Hi guys, apologies if it's custom here to do an introduction thread before posting.
My partner and I have a 2001 Forester SF GT Automatic here in Aus. The car started to have an intermittent starting issue. I've searched for days trying to find people with the same issue on this site and all over the internet to no avail. The car doesn't want to start at all now. When it's playing up, the symptoms are; when the key is turned on and even when key is removed, the low fuel light is constantly on and so are a bunch of warning lights on the top right, NOT in the same way that the lights come on during normal ignition start procedure. Eg; the engine warning light is faded but on. I go to crank and i get nothing, not a thing. When the problem first happens (just ignition on, not trying to crank) I get noises from relays clicking for about maybe 10 seconds, then all clicking stops and the problem persists. Sometimes and only randomly, the problem goes away and the car starts and acts fine. I replaced the ignition switch this afternoon thinking this had to be the problem. Still the same, no start, dash lights stay on even when key is removed.
Funny thing is, if I slip the gear stick into reverse (only reverse) with key off (key on lights still stay on), all the dash lights turn off. As soon as I put it back into park, and key back on, boom, same problem.
I'm trying to diagnose this as best I can. I've got another forester to pull parts from but not close by, so really want to get the right bits one time only if I can.
One forum thread I read the guy had exactly the same problem, ended up being and earth problem. He'd done his head gaskets recently, we've had no major work done on this car since we bought it 2 years ago and it's been fine till now. I'm happy to test earths if you have a process I can follow with the multimeter. All the connections I could find were fine with 1 exception. I found a broken earth wire under the intercooler that I can not for the life of me find where it was hooked up to. I scratched it to connect to the chassis to test for any change and nothing. It seems it's definitely not the issue either way.
That's all I can come up with for now, I really hope someone knows where I can go from here to diagnose and at least this problem is now on the internet so people with the same issue can actually find a fix for the same issue!
Django
My partner and I have a 2001 Forester SF GT Automatic here in Aus. The car started to have an intermittent starting issue. I've searched for days trying to find people with the same issue on this site and all over the internet to no avail. The car doesn't want to start at all now. When it's playing up, the symptoms are; when the key is turned on and even when key is removed, the low fuel light is constantly on and so are a bunch of warning lights on the top right, NOT in the same way that the lights come on during normal ignition start procedure. Eg; the engine warning light is faded but on. I go to crank and i get nothing, not a thing. When the problem first happens (just ignition on, not trying to crank) I get noises from relays clicking for about maybe 10 seconds, then all clicking stops and the problem persists. Sometimes and only randomly, the problem goes away and the car starts and acts fine. I replaced the ignition switch this afternoon thinking this had to be the problem. Still the same, no start, dash lights stay on even when key is removed.
Funny thing is, if I slip the gear stick into reverse (only reverse) with key off (key on lights still stay on), all the dash lights turn off. As soon as I put it back into park, and key back on, boom, same problem.
I'm trying to diagnose this as best I can. I've got another forester to pull parts from but not close by, so really want to get the right bits one time only if I can.
One forum thread I read the guy had exactly the same problem, ended up being and earth problem. He'd done his head gaskets recently, we've had no major work done on this car since we bought it 2 years ago and it's been fine till now. I'm happy to test earths if you have a process I can follow with the multimeter. All the connections I could find were fine with 1 exception. I found a broken earth wire under the intercooler that I can not for the life of me find where it was hooked up to. I scratched it to connect to the chassis to test for any change and nothing. It seems it's definitely not the issue either way.
That's all I can come up with for now, I really hope someone knows where I can go from here to diagnose and at least this problem is now on the internet so people with the same issue can actually find a fix for the same issue!
Django
