[giveitback]

Heyoo. So I'm at a crossroads with my '05 XT. I've had a lingering electrical issue causing a CEL P0447 and the car has been worked over by various mechanics in the past year. A little backstory, the car got flooded with about 2" of water on the passenger side a couple years ago and the CEL has been on ever since. The ECU definitely got wet, and after a lot of back and forth, replacing the evaporation can, the CEL was still there. The mechanic swapped ECUs from another 2005 XT and was able to get rid of the CEL, but obviously couldn't start the car due to the immobilizer. Took the car back and drove it for a few months with the CEL and everything was unremarkable. Ran fine, but smog was coming up so I finally bit the bullet and took the car to the dealership, had them do a diagnostic, and we replaced the ECM.

Car ran pretty much fine for 2 weeks. No issues, no CEL. Then one morning I go out and it won't start. Try and try and try and one time it kicks over and run it for 15 minutes no issues. Try again later and it won't start again. Get it towed to the dealership and they can't figure out what's going on for a month. Finally today I get the final diagnostic report (attached below). $4400 to replace the wiring harness. Apparently there's a bad ground somewhere leading to the main relay. They're able to "trick" the car into starting by bypassing the main relay, but they think there may be other issues as well. They don't know exactly where the bad wire is, but it's SOA SOP to replace the whole thing if there are any issues at all with the harness.

SO, a couple things: obviously it's not worth spending $4400 to replace the harness. For that money I could buy the exact same car over again at this point. Replacing the harness myself is beyond my skill level. Subaru suggested maybe contacting an electrical shop, but basically they're throwing up their hands if I'm not going to replace the harness through them (an aside, another Subaru dealership quoted me $3300 just for the harness). Has anyone successfully dealt with a bulkhead harness problem without going to Subaru and having them replace the whole thing? Seems a shame to junk the car because fixing it is more than the car is worth, but it looks like it's going in that direction. Is this the end?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Zanzibeer]

I feel your pain. I recently had back-to-back repairs with my 2004 XT that combined were about $4500. I opted to get the repairs done, but I was dealing with a $2500 bill followed by one for $2000 about a month later. There was probably a bit of sunk cost fallacy logic going on with the two separate bills as opposed to one big bill, but after spending the money I feel like I'm in it to try for another 100,000 miles (currently at 175,000). A newer vehicle would be nice, but not having monthly car payments is pretty nice as well.

At the end of the day, I love my Forester and feel like I can get more out of it. I don't regret my decision and don't mind waiting a few years to get a replacement. Also, I feel like there aren't many comparable vehicles being produced right now. If/when I upgrade I feel like my only options are going to be newer Foresters and maybe the Audi Q5. I need something with AWD and 200+ hp.

 

[pmc_Out]

Heyoo. So I'm at a crossroads with my '05 XT. I've had a lingering electrical issue causing a CEL P0447 and the car has been worked over by various mechanics in the past year. A little backstory, the car got flooded with about 2" of water on the passenger side a couple years ago and the CEL has been on ever since. The ECU definitely got wet, and after a lot of back and forth, replacing the evaporation can, the CEL was still there. The mechanic swapped ECUs from another 2005 XT and was able to get rid of the CEL, but obviously couldn't start the car due to the immobilizer. Took the car back and drove it for a few months with the CEL and everything was unremarkable. Ran fine, but smog was coming up so I finally bit the bullet and took the car to the dealership, had them do a diagnostic, and we replaced the ECM.

Car ran pretty much fine for 2 weeks. No issues, no CEL. Then one morning I go out and it won't start. Try and try and try and one time it kicks over and run it for 15 minutes no issues. Try again later and it won't start again. Get it towed to the dealership and they can't figure out what's going on for a month. Finally today I get the final diagnostic report (attached below). $4400 to replace the wiring harness. Apparently there's a bad ground somewhere leading to the main relay. They're able to "trick" the car into starting by bypassing the main relay, but they think there may be other issues as well. They don't know exactly where the bad wire is, but it's SOA SOP to replace the whole thing if there are any issues at all with the harness.

SO, a couple things: obviously it's not worth spending $4400 to replace the harness. For that money I could buy the exact same car over again at this point. Replacing the harness myself is beyond my skill level. Subaru suggested maybe contacting an electrical shop, but basically they're throwing up their hands if I'm not going to replace the harness through them (an aside, another Subaru dealership quoted me $3300 just for the harness). Has anyone successfully dealt with a bulkhead harness problem without going to Subaru and having them replace the whole thing? Seems a shame to junk the car because fixing it is more than the car is worth, but it looks like it's going in that direction. Is this the end?

Thanks in advance.

I Have a subaru outback and was just told i need to replace the Bulkhead wireharness. It took them 2 weeks to figure it out and they want me to pay for alot of that too. they told me $4200. SOA does not fix the harness they only replace it i understand. I was not able to get the codes yet, would the forester codes be different than the outback codes?