kemmer

I changed the battery terminals. My wife took it in to a shop while I was out of town, they charged her 60 bucks to tell her that everything looked ok besides the terminals and that the starter was making a funny sound. I wondered if maybe it was the starter solenoid, where is it located? I either didn't recognize it or couldn't see it.

Here's what the car is doing... If you start the car and drive it, even for a short distance, when you try to start it again it won't start. It doesn't turn over or anything. After it sits for a couple of hours it will start again with no problems. Has anyone experienced something like this?

when you say "after the first reset" I assume you mean after I changed the plugs and wires, in which case it would be the knock sensor code. this is the only code it has thrown since I replaced the plugs and wires Now that the car is running right, I would be tempted to just forget the whole thing, but I really want to walk back in to that dealership with no CEL on and demand a refund. I hadn't thought about calling SOA, but I think I will, maybe it will be good for a couple oil changes or something.

The knock sensor was new. I'll have a look at it to make sure the terminal is tight and clean. The timing belt and tensioners were replaced when we put the used engine in 20k miles or so ago. The ac is quiet as far as I can tell.

It has been replaced, about 6 months ago.

OK, the CEL came back in after about 5 miles of driving, I wasn't driving at the time and my wife didn't notice when it came back on so I have no idea what conditions may have made it come on. The good news is that all the misfire codes are still gone and just the knock sensor code remains. Any ideas what could be causing this? one of the first things we did to this car was replace the knock sensor when all of this started.

nope, engine is in the car. I just stuck the camera down in there...

Anyone wanna guess what kind of wires I was halfway done installing when I ran into this problem? You guessed it, autozone specials. Oh well, next time I'll use OEM wires.

I drove it to autozone and turned off the CEL. I drove the 2miles home without it coming back on, so it looks like maybe a simple tune up fixed it. If this is all it took I'm going to be seriously pissed at the two shops that tried fixing this for me, what a joke!

yeah, I tried a pick but the rubber was too hard and I couldn't get any leverage. The JB weld did the trick, that was the only way I think it would have come out. The sucker was stuck in there good, I had a really hard time pulling it out. I ended up ripping the wire off, and then the rubber handle thingy and finally I got it to come out by pulling on the end of the plastic tube part with a pair of pliers. The plastic was breaking and getting chewed up and I was afraid of having a real disaster on my hands if that plastic bit had been chewed up to the point of not being able to grab it with my pliers. The moral of the story is: don't buy autozone spark plug wires.

I tried to get some needle nose pliers in there, but they weren't long enough. I guess if the JB weld doesn't work I'll have to buy some longer ones. yeah, that's kinda what I trying to do with the JB weld. I'll report back once it's dry.

would this process be identical for the EJ25?

The little rubber boot on the end of my spark plug wire came off inside tthe car. I can't get the spark plug socket on, obviously, and that little piece of rubber is in there good. I have tried getting it to stay on the wire, but I keeps slipping off no matter what. I put some JB weld on the end of the wire hoping it will stick, but if this doesn't work I don't know what what to do. I'm stumped!

I'm in the process of changing the plugs and wires, I ran into a little problem changing one of the wires, and made a new thread about it here: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?p=898677#post898677 I took it for a spin with the three wires and plugs replaced and it made a HUGE difference. The plugs looked pretty bad, and I'm wondering if it was running hot or something. These plugs aren't more than 2 years old at most, I didn't think they would look this bad. I have attached a pic, please take a look and let me know what you think.

What the hell man, I want my $150 bucks back. I guess maybe we'll take it someplace else, but I'm pretty sick of paying for diagnostics and not coming up with answers.

the dealership said the belt was lined up and everything, so I don't know... the one cylinder was at 170... isn't that high? I thought 125-150 was normal.

ding ding ding... that's the one they skipped. this was at the dealership, they charged me 150 for the time they spent on it which included checking the timing, doing the compression test and various other diagnostics. I took it to another shop that spent a ton of time checking all kinds of other stuff only to give up and send me to the dealership. You know what I'm thinking? maybe an electric conversion, my wife just drives it around town, her longest trips are like 10 miles. it just might work!

Ok, let me see if I can answer some of those questions. First, this testing was done by the dealership. They removed the timing belt cover and said everything looked fine, though the belt has had oil on it from the oil leak and needs to be replaced. they did a compression test on 3 of the four cylinders. (the three that had thrown codes) One cylinder was low, one was high, the third was normal. They said they didn't do the fourth becuase it was not throwing codes and because the wires were old and they were afraid they were so brittle that removing it would ruin it. I don't think the wires are THAT old, I replaced them about 20k miles ago. The timing belt was done when I replaced the engine about 25k miles ago as well. I'm not positive what else was done at the time. It is a junk yard motor. It started throwing codes pretty much right away. we were able to get the codes to go away long enough to pass inspection the last two years, but they came back within a few days. I think at this point, since it's leaking and the timing belt has had oil on it, it's just time to tear into the motor. I'm just not sure I want to spend another 2k on this car, it has a 180k miles on it. It's been a good run...

OK, so a new issue cropped up today. My wife was driving it and when she tried to shut off the engine it wouldn't turn off and it made a really loud whining noise. She drove it home and it turned off. Any idea what might be causing this? Is it dieseling? Is that even possible?

The shop checked to make sure the cams were lined up and the timing was ok. The did not do a leak down test, so maybe that would be a good idea. The wires are in need of replacing for sure. I suppose that would be an easy thing to do to see if it corrects the problem, but the compression numbers sound pretty bad. Why would one cylinder be low and another high? seems crazy... Yeah, actually. We're now talking about maybe a Baja or something else all together. I can send you some pics tomorrow if you like.

This is exactly how my current woes started. It is now to the point that the car is barely drivable, but like you said, once you're moving it's fine. The gas mileage is fine. I took it to a shop and they spent several hours looking for the issue and couldn't find the problem. I took it to the dealer and they finally came up with low compression in one cylinder and high in another. The third misfiring cylinder was normal and they didn't test the cylinder that wasn't missing.

calling a head gasket a wear item is like calling piston rings a wear item. it's not something you should have to replace after 50k miles like many 2.5 owners have had to do. my personal experience with the 2.5 phase 1 engine has not been all that good, but not terrible either. I replaced the original engine with a low mileage used one at 120k miles, and at 180k miles the replacement now is toast (though not to a head gasket failure). I have owned several Japanese cars that ran great when I sold them at 150-200k miles having had no engine work done during their lifetimes.

I'm getting misfire engine codes from 3 cylinders. Took it to a shop and they spent about 3 days trying to fix it and finally did a compression test and found that compression in one of the cylinders is over 170 and it's 83 and another cylinder. They are saying it's time for a top end rebuild, but I'm thinking if that's the case it's time for a new car. Is there anything else that might be causing these symptoms? EDIT: this is a 2.5l.