This is regarding my '98 Legacy Outback wagon 2.5L 5sp manual.

 

I'll try to keep this story short... This issue occured on Saturday in the early morning after my car sat in the rain/mist for 2 days straight without running at all. Temps ranged from 35F at night to about 55F in the day. Mist, rain, high wind and clouds the whole time. (I was hunting, had no need to go anywhere.)

 

Last Saturday at 4am I was going to drive from one hunting spot to another, about 2 hour drive. I get about 2 miles from the house I was staying at and the car started running funny. I was at a stop sign, full stop, then went to go. The car jerked a bunch of times as if I had let the clutch out too fast without enough gas. So I got it into 2nd and it did it again! weird I thought. Then acceleration was poor, and the check engine light started flashing. I pulled over, stopped engine, checked under hood. Didn't seen any obvious problems. So I started the car and let it idle a few minutes before going back to the house I was staying at. I wasn't about to get stranded in the middle of nowhere at 4am...

 

Anyway, later that morning after sleeping a bit and hunting deer for a couple hours I decided to look at the car. It idled fine, so I let it idle for a good 10 minutes. Revved the engine, no problems. did a couple short loops near the house, no problems. Then had my friend follow me as I drove it a good 5 miles, running up to about 60mph. No problems at all. The check engine light was on the whole time though.

 

Then Sunday afternoon I had my dad follow me home (he arrived Saturday afternoon). It was about a 80 mile drive. No problems at all. Check engine light was on, but car drove great.

 

This morning (Monday) I started the car. Check Engine light is now OFF!!! Same this afternoon.

 

 

Anyway, sorry for the long story...

 

At this point I'm trying to think of ideas. A coworker had the exact same problem with his 98 Outback once after a good day of rain. Same scenario. His ran fine ever since, but sold the car a couple years ago...

 

I'm in the process of trying to borrow an ODBII scanner from another friend so I can check the car memory for the error codes, may not be til later this week though.

 

My dad and I have thought of a few things:

- fuel pump could be going out.

- spark plug wires, didn't replace them when I did the plugs a good 45k or more miles ago.

- some other wiring had moisture on it?

 

Anyone else have any ideas?

Is there an AutoZone anywhere near you (or similar)? They will come out to your car and do a free code scan here in CT. and I've been told elsewhere as well.

I've go the same thing happening to my 97 Legacy 2.5. The coil pack is probably shot and some secondary ignition occurs when the engine is humid/wet. The CEL you got will most likely by Cylinder 1-4 misfire. When the car warms up, the hesitation goes away and everything is fine. I am yet to replace mine since the hesitation only happens on wet/rainy days and goes away fairly quickly.

I'm betting fuel pump (let's see if it does it again)

 

AutoZone I believes will just pull OBD I codes but I may be wrong.

Spark plug wires

I second the plug wires.

 

Matt

I'm betting fuel pump (let's see if it does it again)

 

AutoZone I believes will just pull OBD I codes but I may be wrong.

 

Autozone says that if you have the connector? they can pull OBD II codes. Give them a call if there's one around. I'm sure they want to sell the repair parts.

Thanks guys. A good friend of mine has an ODBII scanner and is going to loan it to me this weekend. I will likely replace the plug wires, and maybe the coil pack, depending on the cost. Mostly just as preventitive maintenance.

 

I really really don't want to have to do the fuel pump. I hate doing those, so much work, dirty, pain in the butt...