Ravenwoods

We have a 98 Forester with 190,700 miles. Yesterday the CEL started blinking. I dropped by the O'Reilley Car Parts store and discovered they will use their OBD II code scanner to read your DTC. The only code was Misfire on Cylinder 2. I've recently replace all spark plugs with those iridium plugs, all the plug wires, and fuel injectors. The car runs fine, but every once in a while it misses a beat--I guess a misfire. Anyway, I've heard a blinking CEL is some sort of bad news about the Catalytic converter. The gas mileage is terrible. I haven't had the chance to measure the miles per gallon, but at the rate the gas gauge needle is dropping, the mileage is very low. Could this perhaps be a bad oxygen sensor (before the catalytic converter) even though no code is being thrown?

I suctioned it out and put in ATF Dexron. Will be getting a new quart of ATF to flush it out again later today.

I just suctioned out the power steering fluid from my 1998 Forester with one of those turkey baster type devices. I poured in some Prestone Power Steering fluid. After that I noticed the cap says to use ATF Dexron. I had always thought power steering fluid is power steering fluid. Anyway, is it alright to use the Prestone Power Steering Fluid? Or should I suction it out and replace with the ATF Dexron?

Turns out my 1998 Forester with 190,000 miles on it, had a slipped timing belt. My mechanic could see no reason for it to have slipped. So we just replaced the timing belt and belt tensioner. It has slipped at least 2 teeth. Previously we had done a compression test and leak down test. He found the compression about 200 psi for each of the two passenger side cylinders and 150 psi for the two driver's side cylinders. Then I found this post earlier in this thread: "I just had this same problem with an EJ25D (which is what your GT has unless it's been swapped to a 2.2). Turned out the intake cam pulley bolt was not tightened enough when the owner did the head gaskets (himself) and this resulted in the cam pulley bouncing on the cam nose and gougeing a nice L-shaped trench out of the keyway. The intake valve timing on the passenger side was advanced by about 3 belt teeth. Due to the nature of the failure the compression test showed high (but otherwise ok - was around 200 psi where it should have been about 185). The giveaway after many hours of diagnostics was that the two passenger side cylinders had compression that was too high and was *the same* higher number for both cylinders - thus leading me to the valve timing and leading me to pull off the belt and inspect." So I figured this had to be the problem as we had eliminated just about every other possibility. My mechanic seemed to have been embarrassed for missing this and gave me a $100 discount on the job. Anyway, the car is running fine again. Hopefully it will keep going 20,000 before the next problem.

I think my Subaru Forester also has a slipped belt. Compression is 200 on the passenger side cylinders and 150 on the driver's side. The OBD code reader says misfire on cylinders 1 and 3. Plugs and wires have been changed. Car has 190,000 miles. I changed pcv and fuel injectors.