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2010 Forester having troubles starting

('09-'13) 
9K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  Inspector 
#1 ·
I have a 2010 Forester with about 70k miles and it has intermittent problems starting. It will crank but not start. It takes about 5-10 minutes of trying to starting it to get it to finally start. This has been happening for about two years. It fails to start in cold weather as well as the sweltering heat of Texas.

The car has also died when I was stopped at red lights three times. I will be stopped and the car will just stop running with no warning. It will then proceed to not start for 5-10 minutes.

I have taken this car into three different Subaru dealerships and no one has found the source of the problem. They say they have to have the car fail to start at the shop for them to be able to begin to diagnose the problem. The car has been in the shop for the past month and has started perfectly every single time for them.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

--Connor
 
#2 ·
#3 ·
Connor: Welcome to the forum from Dayton - where an Air Force Thunderbird just turned turtle at the Dayton Air Show - while on a taxi way - and a Sandy's wrecker was called to haul it off. Talk about humiliation. But, I digress...



From the description, it sounds like you're having an ignition problem: bad coil, bad low-voltage wiring to the coil, bad plug wires, bad plugs, or bad grounding on the engine or other grounding problems. None of these components are deathly expensive to replace.

- At 70k miles, your spark plug wires could use replacement. Just replace them . . . don't look back.

- Same for spark plugs, if they haven't been done already. Subaru's change interval for spark plugs is wildly optimistic.

- Remove the coil and inspect it for chips, cracks, tracking. Better yet, just replace it. If you have access to another coil, swap it out and see if that helps. Coils normally last a very long time, but maybe you got one that was assembled late on Friday afternoon or something.

- Everything else I've mentioned (e.g. bad grounding, bad low-voltage wiring to the coil) is just a matter of hands-on detective work. Remove a ground connection, clean it, re-install. Inspect the wire harness for binds, bends, cuts, etc. Sadly, this is not the kind of thing a dealer willl do - too time consuming.

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Ignition issues is where I would start . . . 70% chance of solving the problem. But, if that doesn't solve the problem, take a hard look at your fuel system. From your description (not starting from cold), it's hard to see what could be wrong in the fuel system, but the key is careful detective work.

- At least one possibility is bad or leaking injectors. When you vehicle is running on the highway, what kind of mileage are your getting? It might be worth doing a careful test of this - carefully measure the gas used on a 100- or 200-mile trip.

- Replace your gas cap. It probably won't solve the problem but it needs replacing.

- I'm always preaching about loose and leaking vacuum connections, but they usually result in crappy running . . . not so much hard starting.

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At your mileage, the exhaust system and catalytic converter should be working fine. The only issue might be that the engine is running very rich and has somehow clogged the cat. Again, that should affect a lot more than just starting and a dealer should be able to sort that out - probably under warranty.

Did I mention ignition problems? That's where to look!
 
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