PGMabley

Last night a Scooby owning friend phoned me to say that another friend has had a piston failure on a MY99 car with 45k on the clock.

All servicing has been carried out in the same main dealer and the car has never been modified in any way.

The car has not been driven excessively hard and no where near what my first impreza went through!! in 90k miles.

The advice that has been given (from main dealer and several scoob specialists) is that the car should never have been revved above 6000 with 95 RON fuel and that this is what caused the failure. Apparrently it is a common problem!

Could anyone in the know comment on this (Pete Croney or others?) as we are now wondering whether to swap fuel or if permanent damage is already done to our cars.

Our cars are hard driven on 95 fuel and mine has full Scoobysport and air filter.

Thanks in advance for any help

Cheers
Paul

[Edited by PGMabley - 4/30/2002 9:21:02 AM]

WREXY

May have been due to a faulty MAF leaning out the mix which caused det, then pop. Have a look at my last post here.

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/threa...d=90011&Page=5

Mo

Paul,

why drive a car like an Impreza and run it on crap fuel?

Better to be safe than sorry.

Another thing that always worries me is the way people, not aimed at you just a general observasion from many drivers I've spoken with, drive these cars. A UK Impreza with standard turbo has nothing beyond 6000rpm, so why go there?? What is to gain from revving the engine to the redline all the time?

Look at the torque curves of standard cars on the dyno pages and look at how they drop off quite rapidly at 5500rpm.

I've got an older model with the bigger TD05 turbo and I've never felt that I'm missing out on any performance when I change gear at 6k

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

The standard ecu is mapped for 95ron fuel so it shouldnt matter if you take the car to the red line, its the timing that causes det and piston failure in most cases (ala det).
But to be honest, you should run these cars on a higher octane fuel, if not for the performance and economy you get (if only a little) then for the smoother uptake.
Your friend should also hopefully be able to tell you what the cause of the failure was (if subaru uk get back to him) and it does sound like there was a failure of some sort, be it lack of oil, det etc and his/her car back on the road soonest
Just remember that this is a performance car and it does need to be ragged (when warm!!) sometimes to keep the engine in tip top condition

Tony

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Oooooops should also put that fully synthetic oil is better for your engine and should be used whenever possible

Tony

SCOSaltire

how do u know when u have piston failure?
suppose its quite obvious?

I have a my99 uk car.. with PPP... I always run on sul... and its now on 42k... i am the 2nd owner

once, after a service... the car struggled to make 6k revs, never mind the redline...
thought it was maybe the atmospheric conditions.. even tho i was at sea level.. so didnt do anything..

car wasnt its best that day, but was bit better the next day..

since then, have found that the car seems to not run as smooth as it used to.

ive been to independant specialist.. they found my MAF sensor readings are fluctuating a bit more than normal.. thinks the sensor is on it way out...

ive also found that the car had had a ramair panel fitted... (i removed it as soon as i found out)
im thinking that perhaps the filter was over-oiled at the service.. contaminated the maf sensor...
the car is also not idling totally smoothly... wavers a wee bit.

car rattles alot when cold... sorta like piston slap... which i was gonna get the dealer to look at at next service (3k miles to go)... tho piston slap is not common an the phase II engine that I have...

perhaps the engine is damaged in someother way?
thoughts?

Alpine

From reading around this board it sounds like you should try a 'gentle' cleaning of the MAF sensor... perhaps someone more knowlegable could comment?

PGMabley

Thanks guys for the responses - I'll pass them on and update when I hear news

Cheers
Paul

MKC

Just had my engine replaced. UK99 serviced 60k car. I had good days and bad days (no mods) for 2 months. At a steady 5k on a long run, the revs went up and down by themselves (boost changed). One day I lost all power, got recovered and two days later at dealer, they found holes in my piston. Just got it back. They could not say what had caused it...worrying...
Had injectore tested, and heads, short engine and turbo were all done...

Ta...MKC