Forester Transmission/ Cruise Control ?

[jon38iowa]

I just got back from taking the Red Brick to Salt lake City. It was good trip overall. However I noticed in the mountians the car performed erraticaly: For example, when going up steep grades the car would suddenly Zoom to 5 rpms or beyond. This when cruise control set,and after disengaging I could easily drive without having the car needing to upshift. Most disturbing: On one occasion it did as described above, and on the downhill slope refused to drop back to 4th gear. I tried the breaks and turning off the cruise, still didn't budge. The only thing that worked was for me to reactivate the cruise, then it quitely went into 4th gear. The transmission works flawless otherwise.

Needless to say for the remainder of the trip I drove all steep grades myself.

I know from experience that most all cars are a little course in the mountains, but this was ridiculous.

Separate issue but still persists: The car idles slightly rough. That is, not bad, but it shakes a little at the stop lights, even with the car in Park, and it drives slightly off.Kinda like and old car with carburation, something like a near sputter in terms of performance; I have replaced the: MAF sensor, new OEM coil, wires, plugs,run five cans seafoam through it,had the engine block rebuilt - new pistons, water pump , gaskets, , etc,all this the past callendar year. Tomorrow I am going to clean the intake manifold. If this doesn't help would my next step be to consider fuel injectors? Or, is it possible that its a computter issue?

Fuel consumption seems to be on par. I burned through ten tanks of gas, the lowest mileage was 19.(heavy head wind), and the best was 28, but the average was 22. Not too bad for a pretty heavily loaded car. Despite pushing it to speeds of 80 mph or so and sustained most of the trip, it did not use any

fluids whatsoever.

Thanks in advance for any pointers. I like my cars to perform smoothly and near new. With this car I am having difficulty getting all the bugs worked out.

John

[nipper]

I am not quite sure what your saying about the cruise control.

 

I know when im driving in mountains, i put the car in drive 3 when using cruise, or i help it over hills by squeezing the gas pedal myself with my foot. I dint like the way subaru had (and still does) program the cruise to force a downshift over every hill. In drive 3 everything is happy and the car is no longer forcing rediculous high rpm downshifts. The foot method does the same thing.

 

ON the subaru tech site http://endwrench.com/main.php?smPID=HTML::home.html They talk of the computer shutting down the #1 fuel injector if it doesnt get a signal from the EGR circuit (or something similar). Also the trany mount is another suspect.

 

nipper

[jon38iowa]

  nipper said:

I am not quite sure what your saying about the cruise control.

 

I know when im driving in mountains, i put the car in drive 3 when using cruise, or i help it over hills by squeezing the gas pedal myself with my foot. I dint like the way subaru had (and still does) program the cruise to force a downshift over every hill. In drive 3 everything is happy and the car is no longer forcing rediculous high rpm downshifts. The foot method does the same thing.

 

ON the subaru tech site http://endwrench.com/main.php?smPID=HTML::home.html They talk of the computer shutting down the #1 fuel injector if it doesnt get a signal from the EGR circuit (or something similar). Also the trany mount is another suspect.

 

nipper

Yes that is precisely what I am saying. The cruise on my car programed to force a downshift and it was not really needed( al least on the given grades I encountered) in my opinion. A handful of times I had to downshift, but otherwise the car could easily make most grades in fourth gear. I don't like to run the rpms near the redline, which is what the cruise was forcing the car to do. I was able to finesse the gas pedal myself by simply applying soft and increasing pressure to it, mostly this worked pretty well.

Wouldn't I get a idiot light if the injector was turned off?

Thanks for the link, I will research it today.

John

Ps. I unable to access endwrench- It gives me a homepage, but after that I get the boot.

[nipper]

  jon38iowa said:

Wouldn't I get a idiot light if the injector was turned off?

Thanks for the link, I will research it today.

John

Ps. I unable to access endwrench- It gives me a homepage, but after that I get the boot.

 

Keep trying end wrench, it works for me.

 

The CEL light is a tool, not the end all of diagnoses. You can also have codes stored and not trip the CEL light, since the fault is no longer active.

Just for kicks, have the codes pulled and see if anything comes up.

 

The cruise downshift i am blaming for help throwing a rod through the side of my engine at 191,000 miles (well that and the previous owners once a year oil changes).

 

nipper

[jon38iowa]

  nipper said:

Keep trying end wrench, it works for me.

 

The CEL light is a tool, not the end all of diagnoses. You can also have codes stored and not trip the CEL light, since the fault is no longer active.

Just for kicks, have the codes pulled and see if anything comes up.

 

I had the codes pulled today and nothing was found. Since virtualy everthing else has been done to this engine, I am stongly considering following my shops advice and having the injectors replaced. I know they could be removed and cleaned or whatever, but since I am paying the labor, I would just as well replace them.:-\

[nipper]

If your going to remove them, dont bother cleaning them, just replace them. Cleaning doesnt do anything for the erosion that happens around the fuel outlets.

 

nipper