09 Legacy shuts off in drive and reverse

[Subahamas]

Good afternoon subie enthusiasts, My legacy idles ROUGH but stalls out when I put it in drive and reverse. When in neutral and park it runs. My "mechanic" told me the problem were my two cats, so I had them cut out, but the problem persists. Feels like he's trying to milk me outta my blue$$, I have no check engine light. Please help.

 

Thanks

Sincerely Me and the Bat Mobile

[MaasaiWarrior]

have you ever cleaned the MAF?

[Subahamas]

No I didn't, but that shady mechanic has the subie right now. He on some "don't text me" with suggestions crap.

[SageAbkatsor]

I understand not wanting suggestions, it's the same reason your doctors don't want people self diagnosing or making suggestions. There are tests that can be run to solve any given problem.

 

With that said, this winner may not be great with diagnosis, just as sometimes patients have more insight or information than a doctor would like to let on. A dealer, not a great dealer, service department could not diagnose the torque converter shake in my 08 Tribeca until I read about it on a forum and told them (turned out there was a TSB for it, lol...)

 

Was your battery disconnected or did it die before the symptoms start? Did you have a CEL cleared before the symptoms started? When did the symptoms start?

 

I have seen a really dirty throttle body cause this type of symptom on a SOHC car, but only if the battery gets disconnected or CEL cleared which resets all of the learned parameters. Have not seen that on a turbo car, but we did not see a lot of turbo cars at the dealer.

 

Cleaning the MAF takes all of 2 mins so that is a good place to start. The throttle body cleaning also takes about 2 mins on a SOHC car, which it looks like yours might be. It is a lot more involved on the turbo cars.

Edited July 27, 2019 by SageAbkatsor

[EatingInternet]

Sounds like a faulty or dirty MAF to me. My mom's Suzuki did exactly the same thing when her MAF went bad. What you could do is actually keep the RPMs up around 1000-1500 in neutral and then "drop" it into drive and reverse and it would still drive around long enough for the code to pop up, and stall when you tried to stop the car and idle. Obviously if you try this be careful to not peel out of your driveway and run grandma over. In any case try finding a buddy with another Subaru and swapping MAFs, or at least clean yours and see if that helps.