I have a 95 Legacy wagon ej22 with the 4eat. It has 180,000 miles.

The trans isnt in the greatest of conditions.

What happened is I was on a 4 hour trip climbing trip with 4 crash pads(skinny mattresses) on top of my roof rack with 4 other guys in the car and the rear loaded with gear. I was on the highway on the way home and without me knowing the crash pads flipped up to cause a 4' tall wind jam on my rack. I couldnt go over 65mph. I thought it was probably caused by the weight and didnt realize the amount of drag the car had at the time.

About 90 miles away from home (with a quarter tank of gas) the car started to sputter and immediately lost power but the engine kept running but not well. The trans didnt slip but when I pulled over a nice cloud of smoke poured out from under the car. I went ahead and turned the car off. Inspected everything and noticed I lost about a quart of oil somewhere.

The interesting thing is I could start it and it would idle ok in park but when put into drive it would roll and almost feel like it was choking for gas then die. Sometimes it would die fast and sometimes it would idle/drive (2 mph) terribly for a few minutes until a heavy load(hill) was put on it then it would die.

 

I got it towed home and started it up the next morning and it started perfectly just like nothing was wrong. I then cycled through gears and thats when it started acting like it was choking or something. and it would just die. So strange.

 

Any idea?

maybe it overheated and cooked the engine temp sensor. Also check to see if the egr is remaining open at idle which will cause stalls.

Did you check the water level in the radiator??

 

Did you check the oil level with the car on level pavement, and engine not having been run for a while??

 

Does the motor run well with the tranny selector in Neutral??

 

Did you check the fluid level in the automatic transmission??

Car ran ok in Neutral. and checked oil on level ground. I usually dont ever take my car to the shop but I did on this one. The only guy I think that I would trust.

Does the AT Temp light blink 16 times when you start the car?

If so you have a trans code.

 

Check the Trans and Front Diff fluid levels.