by klam » Fri Jan 24, 2014 5:52 pm
alright, here is the status.
I've contacted subaru australia (from now on only HQ as per headquarter) and they have called me 3 days later. They said they are willing to have a look at it, just need to say what Subaru service I want to go to in order to do the logging and testing. I've said Denlo as it's closest to my office. Couple of minutes later I had a phone call from Denlo Subaru and have made an appointment in a week. Flatspot was clearly present at that time. They have kept the car for nearly 2 days, but not due to some heavy repairs, but what they have done was
- did the standard subaru diagnostics and logging,
- were in touch with HQ technician who told them to soak the engine in the subaru upper engine cleaner (UEC). But what have they done was that they took the whole inlet manifold out (the whole metal body), and sprayed one UEC into one inlet, so 4 UEC's into 4 inlet's. They were told to leave it overnight, and crank it up next day. They've said whole lot of smoke was coming out of the exhaust (bit exaggerating could be there, as I've used the UEC nearly each 3000km!)
- they've said they found 2 vacuum leaks, one at EGR valve gasket and one hose from the manifold was unplugged. Could be both my inconsistency, but I doubt that.. who knows.
I picked up the car, and felt it was driving a bit on a sluggish side, might have been all the cleaners residues in the engine. That improved in following 2-3 days. Last 600km were flatspot free, so so far so good, but I don't keep my hopes high, if any. I've done trips with fully loaded vehicle (3 adults, 2 kids) up and down Sydney-Jervis Bay, in previous cases I wouldn't be even out of Sydney yet and the flatspot would be back.
this whole cleaning might have very similar results as Calais might have done with that Lucas Oil Upper Engine Lubricant or whatever it was, so might be worth a shot. I'm ready to go the ECU update way in case it comes back.
I reckon this is easy to do on your own or your mechanic should do it no problem. give it a shot, might help you.