Fuel Crusher

Hi all, I've only owned my '00 impreza for about a month and a slight problem has made itself apparent. When starting driving the car from cold the ride is uneven, hard to describe, the car isn't jerky it just drives as though fuel supply is uneven as the car seems to drive along in pulses as though I'm lifting and pressing on the accelerator even though I'm holding it steady. It first became noticable when I changed jobs the other week and now have to drive very slow <15mph for over a mile. After noticing it at slow constant speed I noticed it on acceleration aswell. After the car has warmed up and I've given it a few revs the problem seems to go but it still bothers me.
I have the car booked in for it's 75k service on thursday at a subaru dealer will they check this out as part of the service? Anybody any ideas what could be causing this?
Thanks for reading.
FC.

Buzzer

Silly question but have you got the Air con on while this is happening.

Apologise now for stating the obvious

Fuel Crusher

No the car doesn't have air con.

BuRR

I would guess that its the AE802 ECU that you have in your car. Known issue for this MY.

Try and source an AE800 or AE801 from a MY99. (or even a TEK1, TEK2 or PPP)

Sorry if this all sounds double-dutch, but I'm sure someone more in the know than me can elaborate.

fdpxfunix

FC

Search the BBS for 'stuttering' or 'surging' and you'll find loads of information on your problem.

My MY99 is the same as your's from cold. Give it a few miles to warm up, get the Turbo spinning and the problem goes away. Mines been like this since I've owned it. Almost 2 years now.

It's pretty 'normal' (so dealers/BBS users and other owners have told me) for the MY99/00 to do this.

When the 75K service is carried out, ask the dealer for their thoughts on the problem, but I reckon they'll give you a similar answer to mine

I was once given a good technical explanation of what's going on during the first few miles after start up (from cold) by a Subaru techy ... but I can't remember what it is now

J.

Fuel Crusher

Thanks for all the replies, I guess I feel a little better knowing that it's not uncommon. I've already started searching the board about ecu's and I also found a post on sidc forums putting this behaviour down to the emmissions settings of the ecu. I'll have a chat with the guys who're going to service it.
Thanks again.
FC

dan rolfe

my does that only wen the aircon is on, y? dan

Buzzer

Dan

The aircon needs power to generate the temp.

Therefore a small amount of power loss or surge is detected when the unit kicks in. Believe me this is nothing compared to Honda's. I had a Honda that felt like it was going to die everytime the aircon kicked in, the rev counter even dropped noticably for a moment aswell.

Worth noting that if you run aircon you will probably lose 1mpg for the time you are running it

Pete