My 1.8L Subaru Impreza 1995 (manual, front wheel drive) recently started to behave strangely:
When an engine is truly cold (mornings or driving home after work), it starts and begins to drive normally, however, shortly after that it tends to lose power for a moment or two, then resumes OK, then these cycles repeat until an engine fully warms up. Then it behaves perfectly O.K.
It's kind of difficult to describe. Basically, I press accelerator and feel that it "does not work" - very little (if anything) happens; then, as I continue to hold it down, the car "wakes up" and finally responds and accelerates. This usually happens at least several times, rather unpredictably. It's as if the engine is not getting enough fuel or air, or as if the mixture is not ignited in timely fashion.
May or may not be related, I also noticed that, when the car is in this state, it seems to idle strangely - an engine shakes (I can feel the car shaking a lot more) and tachometer goes up and down from high 1,000 rpm to about 100 (when warm, it idles at approximately 400 rpm normally).
The car is up for some expensive maintenance and break job pretty soon, so before I do any of it, I'd like to know what might be the problem with the engine and how expensive it might be. (I can, after all, buy another car, if it does not make financial sense to fix this one).
Any ideas? Many thanks in advance.
George