Having a major issue with my Legacy that I'm trying to diagnose, folks on the local Subaru forum I've been on for years pointed me to LegacyGT in hopes of getting some input/advice. Here's what I'm looking at:
2015 Legacy Limited 2.5 CVT, around 152k mi
About a week ago, my wife was leaving a store parking lot when she states it suddenly started "chugging." She couldn't hear the engine well due to background noise so I don't know if there was a misfire but she could at least tell the engine was struggling. After a few seconds the engine then shut off and wouldn't restart. She tried hitting the ignition button a few times but although the starter seemed to engage it wouldn't turn over and then the starter began to smoke.
Got it towed home, couldn't really tell what was wrong so I replaced the battery and starter to rule them out (needed both at this point anyway). Tried the ignition, again could hear that the starter engaged but the engine didn't turn over. At this point I finally thought to try turning the crank by hand and it wouldn't budge. Turned counter-clockwise and it felt fine for nearly a full rotation (few degrees shy of 360°) before hitting an obstruction. Turned clockwise again, same thing. Rotates freely and feels/sounds normal but stops hard at the same point.
Fluids are all full and oil has no metal in it (on the dipstick anyway), pulled a cam position sensor and confirmed at least one gear is still turning with the crank. My wife states the only other symptom she's noticed lately is that when accelerating from a stop it seems to take more effort to get the car moving. That in itself seems to me like potentially a torque converter issue but I'm not sure if it correlates.
Hate to make this my first post here but I would greatly appreciate any input as to what may be causing this, if anyone's experienced the same or has a suggestion. Thanks!