Hi All,
After some advise please
Bit of background info. Car is 4 years old and has done approx 57k km
Car bogged down when accelerating from cruising at approx 40km/h to get up to legal speed of 60km/h.
Check engine light came on, along with the VDC and cruise control lights. When idle, it was really rough and shaking and seemed as though it wanted to stall.
Started to limp the car to the mechanics and mid way to there, the car started behaving fine (as if someone flicked a switch).
Mechanic diagnosed errors as misfires in Cylinders 3 & 4. Codes were cleared and car booked in for fixing the next week (in 6 days time).
2 days later when the car was started, it was running really rough at idle, shaking and even stalled a few times. Took the car for a drive around the block and accelerating was terrible, car struggled to drive up the road.
Then all of a sudden, car just took off.
A couple of days after the above issues, the 1st set of issues re-appeared.
As a result of the misfires, the mechanic replaced the spark plugs and leads. He also advised that the misfires had caused the inside of the catalytic converter to breakdown and there is now a rattle inside the cat. He said we would need to look at getting that replaced and advised it wasn't going to be cheap.
The car has now thrown another check engine code being Catalytic Converter below efficiency threshold.
I spoke to Subaru re quotes for getting the cat replaced. Luckily I was sitting down when I was on the phone.
$4746.50 for a cat, front & rear sensors and coil (he said coil should have been replaced at the same time of the plugs and leads).
I questioned whether Subaru would cover any of the costs seeing as the car is only 4 years old and has such low kms to which he said no as it is too far outside of the warranty period.
Neither the local mechanic nor subaru were able to say for certain what caused the initial cylinder misfire but eluded to fuel.
I have asked my local mechanic to source costs for the replacement parts and am awaiting this quote, i doubt it would be much cheaper.
So my options are
1. Outlay >$5k to have this fixed (car is only worth 15k trade-in price)
2. Speak to an exhaust place and look at getting an aftermarket exhaust installed including a new cat.
3. Get a second hand cat from a wrecker (as suggested by Subaru) and hope the issue wont happen again
4. Piss the car off and get something else (having the issue would severely decrease trade-in value i would imagine)
As you can imagine, this has left me feeling quite disheartened and not overly impressed with Subaru as a brand as you wouldn't expect a car that is only 4 years to have these kind of issues, particularly when everybody comments on the quality of Subaru.
So my question is, can anyone possibly shed some light on what would have caused the misfires to occur in the first place?
In this situation what option would you choose.
Thanks in advance.
After some advise please
Bit of background info. Car is 4 years old and has done approx 57k km
Car bogged down when accelerating from cruising at approx 40km/h to get up to legal speed of 60km/h.
Check engine light came on, along with the VDC and cruise control lights. When idle, it was really rough and shaking and seemed as though it wanted to stall.
Started to limp the car to the mechanics and mid way to there, the car started behaving fine (as if someone flicked a switch).
Mechanic diagnosed errors as misfires in Cylinders 3 & 4. Codes were cleared and car booked in for fixing the next week (in 6 days time).
2 days later when the car was started, it was running really rough at idle, shaking and even stalled a few times. Took the car for a drive around the block and accelerating was terrible, car struggled to drive up the road.
Then all of a sudden, car just took off.
A couple of days after the above issues, the 1st set of issues re-appeared.
As a result of the misfires, the mechanic replaced the spark plugs and leads. He also advised that the misfires had caused the inside of the catalytic converter to breakdown and there is now a rattle inside the cat. He said we would need to look at getting that replaced and advised it wasn't going to be cheap.
The car has now thrown another check engine code being Catalytic Converter below efficiency threshold.
I spoke to Subaru re quotes for getting the cat replaced. Luckily I was sitting down when I was on the phone.
$4746.50 for a cat, front & rear sensors and coil (he said coil should have been replaced at the same time of the plugs and leads).
I questioned whether Subaru would cover any of the costs seeing as the car is only 4 years old and has such low kms to which he said no as it is too far outside of the warranty period.
Neither the local mechanic nor subaru were able to say for certain what caused the initial cylinder misfire but eluded to fuel.
I have asked my local mechanic to source costs for the replacement parts and am awaiting this quote, i doubt it would be much cheaper.
So my options are
1. Outlay >$5k to have this fixed (car is only worth 15k trade-in price)
2. Speak to an exhaust place and look at getting an aftermarket exhaust installed including a new cat.
3. Get a second hand cat from a wrecker (as suggested by Subaru) and hope the issue wont happen again
4. Piss the car off and get something else (having the issue would severely decrease trade-in value i would imagine)
As you can imagine, this has left me feeling quite disheartened and not overly impressed with Subaru as a brand as you wouldn't expect a car that is only 4 years to have these kind of issues, particularly when everybody comments on the quality of Subaru.
So my question is, can anyone possibly shed some light on what would have caused the misfires to occur in the first place?
In this situation what option would you choose.
Thanks in advance.