'97 Outback misfire/hesitation?

This problem is hard to describe, but when just cruising down the road at speed the car will sometimes hesitate for an instant and then pick up again. Since the CEL never comes on I find it hard to believe it's a misfire, and wonder whether it might be the tranny searching for a lower gear for an instant. The car is an automatic. Once it did hesitate for an instant when starting out from a light.

My neighbor has the same car, and when I told her the story she said hers does the same thing. Meanwhile both cars continue to run with no other symptoms or warning lights coming on. I don't know about her, but I tend to cruise at about 75mph to 80.

Any ideas as to what's going on here?

Thanks

Sheldon

Reply to
Sheldon
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I've driven ~360 miles s> This problem is hard to describe, but when just cruising down the road at

Reply to
thomashanno

Change the fuel filter and dump in a container of the expensive Techroline. If it still does it, check for a trouble code.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

Sounds exactly like poblem I had with my '02 Forester at about 70,000 miles. I replaced plugs, wires, fuel filter, still had hesitation. Took it to independant shop, they supposedly pulled injectors and cleaned, didn't help. Took it to dealer and they said clutch needed replaced, I knew that was BS. I discovered a few posts on this NG that mentioned bad 02 sensors that would not trigger a CEL. I changed upstream 02 sensor and BINGO, ran like new.

Reply to
phatirejunky

It's going in for an oil change on Monday. I'm going to let my mechanic look into it. We decided to look for any hidden codes, and if we don't find any dump some good cleaner in the gas tank and see what happens. I'll definitely mention the O sensor.

He said if the engine has been stuttering it should show up in a code, but not turn the CEL light on.

Reply to
Sheldon

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