| Author | Message | ||
     Scott_in_nh |
My Ex, also known as the mother of my children, has one (2003 or 2004 I believe) that, according to her mechanic, has coded out to be "missing on cylinder 3" and "converter inefficiency" that he believes to be related. He wants to charge her $195 to replace the spark plugs and wires. 1) Do you agree that it is most likely the plugs and wires? 2) How bad of a job is it? I'm asking because she really doesn't have the money and I am willing to help her out if I can do it for her without it turning into a big project (I will have to do it outside and it is getting cold). thanks, Scott | ||
| Xl1200r |
How many miles are on the car? What are the plugs and wires rated for? It may be time to do them anyways, so it couldn't hurt. Sometimes the manufacturers put 30,000 mile plugs in, sometimes they're lifetime plugs, so it depends. I can't say i ever remember doing them on a Subaru anything before, so I can't answer how difficult it is. I would imagine that if this was a turbo model or anything, it might be cumbersome. Otherwise, should be okay, though I woudln't be surprised if you need to get at them through the wheel well or from under the car. If you were only getting the converter code, I'd assume it to be a bad downstream O2 sensor, but mixed with the cyl 3 miss, it does seem like they would be related. Plugs and wires would probably be the first thing I tried - everything gets much more expensive after that. BTW - is the car not under warranty anymore? | ||
| Bill0351 |
I had an Outback for quite a while. It isn't that complicated to work on, but I remember that a lot of what you were doing under there was blind, and a lot of things were done from the bottom. My Outback was ALWAYS throwing codes! It drove me nuts. A missing cylinder was the most common. I finally reasoned that the thing was running fine, and gave up bringing it in. After that, I probably had 50,000 trouble free miles with the light glowing in the dashboard. If it is running fine and the fuel economy hasn't changed, I would clean, inspect and test the wires, change the plugs and call it done for about $10.00. Bill | ||
| Psyclonej |
www.subaruoutback.org Some good stuff there. | ||
| Saintly |
The second code you mentioned is usually defined (in OBDII systems) as: "low catalyst efficiency" There are usually only one of these codes on inline engines, and two on "V" configuration engines. For instance on a V-6 there will be two codes: 1. Low Catalyst efficiency bank 1 and 2. Low Catalyst efficiency bank 2 for the two banks or heads. The subaru used a flat 4 or flat 6 engine configuration. This is divided into two(or 3 for v-6) cylinders per bank. They (subaru) use a "y" pipe exhaust with two catalytic converters and four O2 sensors. Find out if cylinder #3 is on the bank which is setting the low efficiency code. If it is, then the efficiency code may be bullshit and you can ignore it. It's caused by the excess unburned fuel passing thru it by the misfire. If not, then you may have two unrelated problems. Swapping O2 sensors from left to right and vise-versa can help to identify a bad or lazy cat-conv. As for the misfire, I'd pull the plugs, test for good compression, test for spark, and test for injector pulse before spending $195 on plugs & wires. It could be the plugs and wires, but I'd check things before taking a 200 dollar gamble. If you live in a cold climate, it's not uncommon to find chewed ignition wires and or injector wires. Field mice love to take refuge on warm engines this time of year. and nothing is more enjoyable to the rodent species than a nice warm accomodations for the evening complete with a four star meal of carbon-core silicone. Deeeelicious!! | ||
| Austinuu |
My outback started throwing codes at 10k after taking it in twice I started ignoring them. 160k miles later it still runs fine (and the CEL goes on and off like it has a mind of its own still). I think I paid $25 for the wires and whatever the cheapest plugs were. Fairly easy to work with but you will need a wobble ext to get the plugs in and out. I think i had to take out the battery and something else in order to make enough room to get to the plugs on the drivers side. (4 cyl engine) Austin (Message edited by Austin-UU on November 16, 2007) | ||
| Tq_freak |
How many miles are on it? and its not a turbo one is it? I friend of mine is a subie junkie and I remember there was a head gasket issue with them. That could be what is causing the miss and also the cat code if there is water going through the exhaust. | ||
| Scott_in_nh |
Thanks for the quick responses guys (keep them coming if you think of more!)! Some good points and tests if it was my car and warm, but I do need to keep it simple. I'll check that Subaru website, but was/am sure there is some expertise here! The car is non-turbo and has about 65 or 70K (I think), and she said it did feel sluggish while accelerating so I think maybe replace the plugs and wires, check electrical connections to the coil and injector and run a can of injector cleaner through it..... I just cannot get into a knuckle busting adventure and need to know if the plugs are reachable,that is do I need to get under the car (ramps) or remove any wheels? I am often a victim of "No good deed goes unpunished" so I do not want to get in deep - I just want to help her out if I can..... Also, she bought it used this year with an extended warranty that already did not cover the alternator that went bad.... (Message edited by scott_in_nh on November 16, 2007) (Message edited by scott_in_nh on November 16, 2007) | ||
| Bigdaddy |
In all likelihood Saintly has identified the culprit -- the boxer motors of the Subie variety love to consume O2 sensors. Boxer fans unite,,,you gotta love the pancake motor  | ||
| Rainman |
The last time I heard of the head gasket issue it was with late 80s models. I haven't heard of issues with more recent 'Rus | ||
| Azxb9r |
A P0302 would be a misfire code for cyl.#2. Depending on the mileage on the car, the most common cause of this is carbon tracking. If this is the case, changing the plugs and wires will take care of the misfire. The P0420 is a different story. The PCM tests the catalytic convertors efficiency by testing its ability to store oxygen. If the car was driven for a long period of time with a misfire,it may have damaged the cat. Usually a P0420 means cat. replacement is necessary, but there are some other things that can skew the self test results. My advice would be to get rid of the misfire, clear the codes, and drive it for awhile and see if the P0420 comes back. Keep in mind that the car needs to be operated under certain conditions for the PCM to run the readiness monitor for cat. efficiency, so it may take quite a bit of driving for it to reset. | ||
| Tq_freak |
the head gasket problem could be in the boost situation. ei adding more then it had. My buddy was building a 2.2liter bored back out to a 2.5 he had in it ( closed deck vs open deck design) and was adding about 8lbs of boost to start with. He debated having the heads o-ringed but ended up with just a good copper head gasket | ||
| Azxb9r |
btw, if the P0420 comes back, I believe that Subaru has an 8 yr. 80,000 mi warranty on the cat. Hope this helps. | ||
| Ratyson |
I have an 02 WRX. To get to the plugs on it, you have to dig a little. On the driver's side I had to remove the washer fluid res., and use an wobble socket and extension. The coils are at the plug, so you have to remove them first. On the passenger side, I had to remove the battery, and the airbox. It is an awkward reach to get to the rear two, but can be done. I bought some split fire plugs to try out.. the WRX did not like them at all, misfired like a madman, so I went back to the OEM ones. All was right with the world then. Another site to consider for info is nasioc dot com. There is a lot of useful information there as long as you don't look in the off topic section for it. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I had an old rat Ford escort ($300 yay!) that would oil foul the plugs if you didn't beat on it. I drove it home when it wasn't firing on a cylinder and when I got home the cat was ORANGE. Seems as though the perfect mixture of fuel and air being pumped into the cat made it catalyze extra well. I was lucky it didn't catch on fire | ||
| Mikej |
Interesting timing of this thread as we just recently got a new to us '03 Outback, flat 4, manual tranny. Any suggestions for repair manuals? Any suggestions on what level/model/style of self tester Code reader to get? AutoZone has models priced from under $70 to over $300, WallyWorld has some priced between $50-$250 at last check. | ||
| Jaimec |
Soon your Outback may have a two-wheeled companion: http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults /mcn/2007/November/november12-18/nov1807subaruspor tsbike/?&R=EPI-97081 | ||
| Azxb9r |
Auto x-ray makes a decent code reader for a reasonable price. Keep in mind that a trouble code does not mean that a particular part is bad, it indicates that the PCM has seen a problem in a related circuit. I quite regularly have people come in saying "My car has this code so I replaced this part and the problem is still there". | ||
| Newfie_buell |
I have a 2000 Subaru Impreza with 225,000km on it. A while back it started to miss on cyl 1 and when I checked under the hood the exhaust pipe was glowing red. I swapped out the plugs, you do have to remove the washer can on the drivers side and you need a real long extension on the end of the socket. Please tape the extension to the socket because if it gets stuck in there somehow your gonna be angry. Use Duct or Electric tape. After I swapped out the plugs (USE OEM rated ones) the car ran fine again. Shortly after that a code came up so I borrowed a friends scan tool (picked up at www.princessauto.ca for $65.00), read that I had an emmission hose gone bad. I reset the code didn't find the fault and the car is still running good. Plugs and wires should set you back no more than $50.00 and on the conservative side of things it will take 2hrs. | ||
| Newfie_buell |
Something else to check is the air filter, If the filter is real dirty you could run the risk of a too rich fuel mixture, fouling a plug causing problems. Swap that out while your in there. I love my little Impreza and wouldn't trade it for anything else. I have 4 deep lug winter tires on it and its virtually un-stoppable. | ||
| Beatx1 |
My Imprezza did the same thing. Plugs and wires fixed it. Oil from a leaking rocker cover migrated into the spark plug wells causing a low speed misfire. |
