would wiggle around and break the circuit sometimes. If the ECU loses the MAF signal while the engine is running it will just cut the engine, a few seconds later it will come right back on if the car is still in gear and rolling. It would do this while driving, idling, warm, cold, didn't matter.

If it' an auto it won't just restart from being in gear though.

car is an automatic

it dies in short spells- maybe a full second