Hi,

I've got a standard UK spec MY95. There's an irritating problem which crops up every now and then, which is the car fails to restart sometimes after short journeys. I've been told this may be the spark plugs, which could just need a clean or changing. The problems reappeared again. Anyone offer advice, had similar problem. If it is the spark plugs, where are they (not much of an expert under the bonnet, I'm afraid)?

Cheers

A bit more info might be helpful - when you say 'short journeys' do you mean before the car's warmed up properly? And by 'not starting' what do you mean?

I will on the whole let the car warm up before I end the journey (I don't know if this needs to be done, I just feel I ought to). By short, I mean anything up to 10 minutes' drive.

Not starting - turning the key and the engine makes the right noise , but won't 'spark' into life. Sometimes I've had to leave the car for up to 15-20 minutes before it will get going again. More recently, I've taken advice form the Suby handbook, by turning the ignition for 10 seconds aprroximately, and if it doesn't start, leaving it for another 10 and then trying again. This has worked, but not always.

My garage, Cheam Motors, has not been much help with this in terms of advice/finding a problem.

Cheers,
David

Might not be the problem but worth doing the following as it doesn't hurt anyway...

Clean the cam and the crank sensors.. they look the same and are found one in the middle of the front of the engine between the pulley wheels and has a 10mm bolt holding it in and wires coming out.. undo the bolt and it slides out.. the other one (cam sensor) is located below the oil filler cap.. just take them out and clean them with a rag and white spirt for the stuburn bits, white them clean and replace... they are suppose to detect the cam and crank location and trigger the spark.. they should work through all the dirt but I found cleaning mine made the car run and start better..

Nimbus had similar problems to you.. I'll see if I can find the thread..

JGM :)

Cannot find the thread, sorry...

but I stand by the fact that either one of the sensors is at fault, try cleaning them first though..

I think Halfords sell their own that are considerably cheaper than Subaru one but don't last as long...

JGM :)