Well, I bought this 98 OBW 2.5 in September 2010. It really seemed like a great car. Very good condition, and drives perfectly.

 

Two weeks later I had to have the head gasket/water pump/timing belt/1,000,000 seals and o-rings done.

 

I was driving home from work yesterday and my top radiator hose exploded, so I pulled off the road and got a tow home. Bought the new hose for $7.99 (I was shocked that a Subaru part could be so cheap) and fixed the problem.

Now, the very next day, my car is idling very erratically. When I first start the car it goes way up to about 2500 rpm for what seems like an eternity (probably only 20-30 seconds), then drops to the usual 1k-ish rpms. BUT when I touch the accelerator pedal, it revs again then slowly comes back down.

 

My CEL is on due to my knock sensor, but I think I'll have it checked again to see if there's some new issue causing my idle problem. Also, I washed my engine with Gunk yesterday because of the radiator hose explosion. Maybe something is wet? Maybe there's a vacuum problem?

 

Any ideas?

Check for vacuum leaks for sure. Also might need to clean/replace the idle air control unit on the back passenger side of the manifold.

 

Sorry about your luck with the car - but it's well known that the EJ25D has head gaskets problems and it's especially important when buying used cars to know what you are getting into. In fact it almost defeats the purpose of buying used if you don't - used cars have been well tested by the consumers and thus you actually *can* know a great deal about their reliability ratings, etc from a bit of research before buying.

 

GD