Ok weird issue. Raining a lot today of course but not sure these problems are related.

The car is a 03 wrx and had had a map, centre decat etc but none of those seem to be causign an issue.

Essentially, after tramming along the (admittedly very wet) rural roads in an attempt to escape the carnage on the motorway, the car cut out and now won't run.

It actually cut out after 10 mins on a regular road (so not driving through a flood or anything) and it is only rain at the end of the day!

Car made a move as thoguh i was stalling it, that sort of leap forward and the revs just died on me, managed to cruise to a halt safely (was just going through a junction, 2nd gear, quite slowly) with the engine management light on.

The car will fire and is getting fuel but won't hold the rev or idle. Its basically BBBRrrrmmm m m m die. Sounds ok though so i'm trusting it is electrical and not the motor.

As suspected RAC bloke hadn't seen one before and the ECU wouldn't report a fault code to his laptop. I've had her recovered to the local specialist that has serviced the car a few times so hopefulyl they'll find the fault but any ideas?

The alarm has beena bit funny the past week, could that have anything to do with it?

Kudos points awarded for getting the eventual right answer!

5t.

 

Any number of potential explanations. Given what you've described, water ingress (into the engine wiring loom/fuel pump cabling) wouldn't be a surprise.

Alarm's a possibility, but the symptoms you're describing don't immediately sound like that. If the immobiliser relay has gone, for example, whatever circuit it interrupts will be permanently open, so you probably wouldn't find the car trying to start and then dying off, it just wouldn't try to fire at all. Exactly what do you mean by "a bit funny"?

Also, as a matter of interest, if you tried it, will the car keep running if you keep your foot on the throttle?

 

I tried the foot on the throttle and it was as though the accelerator was just not connected, Same result foot on or not.

THe only thing the RAC guy helped with was the check it was pumping fuel and it seemed as though was still pumping once fired...

The bit funny thing is simply that it had gone off a few times and on a couple of occasions refused to set, as though a door was open (you get a loud beeping from under the bonet) but it seemed to have calmed down a bit. The icon showing if a door is open was always out though so not sure what the cause of that was. Its the only reason is suspected the alarm at all.

Has to be damp in a sensor somewhere i'm sure but which one i haven't a clue!

5t.

 

I had exactly the symptoms you are describing when an intercooler pipe blew off with me, wouldnt idle just die, wouldnt rev or anything, worth checking i guess.

 

Cheers Nolan. Nothing like the benefit of experience. Worth a look.

5t.

 

Check all the wee hoses to and from the turbo as well....

I was busy trying to get out of the way of a speeding Monaro when mine went loopy and hit 2 bar of boost so I got into the middle lane, and then pulled off the motorway.

I'd managed to split the actuator hose for 2 cm. at the actuator, Opps !
Not quite the same problem.

dunx