Outback Intermittent Power Loss

My wife has a 2002 Outback, 4 cyl. with about 27K miles that she bought new. It has been a very good car and she loves it. For the past two thousand miles, the car has developed a serious power loss when accelerating normally from a traffic light. The engine acts as if it is rapidly being shut off and turned back on multiple times. This power loss is even more noticeable if accelerating from a stop and turning left at the same time. While the problem was intermittent at first, it is happening more and more often.

My wife says that once her speed reaches 40 mph or above, there is no power loss at all. She took the car to her Subaru dealer who hooked it up to their computer then drove it to test for the problem. They found nothing and noted on the work order that they had checked the A/F sensor and found it to be normal as did an inspection of the fuel filter.

Her concern is that this power loss could potentially be dangerous when turning a corner at a busy intersection, since her car loses power to the point of stalling. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks. -Paul

Reply to
paulf6
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If she can demonstrate this for a passenger she needs to take the mech. for a ride. If not, there are few things that cause 'driveability' problems that won't usually throw a CEL (did she get an error light?) but they could include, IAC(idle air control), Engine Temp Sensor(not heat gauge), TPS(throttle position sensor), even plugs(though you usually get a misfire code and CEL). Most technicians are OK once you 'get their attention' and they can sense the problem - they may need to actually look for clues like carboned-up plugs, bad plug wires, bubbles in the coolant, etc.

Carl

1 Lucky Texan

paulf6 wrote:

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

*You* take the car back to the dealer, take a mechanic or the sevice mgr for a test drive and insist they fix the problem.

George Adams

"All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of youth that doth not grow stale with age." ---- J.W Muller

Reply to
George Adams

Thanks, Carl. No error lights at all. -Paul

Reply to
paulf6

Good discription! Actually if you told this to the shop and they didn't know what it is and didn't fix it, I'd find another shop. If you wish to see what it is, take your fuel filter off and back flush it into a glass bottle, using the fuel from your car. Once you let it settle a couple minutes you should see water and perhaps a good bit of rust in the bottom of your glass with gasoline floating on top. Two causes, one is water in the station's tank, the other is not getting your gas cap on so that the O-ring seals. The cornering making it worse is the giveaway. As the gas sloshes to the side of the tank in a courner it raises the water level at the fuel pickup making you pull straight water rather then on the level where the water is now at just under pickup level.

Reply to
JW

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