Leaderboard

After replacing the coil, the car started running normally again. The fuel injector cleaner was to get a cleaner burn, hopefully do something to help the catalytic converter. There are dedicated products for the cat converter, doubt they do a lot of good. Looks like NGK is the OE on the coil, around $130 online. All the franchise auto stores sell a coil knock off for around $100, probably not much better than the China imports on ebay for $25 delivered.

Fwiw, years back when my '95 OBW's EJ22 chipped a valve, it was at the beginning of a nasty winter and I knew I wasn't going to be able to do anything about it until spring, but needed to keep the car running. I wasn't even thinking of what the unburned gas would do to the cat; I just didn't want to waste gas by pumping it into a cylinder that I knew wasn't going to be burning it. So I unplugged the injector and ran 'er on three until the weather turned.

Water pump leak, it looks like! 213K The belt looked pretty good from the side covers. We'll see when it's opened up. - Water Pump - T Belt - Idlers - Cam and Crank Seals and the oil pump oring - Valve Cover Gaskets That's what I suggested.

Be SURE BOTH low beam elements in the headlights are good..I had a 2004 Forester for 11 years. and heading home from upstate NY one night I LOST my low beams. Fogs didn't work either. Turned out BOTH low beam elements were burned out in the headlights. I didn't notice when 1 was out, but when both went, Nothing. Came home with high beams before diagnosing problem. On those Subaru's, the foglight relay is triggered by the low beam and when both were out, the relay didn't close. Other thing that comes to mind is IIRC, there is a low beam fuse in the under hood fuse box. That may cause the same symptoms. Just remembered this morning, at a later date, sometimes the low beams flickered when I was switching from High to Low with the light stalk. It eventually went bad and I had to replace the stalk. Another culprit to consider. Easy and inexpensive to replace.

ordered? you can buy injector cleaner just about anywhere - even Walmart. Regardless, injector cleaner is not going to help you with this issue. your misfire is not a fuel delivery problem, it is a spark problem - or lack thereof. Lack of spark is one of (or a combination of) 3 things... coil, wires or plugs. (fuel injectors have absolutely nothing to do with lack of spark.) how much damage depends on how bad things are, and how long it stays that way.. long term, you can do a lot of damage - to pistons, valves, and cat converter..

getting near 2500 miles now since repair so far so good.