I know this has been beat to death in this forum and I have searched through the old forum topics and can't find a definitive answer to my problem.  My friend has a 1997 Legacy wagon with an auto transmission that has an AT oil Temp light that flashes exactly 16 times when the car is started.  It also seems to have a shifting problem but not all the time.  Shop says tranny is bad but they never addressed the flashing light.  Do I need to download the OBD II codes to figure out the issue or is there a proceedure to figure out what may be bad on the transmission without downloading it?  I cant find a list of codes that addresses the 16 flashes directly.  All my Subaru's have been 1990 or earlier and manual transmission.  Thanks.

I know on the older ones you can perform the "secret handshake" to get the codes to flash without any reader.  Maybe it will work on yours.

 

http://www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/trans.html

Edited October 23, 201312 yr by presslab

Unfortunately it doesn't have the code for 16 flashes which is what mine is indicating.  I have a code reader on the way so I'll try to check it that way.  Thanks for the info.

16 flashes just means something is wrong, it's not a code.  You need to go through the sequence with the shift lever, etc. described on that web site to read the actual code.

Ok I got you now.  Its a similar thing on my Land Rover but you jumper the connector to get the number of flashes to retreive the code.  When I do the handshake proceedure I'll then have the code for the problem.  Thanks for clarifying.

Reading through the proceedure for the test I realized there is no manual switch on the shifter.  I did the test anyway but the light just stayed on the entire time.  On the website with the proceedure it says newer models "may" require a scan tool.  So I'm going to borrow one from a friend and give that a try.