OCDetails

Has anyone had the dealership do this to their car yet? I'm not worried about splicing some wires, but if the dealership can do it then I'm all for it.

This concerns me... I wonder if this 'fix' detunes the car even more than it already is? If the AP gets rid of the stutter while adding power, what are the chances that the OEM fix gets rid of the stutter and we lose power? I would be interested in the factory numbers after the 'fix'. Would the numbers on the '06 Legacy be the same for the '05 with the 'fix' do you think?

Does anyone else besides me thing that its BS that I have to drive my car a certian way (ie slow and under 4K RPM) to avoid the stutter? The damn stutter shouldn't be there at all. I shouldn't have to take special steps to keep my car from stuttering like an Escort with a blocked fuel filter and a bad tank of gas. Could the problem be something other than the ECU if a reflash doesn't fix it?

I noticed it right away but I thought it might just be part of breaking in the car. I was also learning how to drive a car without an 8200 RPM redline. Once I got used to driving the car and I felt the car was broken in I became concerned that it was still happening. I know its not something that is normal. I know that I can drive it like a retarded grandma, but WTF did I buy a car that I need to drive like a retarded grandma for?? I thought I bought a Subaru that would be a little smoother than this. This is absolutely not normal for a car. I refuse to believe that its just my inability to drive a car that does this. Everybody who has driven my car has said this.

For me its totally random. It will happen in all gears and in all ranges of the tach. I don't know if its a computer problem or some kind of issue with how the car is put together. It feels like a plugged fuel filter and its as annoying as it can get. I hope that everybody calls as many dealerships that they can about it so that sooner or later somebody will yell loud enough for a recall to happen. This is BS that I have to be ashamed about the acceleration of my brand new car that is supposed to be this great automobile. I have to use a totally lame and bogus excuse when friends ask me to show them what it can do. I tell them that I don't want to be too hard on it because I'm still breaking it in. Sooner or later they are going to say "Dude... you have 20,000 miles on it. Don't you think its broke in yet?"

I've heard that the AP stores whatever programing the ECU has on it before it reflashes it. When you revert to stock it just downloads what it stored when you first flashed. I just heard that yesterday though, but it does make more sense than what I understood up to that point.

That is such good news. I'm in Salt Lake too and will probably have to go to Nate Wade to get the problem fixed. I bought the car out at Doug Smith in Orem and I don't really feel like driving all the way out there. Utah county has lower taxes than Salt Lake county. That was my only motivation to buy it there. Perhaps you could PM me or give me a call when you get more information. I am sure they will be able to duplicate the problem on my car as well. Doug Smith pretty much blew me off when I told them about it, so Nate Wade was my next choice. I'm so glad to hear that a dealership nearby is aware of this problem and will know how to fix it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now... :D

I wouldn't have been surprised at all if it had ended up being the fuel filter. I've always described it as the feeling you get when you need to change the fuel filter. I would just love to find a dealership that is actually concerned with finding the problem I am feeling and fixing it. Getting dicked around by techs at dealerships who probably drive Honda Civics is not what I expected to have happen after I bought this car. I guess Subaru is known more for their cars than they are for customer service. They suck in that regards. Its almost enough at this point for me to recommend against buying one just for the fact that if you have a problem you are going to be jerked around and treated like an idiot.

Did they give you a loaner at least?

I like how bringing them exactly what they need to look up makes us the freaks. If they knew how to research stuff as well as we did then we wouldn't have to bring this shit in for them. They'd be able to look into their system and figure it out for themselves. I tell ya.... I have loved my last Subarus, but the customer service experiences I have had since owning this one has turned me off from them. Everytime I try to explain an issue I am having they treat me like a 4 year old. I won't be buying any new cars from Subaru ever again after this experience... As soon as I have time I'm going to write up my complaints about their dealerships local to me and send them to SOA. I'm sure they won't care, but they have 30K of my money and I think that bought me the right to let them know what I think about them.

Confirming in some of the smallest states (as far as area) in the country doesn't mean that the law holds true for every state. If its an EPA standard then the law would be uniform for every state in the country. Where are you seeing that the EPA is saying this? I'm not doubting you, I'm just interested in where you are getting the information.

Can you cite where you found that law?

I did it again yesterday too. It's still there.... It's not as bad as it was before I did it the first time, but there isn't any difference from before I did it the second time. The reflash is the only solution I think.

I'm just interested to see if any dealership will actually fix this. So far none of the ones I have talked to know what I'm talking about. They are treating me as if this is the first time they have ever heard of the problem and there is no fix. Why aren't the dealerships aware of this? Did they not get the same email that Opie got?

My service department talked down to me through email. They said that I'd have to bring it in and plan on leaving it for half the day while they dicked around with it. Then he said that 'obviously we can't solve your problem through email.' I didn't even ask for a solution through email. I just wanted to know if they were familiar with the problem and if they knew about a solution for it. What a-holes... I'm going to another dealership.

Give it a couple weeks.... it will come back. Mine did.

Hey Opie... How do we reference this to the dealership when we make our appointments? Do we just say that we need to come in and get the studder fixed? Will they know what I'm talking about?

Don't the ECUs store important stuff like milage? Maybe they don't, but I'm just wondering what the effects would be if you did swap ECUs in your car. Would your car need to learn the other one? Why even swap it in the first place? Send every dealership in the country 5 ECUs and then have a rolling order for more as cars come in. Car comes in - Dealership takes the ECU and replaces it with a fixed one - Dealership sends old ECU to SOA - SOA sends dealership another fixed ECU. Why go through the process of fixing my ECU if the car will work fine with a loaner? Edit: Never mind. With Opie's explanation of the loaner I guess they won't be swapping the ECU. I'd gladly take a loaner STi for the weekend.

Do I need to go without my car while they do this? I don't care either way. I'm ready to go to my dealership and have them give me a loaner for a couple weeks if they have to. That studder thing is damn annoying. It went away when I pulled the fuse to my ECU, but then it came back a week or two later. I want a permenant fix.

I'm going over to COBB this afternoon. I'll ask them about the progress on additional maps for the Legacy. Anything else you want me to ask them?

has anyone heard anything else regarding a fuel economy map or anything like that? When I know I'm going to be doing a lot of city driving I wouldn't mind a map that detunes the motor even further if it can choke an extra 5 or 10 mpg out of it. I had plans to go over to COBB and talk to them last Friday, but my boy was sick and I wanted to keep him home.

Something I would like to know is the maximum fuel economy I can expect to see from any of the maps available. The two maps I am most interested in would be a high performance one and a fuel economy one. Just those two would make the purchase of this device worth it to me. If I'm going to starts seeing single digit MPG numbers with it and the only way to raise it is to drive it with the stock map, then I'll have to think about that.