AMD1974

Hi folks,

Make yourselves comfortable and I'll begin.

Two weeks before Christmas my wife returned from a trip in our Jdm 1997/8 Forester to tell me "there's something horribly wrong with the car". As it turns out she was as usual correct.

Now I will point out at this point that a couple of times in the weeks preceding this revelation I had noticed that whilst slowing at junctions the car would occasionally have a little dip in revs.

So anyway horribly wrong it turns out is when the car will barely start, when it does it tryst desperately to stall, idles all over the place but mainly in low revs, spews black smoke from the exhaust and the hold light flashes like its life depends on it.

So the following morning I literally just make it the 500 yards to my local garage and await the out come. 2 weeks later I now have a car with a new maf sensor that won't even start and the garage has given up!!!

In those 2 weeks they ran the diagnostics but because the ecu has been chipped struggled to pinpoint the problem, after pressure testing, checking the valve timings and cam belt (all ok) they settled on a faulty maf sensor. After replacing with a new one there is no change.

I just want to point out at this point I am not dissing the garage they have held there hands up and said they are at a loss and cannot fix it and only charged me an hours labour (I bought the part online).

So the question is what is it........ ecu (the ecu was replaced 25/08/2010), knock sensor I have no idea.

Thanks for getting this far and I welcome any insights you can offer.

Don Clark

As you mention the "hold light" i'm assuming it's an automatic.

Would probably be best if you tell your tale over on Subaruforester.org in the Europe forum as there are a number of S/Tb's and T/Tb's owners on there.

http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f75/

Need to know more about this ECU change as it sounds as if the fueling is all over the place.
Usually not feesible to change the ECU on the auto as it has a linked TCU (transmission ECU) and it has taken ESL years to come up with a daughterboard for tuning one.

Bob Rawle

If the ecu has had some sort of upgrade installed, and its a MY97-98 car, then the possibility is that one of the linking solder joints is either dry or fractured, the way to prove this is to revert the ecu to run the std maps. Fitting an upgrade chip to this model year car is a tortuous process under the best of conditions. ESL ask that they do it if its one of theirs for this reason.

Is it the ESL upgrade our has someone else had a bite at it ?

Diag. codes will all be present and available btw chipping has no effect on that. Sounds like there were no codes logged to help.

cheers

bob

AMD1974

Thanks for the replys guys.

You assume correctly Don, it is an auto forgot to mention in original post, have posted thread on forester.org as well but seems to be a lot less activity on there at the moment.

The ECU was played with by the previous owner in August 2010 (Union Motors Wolverhampton), this is all I know at present. Is there anyway I can check the ECU visually and is it possible to reset it yourself?

The garage said it was throwing up all sorts of codes that they worked through and finally decided it was the maf sensor as everything else seemed fine. They said all the codes are now clear but as I cannot start it this is difficult to confirm.

Cheers
Mark

Don Clark

Doubt if you will get much if any reponse in the P,M &W forum. as a lot of the UK guys stick to the Europe forum.

Have started a thread there for you. A lot of the S/Tb and T/Tb owners live in your area and will (hopefully ) point you in the right direction.

AMD1974

Cheers Don, fingers crossed.