'98 Outback Legacy Electrical - the car stops dead! - problem.

Yeah, some advice.

Post the name of the retard that told you a CEL light is "normal" after an engine replacement so the rest of us can avoid him.

If it stops dead, then starts later electrical wiring is probably the culprit.

Take it to someone who knows Subarus and knows what they are doing, not Bubba's bait and car repair shop.

The Subaru dealership said it was the alternator, which it wasn't. Hence my predicament.

It probably *was* the alternator at first. If it was putting out bad voltages, that would explain some of the wires elsewhere in the system burning out.

That happened to me, years ago. The alternator went bad, and when I replaced it, the right headlight and the tail lights stopped working (I ran a line directly to the bulbs from the cigarette lighter to fix that one) -- and you had to leave the blower fan on all the time, because if it died suddenly, it meant you also had no brake lights and had to kick the fusebox until it came back on.

Seems like you should be within a limited warranty on that alternator work?

What is the CEL code?

-- Todd H.

I've no idea what the code is/was, Todd. Like I said, the light had been on, apparently, for many thousands of miles before I bought it. And the new alternator checks out as fine, I'm told (If y'all haven't sussed it out yet, I'm a moron when it comes to car repair. Not unlike Blanche Dubois, I rely on the kindness of strangers.). And the car's been to three places so far... an award-winning auto-tech instructor (who said that the alternator was putting out ever-so- slightly fewer volts or amps or whatever it is that they put out and therefore didn't think that was the immediate culprit... he voted for a wiring issue that he didn't have time to look for), a Subaru dealership who said it was the alternator, and a third, independent but well established mechanic in the Subaru realm (you can't swing a cat around here without hitting a Subaru).

I'm thinking the electrical problem is not that much of a problem. You could always start diagnosing the problem when nothing seems to work. Good time to test the battery. If the battery checks out good then eliminate it and the alternator. Since those 2 components are good, move on down the cicuit. Do you have current flow in and out of the fuse/circuit breaker panel? Check for voltage at the ignition switch.

Or just for jollys really inspect both the battery terminals and cables. Check both the + and _ cables. Seems to me since nothing inside the car works then the problem is probably with the battery cables.

This car also has a bunch of grounding straps all over it. Engine recently replaced? Good chance one or more were overlooked.

Thanks, John. I'ma print this out and give it to My Guy.

Post your location. Most of us regulars have found or know of good independent local shops specializing in Subarus. There's also huge differences in dealerships as well.

Hey! My Guy seems to have found a fuseable link, whatever that is, that was loose and an unattached something or other in the wiring harness that he thinks may have been overlooked when the alternator was changed. In any event, it's running now like it did before, which is to say that it runs. And oddly enough, the CEL is back on. Ah, well.

Thanks for the two cents worth, everybody. It was appreciated.

And since Nobody asked, I'm in southeastern Vermont.

Happy Motoring,

I'll do just that, Todd, and thanks. I'm sure I'll be posting again about this chariot before long!

Just a high current fuse.

Good. Yeah, a loose fusible link would cause some problems--it's basically the "master" fuse for the entire electrical system.

Get the code read, and write it down for your next post. :-)

Subaru country!

-- Todd H.