Hi there
I'm new to the forum so apologies for jumping straight in with a question but Im struggling to track down a problem.
this is a bit of an essay but many thanks to anyone who takes the time to read it!
A bit of background first.. feel free to skim over.
2005 Legacy 3.0 Auto.
since I first owned my legacy when I started to reverse, the gear indicator light on the dash would jump from R to N and back again. it would sometimes do this several times before settling down.
A month or so ago my Legacy would not start. I tried P and N on the selector and still nothing.
the red flashing key was appearing on my dash and my electronic key fob was not unlocking the car and so I presumed it was a problem with the immobiliser.
having some but not much electrical knowledge I tried starting the car using a wire from battery to starter motor with the ignition on. the car started and drove fine although the engine warning and traction control lights were on solid and the cruise control light was flashing. I presumed this was because I'd bypassed the starter circuit and the ecu was throwing a wobbly.
the car needed to go to the main dealer for an unrelated recall so I asked their mechanic to just check the problem out whilst he was there and he said that he thought it was a problem with the immobiliser.
And so I spent the next week or so looking at wiring diagrams, contacting Sigma ..all the usual.
nothing I found would budge the problem and so I took the car to a local auto electrician to have the immobiliser removed - I figured a 13 year old legacy didn't benefit from one as much as the flash new BMWs and Audis that the neighbours own.
--- If you skimmed over the start this is a handy place to start reading ---
The electrician looked at his diagnostics for all of 5 minutes before saying he thought the problem lay with the gearbox.
he found codes P0705 - gearbox gear input and P0817 - Starter motor disabling. he then brought up a live diagnostics which showed the car to be in 1st gear, no matter what position the gear selector was in.
this now pointed to the cars protection mechanism which will only let the engine be started when it is in P or N.
I dug around some more and found many people mentioning an inhibitor switch on the earlier 4EAT boxes.
I had a scramble underneath the car at where this switch was described and found what looks like a cable coming down from somewhere above the transmission to an arm on the side of the gearbox , just below where the ATF dipstick is located.( I did try and upload a photo of this arrangement but the computer was having none of it ) I tried moving the gear selector and this moved the arm backwards and forwards.
I thought this looked promising but there was no switch unit or any electronics at this point as I had seen in photos of the 4EAT gearbox.
I then read a couple of articles that said the 5EATs did not have this inhibitor switch .. and so here I am pretty in the dark on the whole matter.
I was just wondering if anyone had had this problem or could shed any light
on the matter as I feel its something I could chase round in circles.
if you've made it to this point then thankyou very much for reading !
any help would be much appreciated !
