Got it back on Thursday (been too busy to post, had to get ready to go out of town for the week, now I'm here) Working fine now.

 

As Nipper said, bad Duty Solenoid, and some posi additive, and off we are.

 

Now to the warranty... The job was $450, warranty only covered the Duty Solenoid and 2.5 hrs of labor to replace it (at only $69/hr) They do not cover diagnostic charges and fluids. The dealer charges $79/hr, so I had to make up the difference on the 2.5hrs. Then there's the $100 deductible. Total that they are sending me a check for is $166. So all in all, I didn't have to foot the entire bill, but basically got my $$ back for the price I paid for the warranty.

 

Now that I out of town for the week, my wife gets to drive it all week. She's excited, she too misses her OBW, but kinda funny how we needed a minivan a year ago... Oh well, it's a Pontiac, so we have to keep it till we've paid it off, otherwise we lose out on it...

 

I think you should have a FWD light on dash. I am not sure as I don't know imprezas. But if you do have a light, and it's not coming on, I suspect TCU (trans Computer) issues. This shows that your TCU is not processing the info it's getting correctly. That FWD light should light when you put the fuse in, whether the Duty solenoid c works or not. There is a way to make the TCU output it's codes. I believe this is how:

 

Hello, I am having some problems also with my car in the transmission department, and I stumbled on this theory of yours and wanted to talk to you about it. The thing is with mine, I will have the binding the moment I start the car, then if I sit there, in 9 minutes or less, the AT OIL TEMP and POWER light quickly flash, then everything is fine! If I shut it off, and start it again, I have to wait again. If i sit there key on engine off, the AT and POWER lights remain off for some time, then they come on, I start the car and all is fine with the transmission! Now ive tried inserting the fuse into the fwd slot, and out of 5 tries, it worked only once! When it worked, the dash lit up saying fwd! I shut it off, put it back on, and it no longer worked! What I think is that the TCM is faulty! It takes awhile to actually get power for some reason, or process the information (like you said)! Have you ever actually ran into this problem? Shouldn't the AT and POWER lights be on in my car with the key on, engine off?