I have had the CEL come up for this solenoid. I checked it according to Haynes manual and it is in spec. I hooked up 12v and it works. So I'm thinking why don't I place a 100 ohm resistor in parallel with it then the ECU will think it is OK whether it is or isn't. What do others think?

You can do the resistor mod.....you may want to squirt the solenoid and valve with some brake cleaner....it may be sticking...

True it may be sticking Josh but how would the ECU know this? Surely it just looks for the prescence of the correct resisitance of the coil or not. That is the ECU's only contact with the solenoid. Ian

try cleaning it first.

 

My diagnosis is that you aren't driving the car hard enough:D I had that CEL on for the longest time until I did 2.5 hours of non-stop lapping, and its disappeared for the last 2 years. Give'er and it works wonders for your scooby:D

Well I have cleaned the thing FWIW. I'm really puzzled as to why the ECU says its faulty, when the checks say it aint. How is the ECU reaching a conclusion its faulty? I can only think that the coil is intermittent, CEL certainly is. Hence my resistor "fix". Ian

Well I have now done over 2000kms with the 100 ohm resistor in parallel with the solenoid and have had no more CEL alarms. I am convinced there is nothing wrong with the solenoid, every time the CEL came on I pulled it out and hooked it up to 12 volts and it worked perfectly so I think my mod is justified, in other words I'm just stopping a false alarm rather than masking a fault.

I don't profess to be an electrical whiz, but as Josh said, the valves are notorious for sticking. Whether that has any effect on the voltage reading, I don't know.

 

Nonetheless, it still is no emergency. I drove my Legacy around the first YEAR I had it with the CEL on for that code. Then I just mustered up $200 and let the dealer replace it.