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Possible it was something like that. Mayhaps the alternator was giving it just enough charge while driving to get it over the hump and keep running. Definiately was an alternator issue…been running over a month now with no issues at all. Just odd that there was no generator light illuminated and no codes of any kind. I just happened to notice the voltage not real low but a bit off from what I would expect during one of my test drive/scan tool sessions so I decided to take it off and get it tested at a shop…kind of just lucked out a bit. Gawd I wish I were more of a scientist!!!
Hi 192Bnas,
Many thanks for the reply…That was my first thought too….but unfortunately, this suburu is a drive by wire car so the idle air control is built into the electronic throttlebody…and get this…previous owners must have done something with the throttlebody and broke or cracked the connector on the wire harness side…theres some kind of epoxy goop gluing it together… That and having no codes made me move that way down the list of things to check…only gawd knows what is under that mess!…cant even get at the pins….
Anyway…while doing some scanning I noticed the battery voltage was lower than I would expect. Doing some battery/alternator testing convinced me to pull off the alternator and bring it in for a formal check…and it was bad…replacing it has solved the problem.
I’ve never seen an alternator go like that before…no battery light or any codes, car never died or refused to start…just wouldn’t idle was the only symptom. And I drove it all over the place on test drives and it ran fine…I think maybe the alternator had just enough life left in it to hold the charge with gas applied and rpm up, but when just idling dropped low enough to kill the engine??? Not really sure about that because then it would just start right back up again and run fine as long as gas was applied. Then another thought is that at idle the charge would drop low enought that who knows what was going on with a car dependant on a bunch of power hungry sensors….maybe one got starved…but then again…no codes?
But anyway, running fine now and has a nice clean throttle body and maf sensor…and I hope I never have to do anything with the egr valve or throttle body on that car!
Thanks again for the reply.
tim
