Hey everybody. I've got something new to me going on. First, the car: 2008 Forester Base, MT, 160K miles, no mods. I went out to warm up my car this morning as I usually do during the winter. Everything seemed normal. It fired up fine (for -4 degrees air temp), and I went inside to finish getting ready for work. I went back outside after 10 minutes and the car had stopped running, which had never happened before. I jumped back in, fired up the car again, but this time the car would stall every time I let out the clutch while it was in neutral. I decided to just scrape the windows and try to drive it like a grandma to hopefully warm things up, but when I shifted it into gear, the car wouldn't move (it didn't matter what gear it was in). There was no load on the engine when I let up on the clutch when the car was in gear, but load on engine when the car was in neutral. I've never had this happen before. I'm aware that the cold is probably playing a major role in this, but it would be nice to know what's going on. Any ideas?
That is weird, the clutch on my wrx would slip like crazy in last years frigid cold under heavy throttle, but I could always drive the car normaly and have no issues. Definitely totalled
Update: I sat in the car with the clutch depressed until it was up to standard running temp, then started trying to get it to move. It still wanted to stall if I let up on the clutch, so I started working the shifter through all the gears until the action felt relatively smooth. It still wanted to stall if I let out the clutch in neutral, but if I moved the clutch slowly, it would barely stay alive. Once it didn't want to die, I tried getting it to move. It jerked around quite a bit, but eventually started to roll. After 5 minutes of driving it around the neighborhood, it was pretty much running like normal. I'll probably take it in to have somebody take a look at things and change out some fluids since my wife also drives the car. I don't want her to feel stranded if this happens again.
Did that year come with hill assist? That's the only system I could think of that might be acting up and potentially produce the scenario you're describing. Might be the place to start troubleshooting.
Surprisingly, yes, our car does have hill assists. I was wondering the same thing... Do you know if any of the Morries Subarus are still offering discounts on parts and labor? I saw the threads were closed a couple years ago.
Would the hill hold cause a stall while in neutral? I would think that would only cause stalling while in gear. What gear(s) were you able to drive around in?
I was able to get all of the gears to work eventually. I'm not sure I tried 5th since I was just driving around in the neighborhood, but the car was acting pretty normal. I purchased the car a about a year and a half ago, so I'm not sure what fluids have been changed during the life of the car. I meant to do a bunch of fluid changes before winter hit, but that didn't happen, so now I'll probably pay the price for my laziness...
The issue seems bizarre, almost as if one of the gear selectors in the transmission failed, although it doesn't really explain why is suddenly stopped running while you were inside. My first steps would be to inspect the clutch and if that didn't grenade, I would inspect the shifter linkage, then change the fluid. None of these really stand out to me but they might exhibit some of the symptoms.
There's no easy way to "inspect the clutch." I definitely wouldn't start there. No idea how the subaru hill assist works but most of them apply the brakes (via a check valve or similar) when the clutch is depressed. Since the OP is reporting load on the engine while in neutral, I figured there might be more to the system than I'm aware of. From a research standpoint, that's where I'd start. The only mechanical failures that I can think of that would engage the clutch while the pedal is depressed (in a situation like he is describing) are related to the throwout bearing (or the pressure plate collar or the clutch fork - any scenario where the tob is not properly pulling the pressure plate away from the flywheel). Any of those scenarios probably wouldn't result in normal driving after warming up and couldn't result in engine load while in neutral.
What about checking the clutch MC fluid level (esp when the car is cold soaked), and also checking the clutch master & slave cylinders for leaks? I've seen clutches freeze together before, but that was back in Canada when it was a little colder...
You are correct, the hill assist functions basically as you described. Even if the brakes were stuck on at all times, there would still be no load on the engine in neutral. I wouldn't call his experience in gear to be normal. It almost sounds like the transmission was in a high gear while the shifter was in neutral, but clearly that went away. Additionally, the more he drove it around, the more "normal" the car operated which to me hints to a transmission fluid issue. That being said, how the issue is being described is peculiar at best. I was thinking the clutch/pressure plate could be inspected with an inspection camera although you are only going to be able to see a limited amount from it.
Back from Morries. Of course, my car was running great by the time I got there, so Dan Hunt, the Service Advisor, basically said "well, I know these cars and I know my guys, and I could charge you $120 to have them take a look at it, but if it's running great now, I don't see any reason to charge you money just so we can tell you that we don't know what caused it." He gave me his card and told me to call him if it happens again. He was pretty sure it was just a fluke, but I guess we'll find out the next time it gets really cold. He did do a quick check of the clutch function, checked all the fluid levels, and poked around a little, but all he could find was that my clutch fluid was a few ounces low and that the clutch was showing some signs of wear, but nothing out of the ordinary. The car is honestly running great right now, so it's hard to say what the deal was. Maybe I'll look into some sort of oil pan heater or something to try to keep everything from getting so cold.
Could it just be the cold weather ? I had a brief moment where my ABS light and traction like came on. Went off after I restarted the car.
Glad to hear the response from Morries and its good to hear that you arent having problems anymore. When was the last time the vehicle was driven? Similar to what @EricS stated, something could have gotten frozen together by condensation and taken some time to get knocked loose. I would get the car in a warm environment and change the trans fluid. It could be that you are running original oil and/or an inappropriate weight oil for this climate. Contaminants could have gotten lodged in the gear train plus its good maintenance to change the fluid anyway. I would inspect the linkage to make sure nothing is broken and there are no pins missing. There isn't an oil heater but there is a block heater (coolant) that I run in near (and below) 0 deg temps. It helps a lot with oil delivery and warm up times on my engine.
Yeah, I wanted to get the trans fluid changed over this fall, but didn't get around to it. I drove the car to and from work yesterday, then my wife took it out to run some errands last night, so it had been less than 12 hours since it was last driven when I ran into the issues this morning. I guess I'll just keep an eye on things and get that fluid changed out once I can find a warm place to do it. I'd prefer to do it myself, but I don't have any friends/family with heated garages, so if it keeps on being stupid cold and I keep having issues, I'll probably just have somebody do it. We only have a one car garage, so I suppose we could also decide to keep the Subaru parked inside to try to help things a little. Our other car has a lot fewer miles and thinner sheet metal though, so we've been trying to keep that one in decent shape by parking it inside.
It should be in the 30s this weekend, possibly 50 on Saturday. You can also drive it for a bit prior to draining the fluid.
