My car MY99 went into the local dealer for a service this morning - I had reported the well known problem with hesitation below 3,000rpm, and intermitent clutch judder. On the 'hesitation' I was given two leaflets with an explaination for the hesitation.
The first, a technical bulletin, from Bryan C Pimm (Group Technical Services Director) states "We have experimented with various techniques in an endeavor to eradicate the phenomenon and achieve customer satisfaction. However, we have been firmly advised by Fuji Heavy Industries that the phenomenon cannot be eradicated, and is a normal characteristic of 99MY/00MY specification models. Where improved performance has been reported, this is invariably attributed to the rectification of other conditions previously mis-diagnosed or undetected"..

Part of the second leaflet states "At engine speeds of 2,500rpm-3,000rpm, exhaust gas velocity can be reletively low, and turbo boost pressures accordingly lower. This is caused by the turbine wheel and the impeller wheel in the turbo-charger unit not having attained sufficient rotational speed to create a smooth flow of turbo-charged air pressure into the engine. This causes airflow to pulsate, and produce a sensation of 'unsmooth' combustion".

I will see tonight if there is any improvement and if they have rectified 'other conditions'


Having driven other turbo-charged cars and not experiencing this 'phenomenon' I smell bullsh1t.

Has anyone else been given this bulletin?

From what I have picked up from other threads, the general consensus is that there is a problem with the ECU in MY99/00 cars. Is this the case or is the dealer telling me the whole truth?

 

Ask them if they are going for a record plummet in the next JD Power survey.

BJH

 

Hi, I've got exactly the same problem on my MY01. Car's going in for it's 1000 mile service on Thursday, but if this is the answer to the problem - then one unsatisfied customer on a car that's less than a month old.

 

You'd think that given it's a known problem, those top Engineers as FHI would have worked out a solution instead of letting it just move along into the new model.

I mean OK, on a MY99 or older car you could see them having to hold their hands up and say there is no fix other than a complete redesign. But for the new shape to suffer the same is no wonder the did so cr@p on the JD Power survey.

After all they've had nearly two years to sort it.

Stefan

 

Yes, now that you mention it, I did have the feeling something was wrong, but thought it was just me being picky. It's subtle, but the hesitation is there ! Damn ! I thought I had a flawless car... IT doesn't bother me that much, but buying a new car is a big investment, and you're supposed to have it close to perfect... What do we all do about it ?

Does Subaru engeneering centre have an e-mail where we can discuss the problem ? I'm not going to let these butchers here in Portugal try to solve this problem by themselves

cheers

Max

 

Wow,

One statement and several thousand old scoobies dont need to be fixed - and then they can claim the same for any problem on the new model. Serious cost cutting excercise by Subaru!!! Bet the guy who wrote it got a bonus!!!

Someone needs to send this to watchdog!

Jza

 

Just picked the car up.

I asked if they had fixed the 'hesitation'

"did you read the bulletin" was the reply.

"Yes, but I don't agree with it as I have driven other turbos without this problem" I responded

The service reception chap came back with "well they all do it it is just something you have to live with"

The sad thing is I love the car, and I can live with this minor glitch,
BUT WHY SHOULD I!

Any advise on what to do next would be appreciated.

 

ahhhhh this old chestnut again.

my my01 wrx also suffered a "hesitation" all the way up to 2200 miles. i was handed the very same technical bulletin, and only got anywhere when i pointed out that i had a my01 and that bulletin applies to my99/00 models. doh !

end of the story is that i spoke to alot of people (even in IM) and was told by more than one person that there was some corruption in early my01 UK spec models ECU's which was caused by bad programming. mine went in to the dealer and came back and is now fine, although the engine warning light has come on 6 times so far in a month so its back to the dealer tomorrow !!

dave

 

If it is a mechanical issue caused by the physical design of the engine and turbo why doesn't my near identical(mechanically that is) MY98 do it as well?

Andy

 

Hi Murrey.......I phoned my local dealer at lunch time today, Because I feel my 98 model has not got the power it had 6 months ago when I bought it and I got told exactly the same, However the dealer did say if it does not improve over the next couple of weeks I'm to take it back and they will investigate it for me, The car has just had the 3 year 45,000 mile service even though it has only done 34,000 miles, I to smell Bull****.
Cheers
Colin

 

Another interesting train of thought would be if anyone, who already suffered from the hestitation then upgraded to a PPP ECU. Did the hestitation stay or did it go away.

At least it might suggest whether an ECU remap could solve it.

Has any PPP owners had this hestitation?

Stefan

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ozzy:
[B]Another interesting train of thought would be if anyone, who already suffered from the hestitation then upgraded to a PPP ECU. Did the hestitation stay or did it go away.

My MY98 goes in to have the PPP this Friday and a large part of the motivation is to prove that I have an ECU problem (I couldn't see the point of paying IM for a new ECU to prove my point). My car suffers both from occasional hesitation under full throttle/erratic revs at idle(to the point it stalls when stationary in traffic)/and "overboost" that is NOT as per the faq and has not been corrected by the usual dealer fixes. Just to be thorough the dealer has checked the air flow sensor and as with the ECU report 'no fault found'. If you think it's relevant to this thread I will report next week on the outcome.

Regards

Robin

 

Please do that Robin... Thanks :-))

 

Aaaaarrrghhh !

Assuming we are NOT talking about the 2nd gear half boost problem: IT IS NOT A GENERAL PROBLEM ON MY99/00 CARS.

Sorry for the shouting, but sometimes it seems that Scoobynet gets born again every night, without any memory.

It is NOT on all cars, whatever they tell you. In fact, this problem is almost unknown/undiscussed on for example the Dutch BBS.

PLEASE try to start a thread (I suggested this before) describing your exact setup/mods/type of fuel/type of oil/etc..., and conditions of "it" happening (all the time, sometimes, when warming up/after a service, more in xnd gear, etc...), so at least we have the chance to see if there is something in common with those cars.

Try to only state the facts, not the "I want to punch them in the nose/I hope they drop even more in the JD survey". As understandable as those feelings are, let's try to gather some FACTS.

Clutch judder OTOH seems to be a general item with all cars. Different clutch pressure group can solve this (like AP Formula)

Theo

 

I hope this is of some use and doesn't annoy that evil bevil bloke.

Previous experience: MY00 Euro Import 95 or 97 RON fuel - occasional, say 2-3 times a week feeling of engine momentarily not catching during accelerating through 2500rpmish mostly in 2nd and 3rd gears - then power coming in and normal service resumed - I'm guessing this is the hestitation.
Also at that time - tooling along in 2nd - 2500 rpm - plant accelerator - not much go - lift accelerator plant it again - normal service resumed - this is the 2nd gear half boost problem.

October 2000 - new LINK ECU from BRD, mapped by Bob Rawle, apart from obvious advantages no further problems described above - RON 97, +booster for trackdays
Make your own conclusions.

Has this subject really been done to death now, as previously we were not discussing MY01 cars?

 

EvilBevel - fyi I'm Netherlands-based (MY99) and suffer from the 'stepped power delivery' between 2.7k and 3.1k revs!! :-)

More generally - had the Unichip fitted by Powerstation - great mod generally, but had little discernable effect on the above problem.
The PS boys actually said that although they'd heard about the problem before, they hadn't had an owner mention until I did, they hoped it would rectify things.

Should get back to them and let them know, I 'spose!

 

I still think that this matches the over sensitive knock sensor problem that has been discussed on the American BBS. Search under subaru hesitation on google.com and have a look at how many hesitation references there are from all over the place and especially USA. The hesitation may be continuous retarding and advancing of the timing.


Brendan

 

Actually Brendan, that would make a lot of sense... hmmm...

Standard ECU uses knock sensor to adjust timing.
With the Unichip setup you still use the standard ECU which uses knock sensor to adjust timing.
Prodrive ECU probably still uses knock sensor to adjust timing.

Link does not use knock sensor to adjust timing ... ? Is that right. Bob ? Do you normally use a "fixed" ignition map with the Link ?

Assuming the above is correct: we may wonder if it is indeed the knock sensor that is oversensitive, or another factor that causes some engines to produce too much knock-like sounds/frequencies.

We could test this by installing a sensor from a car that does not have the problem to a car that obviously has. Also, the dealers should be able to see that happening "live" with a select monitor (monitoring the knock ignition retardation in real time).

Questions :

Any dealer on here that would like to give that a go ?

Has this been tried on your hesitating car already ?

Does anyone with the problem have a KnockLink and a seperator sensor installed ? If so, what does the display tell you at these RPM's ?

Does anyone with a complete replacement ECU (Link, Motec, GEMS etc..) still have the hesitation problem ?

IanWatson: did you have a boost controller fitted with the Unichip, or is boost still controlled by the standard ECU ?

Theo

 

my99 - standard but for induction and exhaust mods; hesitation. COuld be improved by cleaning boost solenoid & all hoses + dump valve so that it was only really noticeable when cold.

my00 - standard could feel it only when cold. Fitted a PPP, the same. Car now has 25k km's and it's now quite bad from cold but OK when warm.

I've got a knocklink and second knock sensor. Anyone know where the OE knock sensor is and how to de-sensitise it (don't *really* want to completely isolate it )? I'm willing to give it a go and see if it helps.

Richard

 

EB said

<B>"Standard ECU uses knock sensor to adjust timing.
With the Unichip setup you still use the standard ECU which uses knock sensor to adjust timing.
Prodrive ECU probably still uses knock sensor to adjust timing.

Link does not use knock sensor to adjust timing ... ? Is that right. Bob ? Do you normally use a "fixed" ignition map with the Link ?"</B>

What needs to happen is that the ECU needs to be confirmed as the source of the problem. Can a standard ECU from a MY98 be fitted into a hesitating MY99/00. If it cures the fault then the ECU is definatly the problem.

If this is indeed the case, then the ideal way to test this is to create an identical map to a standard ECU and install it in a car with the hesitation problem.

Then remove the 'knock sensor' part of the ECU program and install it again.

If it solves the problem then that's the cause.

Also is it worth recording chassis numbers of affected cars to see if they fall into a certain pattern.

I'm sad to say that I think Subaru will not fix this unless we, the Subaru owners do our own investigation and present them with a cast iron case giving the cause, numbers of cars affected, with VIN numbers and a proposed fix.

Subaru know this is unlikely to happen as this will require a lot of our time,work and money to resolve.

[This message has been edited by Neil Smalley (edited 30 May 2001).]

 

Neil,

&gt;&gt;If it cures the fault then the ECU is definatly the problem.

We maybe first need to establish just how many ECU variants there are for the MY99/MY00 ... remember that some cars don't have the problem. So it can't be just the ECU if there is only one type.

&gt;&gt;Also is it worth recording chassis numbers of affected cars to see if they fall into a certain pattern.

Thought about that one too - in the way that it could be a batch / production run that has the problem, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to publish them. They could be sent to a moderator though...

&gt;&gt;Subaru know this is unlikely to happen as this will require a lot of our time,work and money to resolve.

But we do have the advantage of having several BBS's with thousands of members being able to share information... only problem is: we should try and keep all relevant information into one thread (or even a forum, SDB ? ), because now it is diluted into many threads/forums.

The answer may not be that difficult to find though: assuming Link cars don't have the problem anymore... difference comes down to knock sensor, MAF sensor and ECU program.

Might also be an idea if MY99/00 owners that don't have the problem would speak up, so we get a better understanding of just how many cars we are talking about 90 % ? 50 % 5 %

Not to minimize the problem like in "hey, it's only 10 % affected", but to make it clear that it is definitely not a general "MY99/00" problem ("they all do that sir").

How about such a (temporary ?) forum ?

 

MY00 - bought Jan 00 - so manuf'd say Nov 99 - absolutely no hesitation.

You'll not believe how hard I've tried to make it do it, accelerating soft of hard in any gear between 2,500 and 3,000 rpm. No sign of any problem at all

 

[quote]The answer may not be that difficult to find though: assuming Link cars don't have the problem anymore... difference comes down to knock sensor, MAF sensor and ECU program.[quote]

Interestingly enough, I've never noticed the problem on my RB5 WR PPP.

However, I've been having problems with the engine idle when restarting from warm - the car starts to idle and then dies.

Had the car serviced a couple of weeks ago and the Mass Airflow Sensor was replaced as it showed up as being faulty under diagnostics.

Yesterday, noticed that when I tried to accelerate in 4th/5th (around 2000 rpm) there was a wierd lack of power - as if the car was accelerating, then killing power, over and over (like when the traction control kicks in on some cars).

The warm start problem is still there too

Haven't had a chance to get back to my dealer yet and it'll probably be a couple of weeks before I get in - just thought it may be of some use.....

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by EvilBevel:
<B>
IanWatson: did you have a boost controller fitted with the Unichip, or is boost still controlled by the standard ECU ?

Theo

[/quote]

Theo - no boost controller fitted - they had no HKS controllers in stock.
Rest of the car is standard, run on Euro SUL, 42,000 Km on the clock.



[This message has been edited by IanWatson (edited 30 May 2001).]

 

have a look at:

 

my99 - sept

clutch judder (bad, and slipped)

hesitation - so bad when cold its like im trying to make someone sick... 2k- turbo on (which I dont let it do)

gearbox snatchy sometimes.. reverse a nightmare... but, with QS, i still love the precisness.