peterh

Hi All, I appreciate all the help I got from everyone! It turned out to be the front oxygen sensor. The good news is that I found out it's still under warrenty. I originally bought it in California and apparently California Foresters have an extra long warrenty for the emissions system. Peter.

Hi All, I tried resetting the ECU and it seemed to work for a day but the problems quickly returned. In the mean time, the engine light turned on. I tried checking the code and it returned, P0172 System too Rich (Bank 1) I'm not sure how to fix this? An error for the oxygen sensor wasn't sense; however, could this still be the oxygen sensor? Thanks in advance, Peter.

Wow ... what a great response. Thanks! Based on your suggestions, I'll step through the following and let you know what worked: 1) Dry Gas: I've already tried different gas stations and they all have the same problem. I would guess that water in the gas is probably not the problem (unless my understanding of the phrase "water in the gas" is wrong). I don't think I've tried Techron though so I'll give that a try. 2) I'll try the ECU reset. This seems like an easy thing to try. 3) I'll try using Seafoam. 4) O2 sensor: I'll try this before the knock sensor. Is it ok for me to just unplug the O2 sensor and run the car as is? If it works better then I can assume I have to replace the O2 sensor? What is "open-loop" mode? 5) Knock sensor: As Cookie suggested, can I just unplug the knock sensor? Also, what does that mean to "clear a code"? 6) Texan suggested looking at the IAC and the MAF. At this point, I have no idea what these are but I'll look into them if steps 1-5 don't work. Thanks in advance (again), Peter.

Hi All, I'm a new member and have never posted. I have a question regarding my 2002 Subaru Forester. Please forgive me for what might be an obvious question but I'm new at this. My Forester has roughly 60,000 miles on it. Recently it has been surging/hesitating/jolting. It feels as though the car is on and off running out of gas. It happens to most when accelerating (especially up a hill) but is happens more lightly while cruising. Also, it seems to be inconsistent. Some days its worse and other days its not there at all (including the three times I took it to the mechanic). Also, the idle is rough/low. It seem to oscillate high and low every 2-3 seconds. I changed the air filter, oil filter, fuel filter, and the spark plugs (spark plugs were in good condition). The fuel filter seemed to have fixed things but only temporarily. Two mechanics checked my car with a computer and a test drive and told me nothing was wrong with. One suggested I should clean the air intake and the other suggested I use an engine/injector cleaner. What seemed to work is the injector cleaner with a high octane fuel. After driving for one take of high octane fuel, I switched back to the low octane fuel. Immediately, the problem returned. This has led me to believe that the problem is not that the injectors are dirty but that the car now needs high octane fuel for some reason. This is unusual given that have been driving it on low octane fuel since I bought it. Also, this would suggest (based on what I've been reading) that the problem could be engine knock. The only problem is that the term "engine knock" doesn't sound like an appropriate description of the problem. I don't hear any "knocking" or "pinging" sound. I could run it on high octane fuel but this seems like a bandaid rather than a solution to the problem. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Peter.