Scary!!!

Saturday morning, try to start the Scooby. ****Really**** loud noise from the engine, and the wife sees a puff of smoke from the right hand side of the closed bonnet.

Immediately stopped. Got out, nasty smell of burnt oil in the air. Check the dipstick - completely down to the "E" mark. Started panicking.

Topped up with Castrol Magnatec, and turned the engine over – all fine, started without a problem. Pulled the car out of the garage onto the drive and switched off.

Lifted the bonnet, looked for leaks – no sign. Ran my finger round the exhaust rim – really oily!!

Phoned the local Subaru dealer, they said don’t drive the vehicle (I had no plans to!), and get it to them over the weekend. Called Subaru Assistance and they got a transporter to me in less than 20 minutes!!

Got the car to the dealership. Explained to the engineer, and he started the car up, sounded fine to him, but said they wouldn’t be able to do any more until Monday when their Subaru engineer was in.

Called on Monday, and they said the car had started OK, and they wanted to leave it out over night to give it a *cold* start. Called Tuesday morning, and they said it had started OK from cold, and they will be looking into it more later.

Called in at lunchtime – no news. Called in on the way home, and they had found the problem:

They had performed a compression test, and the values should be between 130 and 140 (not sure what the measurement is in). Values were:

Cylinder #1 : 110
Cylinder #2 : 100
Cylinder #3 : 90
Cylinder #4 : 85

They are now doing the paperwork for a warranty repair –
most likely getting a "short engine" (new term for me - apparently, cylinder heads & up) from Subaru, ie: a big job!!!

I don’t understand what’s happened!!! The car has been serviced at a Subaru dealership as per the service schedule. I have always let the engine cool down before shutting off – so much so that the wife gets cheesed off waiting in car parks!!! She thinks it looks stupid sat there with the engine on!

I’ve only done ~28,500 miles since having the car from new in September 2000 (yes, that was a close one on the warranty!!!).

Also, I haven't seen any nasty smoke from the exhaust! Mind you, the only time I see the exhaust is in the morning, when I get out of the car, walk round to the back, and close the garage door - ie: at cold tickover.

Any ideas??????? Anyone?







[Edited by Nog - 9/17/2003 9:46:02 PM]

You could simply have got a duff engine from day one, though this seems unlikely.

I too have an MY00 and I am on my second bottom end. The only explanation i got from my dealer was "Dont 'rag' it so hard".....FFS my regular journey is the commute into London on the A40 i rarely get out of 2nd gear!!!!

Not using Magnatec seems to be a good first move... probably nothing wrong with the oil (although it's only a semi, isn't it?), but statistically speaking it doesn't seem to agree with the Subaru engines very well!

Nom, my supplying dealer uses and recommends magnatec? Wierd...

I say 'statistically', but then I have no idea how many cars are using Magnatec! If 90% of all cars use it, then it's unsuprising it's the oil in many that fail...
I still think it's a little odd using a semi in a turbo, though :)

The dealers will use what they are told too by the buyer for the whole group,Magnetec does seem popular though within the dealer network, i rang 3 dealers all within the same group and they all used Magnetec.
Supply your own, keeps the cost down and you know its decent quality.

Zippy

BottomFeeder, you say "I too have an MY00 and I am on my second bottom end" - does that mean the block???

The Subaru dealer that's looking at my car is talking about the heads and up (I guess that includes valve gear, Etc).

I must admit, as the engine was low on compression, I thought that would mean that the actual cylinders would be worn??? or is it likely just to be piston rings??? Why are they talking about the head only???

Questions, questions.....

Basically, I want my baby back, and I want her to work! Does anyone know whether you get a warranty/guarantee on such major work. Ie: if I decide to chop the car in for an MY03 sometime, can I provide the buyer with enough documentation to make them confident that I'm not selling a lemon???

Waaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!

A short engine is the block, pistons, crank etc - not the heads.

If it were a problem in the heads it would most likely be a valvestem oil seal problem - but that on its own would not give low compression.

Also - if this were the problem they would rebuild the heads.

Rannoch

Cheers guys.

Got confirmation today that they're replacing:

Block
Pistons
Crank
Conrods
Gaskets
Turbo Charger
Oil Pump
Water Pump

I must have mis-understood when they said replacing everything from the head, they meant downwards (or across on a boxer?), not upwards.

Pick the car up tommorrow. Will need a 1,000 mile service (again), so < 4000 revs for a few weeks then!

More problems!

Got the car back, and its leaking coolant! The engine "under tray" was dripping with water through the holes last night. Checked the header tank and the level was OK.

Took a [gentle] drive into town today, and found a small damp patch under the engine when I got back to the car park. Checked the header tank and the level is still OK.

When I got home the cooling fan was on, and stayed on! I eventually killed the ignition, so as not to flatten my battery (I had the engine off).

I've now got to take tomorrow off work to get it sorted. Bl**dy cars!!!

welcome to the wonderfull world of subaru!

there are two header tanks on Impreza's. The one that is the sight fill made of plastic and the one that counts, that has the high presure cap on it. It's not uncommon for the sight level to be corect yet still have no water in the engine.

I check levels by taking the high presure cap off the metal water header tank when its cold. If it was dripping water then that is coming from your engine, so its obviously losing water despite what the sight bottle says.

Lets hope you havnt cooked your new engine. :o

Another thing - are you sure it's coolant?
There's not a very impressive seal under the screen water bottle & that could be leaking?
Or I might just be being hopeful :)

It's all OK guys.

The Subaru dealership had over-filled the coolant, and when the engine got hot for the first time, the pressure cap let the water out, which found its way onto the engine under-cover "thing". This then eventually dripped through to my garage floor.

The guy at the garage opened the cap with the engine warm, allowing some of the water out. The water level in the metal pressure tank is now about 1" down from the top, and I haven't seen any more water on the garage floor.

The cooling fan is now also cutting in and out as I'd normally expect. Not sure why it stayed on for a long time the other day (!!!).

I can now relax... 900 miles to go.


[Edited by Nog - 9/25/2003 6:36:36 PM]