derekmathers

My 2 year old Legacy diesel stalls in hot weather - in traffic jams and for example when changing gear to pull away from an island or junction.

No MIL light or error codes - dealer no help.

Car has done 56k, full main dealer service (48k service, front pads and discs over £1000.00)

Anybody else had this problem.

Dealer says yet to have diesel Legacy go over 70k without a clutch and reports of No 5 main bearing failures - is he trying to sell me a new one?

bytte

My June 2008 Legacy Estate diesel (30,000 miles) also stalls on very hot days, eg when you come to a stop at lights. This is particularly noticeable when it has been standing in the sun all day. The problem normally goes away after a mile or so, (when some cold air has gone through the engine).

Now when the whether is cold (less than about +1 C) it will stall in similar circumstances until the engine is warm.

If it doesn't actually stall the revs will drop to about 500, stay there for about a second and then increase to normal idle (800).

It starts and idles fine.

I was intrigued by some posts from US diesel Forester owners who had engines that wouldn't pull away in 2nd gear from stationary until they got remapped. There is no way my Legacy would pull away from stationary in 2nd (it is not unknown for it to stall when pulling away from a slow rolling start in 2nd).

I took it to the dealer today who found all the sensors are working correctly (in particular the intake air temp sensor). He will talk to the regional engineer in the new year, and if he doesn't have a solution, he is talking about giving me a diagnostic recorder to drive around with so that they can capture real time data from the ECU while it doing it's thing.

I'll let you know how this progresses.

rob84

iTrader: (5)

There is a download for these vehicles to improve clutch engagement from a standing condition, & cold start & improved oil dilution ratio for the dpf....

bytte

Rob - I'm new to this technology. Is the download you refer to something the dealer should know about? Can you point me to any more details? Thanks.

rob84

iTrader: (5)

Basically its called a Pak File which is downloaded into the vehicles ecu at time of service, the car may not be called in for a recall for it as usually they just get updated when the cars are in for an annual service.

If the dealer hooked up the SSM 3 into the car and checked with the flashwrite program with your car and model year it would come up with an update

rob84

iTrader: (5)

Done some more digging on this one for the above fault. now if the ecu is to be reset and put the injection pump and injectors back through a self learning process will eliminate this problem, this has to be done by a dealer. usually what happens is when the dealer receives the car new from the factory the dealer check mode connectors are plugged together. now usually as a rule when these are connected the vehicle has to undergo a dealer check mode procedure but the slight sting in the tail is you cant do this with a diesel & if you try it resets all the learning on the diesel injection system, so I suggest going to your dealer and getting them to run the vehicle through a learning procedure wuth the SSM3 tool. and take no nonsence from them about not being able to do it because you can. Hope this helps

bytte

Rob

Thanks. The dealer had it in 2 days ago. He reports that it is now fixed. I'm told there was a fault code showing. The solution was a software update. Apparently the old software was wrongly flagging a non-existent fault, which I guess meant the ECU fell back to running in non-optimum / 'safe' settings. I will now wait till it gets cold again and see how it gets on.

It's cold again, the problem is back and I now have the dealer's data logger attached to the ECU.

Interestingly indicated fuel consumption seems improved but I don't have any specific comparisons. It now indicates off the scale at >60 MPG in fourth at 30 MPH on the level, around 60 MPG at 50 MPH in 5th and 51 MPG at 70 MPH (on motorway with cruise control over 30 miles). I track actual consumption between fills (based on mileage between 1/2 full indicated) - my journey's are fairly standard (50% motorway) and I see higher fuel usage in winter.

stanmo

iTrader: (1)

Out of interest, how are you finding reliability on the diesel car ?
Has it been ok on the snow this year ?

I'm thinking of changing my wife's 02 Outback H6, but the equivalent car has gone up 10k along with road tax, etc.

I suspect she may find the loss of 60 bhp somewhat annoying (though an Ecutek remap will help), and if it's prone to stalling or not starting, it makes it not so good for school runs.

bytte

I previously had a petrol legacy estate which I replaced after 18 years and 230,000 miles (not all mine - I didn't have it from new) - and it was still passing the MOT with flying colours. The new legacy is completely at home on snow - driving out of our village with 6 inches and a short uphill slope on to the main road without issue. Starting is painless, and the stalling when very cold (around freezing) is something new this winter - but regrettably is still not fixed.

bytte

The problem is now fixed. The dealer checked with Subaru UK - they recognized the symptom and had a new mapping for the ECU that fixed it. May be that is the fix that Rob had found.

Amazingly, it took about 90 minutes to download. Large file or slow transfer speed?

rob84

iTrader: (5)

Yes thats the PAK File I had found for this symptom. glad your all sorted

bytte

Rob

Where do you get your info - is that something I should have found on the web, or do you have privileged access?