My condescending dealership says my car is fine, but....
This 2003 Legacy Outback with a 4 cylinder engine appears to have very little torque below 3500-4000 rpm, at which point it becomes more drivable.
The car does remain functional, except for an occasional stall and overall annoyance.
My wife thinks it's the manual transmission 'cuz she's having a little difficulty with the shifts, but I think that's just the lack of torque, making it hard to smoothly release the clutch. Could the clutch make it feel like the engine lacks power?? Seems to be the clutch would either slip (it's not), or grab, but if it grabbed, I should be able to compensate with a little more throttle.
The car has been driven twice by the dealership and all recommended maintanance has been performed, including a change of fuel filter.
We've tried different fuel grades as recommended by the dealership and, as I expected, it didn't help.
The car certainly was quicker when I bought it new (or am I just used to the V6 Nissan I bought over a year ago?).
Seems like a hard problem to diagnose, in person or by email, but thought I'd post this for any ideas anyone else has.