Took my car in for rough idle...
 

And the dealership said it was either bad gas or the car trying to save gas.


*eye roll*


He said he didn't think there were any TSBs out for my car and to not worry about it.


Jalopnik and three prior year TSBs disagree with him.

this is where you need to print out the TSB and shove in their asses..i mean faces so they can't say otherwise

check the TSB / Recall thread: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...=21868&page=22

Thanks, but I've already looked here a few times. Nothing for 16s yet. There's one for autos hard shifting, but not manuals.

My 2016 runs rough every once in a while...maybe 1-2 a month...will be addressing it on the next oil change.

Gah yeah i had this too last month. Ever since i went stage 2 though i havnt noticed it. I was freaking out becacuse the car was only 3 months old that point.

Have you done any power mods to the car .. ??

Have you changed sources of gas lately .. ??


humfrz

In the decade I've been driving and filling up my own cars, easily over 75k miles driven, that'd be over 2,000 gallons purchased, I've never had 'bad gas'.

Have you had any 'bad gas' in the last decade or two?

Well now, you live in the SF Bay area and I live in the Seattle area ........ but the OP is from Arkansas.......;)

Back in my Miata (required premium) driving days (all over the MW and West), I've run across stations, out in the bush, that claimed to have hi-test gas. However, after seeing the spider webs and dust on the hi-test pump, I would pass and get just enough regular to get me back to civilization.

Now, I'm not sayen that Bubba was pumping the hi-test out of a 55 gal barrel, 1/3 full of water, ....... I wasn't about to chance it.

But, generally, these days, I would blame rough idle on an electrical (including ECU) problem rather than "bad gas".


humfrz

Yeah I agree it could have been bad gas. You don't know what you're getting when you're in Nowhere-Ville, how long their premium gas stock has been sitting. I'm not an expert on gas, but I generally avoid gas stations that wouldn't have a lot of customers buying premium.

But who knows what the newer ECU programming is. If it persists, I'd consider getting the car tuned and start monitoring stuff.

To add, are you guys sure that it's not normal operation? Do you get a stumble or is it truly rough all the time? The stumbling idle is pretty much normal if you operate window switches and other electrics at idle.

It's done it since I got it six months or so ago. So I doubt it was bad gas.

There are times when mine moves around a bit and it seems to just be normal engine operation as the AC and other stuff turns on or off.


But what I'm seeing sometimes is a drop below 500rpms. About 3-4 times now, it's dropped low enough to make the engine miss a beat and come back. The rest of the time, it's still bad enough that you can feel the engine shaking through the car.


I've had my car in twice now to tell my dealer about it. The first time, they said the car was just trying to save gas and run lean. The second time they hooked it to their scanner and couldn't find anything. And they didn't see any TSBs for the car, either.


I have no power mods done to the car. Actually, this has been holding me back from doing anything to the car. As I don't completely trust it right now, I'd hate to throw some headers and a tune on it only to get a CEL later and have the dealer tell me I've voided my warranty.

Seals, it is possible that the injector seals are bad on it. Usually this is a problem that mostly happens to people who track the car, but I guess enough ambient heat can do the trick as well. Does the car dip to around/below 500 rpm and then right before stalling goes up to like 1k rpm on its own and does this little cycle several times in a row? If so, it might be the injector seals, if it does it only once it might just be the AC that turned on. Remember that when you have the air directed towards the windshield (or feet and windshield) the AC is on all the time, wether you want hot or cold air (its a setting on the car that can be changed by techstream and the default value is on).

I have had bad e85 once. God did it suck.

Yes, that. Does it about every 19-20 seconds or so.

Dips are normal when the alternator clutch kicks in. Sit in your car at idle, no A/C, and roll both windows down max, then try again. The strain from both electric motors should make the idle dip or stumble / miss a beat. Yes it sucks but its normal operation.

And yeah what @Icecreamtruk said about A/C, including the windshield blower, makes this occur more often.

Just tried this. It dipped about 50rpm but not nearly what I'm talking about.I'm taking about a 150-200rpm drop with a stumble.

When I left for lunch, it did it twice in a row when I pushed in the clutch to shift. I thought it was going to die.

Maybe your battery has a bad cell?

And when I say stumble, I mean it shakes the shifter and you can feel it through the floorboards.

That sounds within the range of Normal with A/C on a low torque motor. It might be most obvious before things are warmed up fully - the transmission fluid is thicker so there's parasitic drag that goes away when you put the clutch in, and the engine operates differently when cold. This car has pretty good feedback to the driver even stock, which means things like this are felt more than in, say, a Corolla. It's more obvious as you start stiffening up the mounts and stuff.

You can determine if it's the AC condensor for sure if you turn off the fan, heat, AC and roll the windows down. My car stumbles from 700 to 500 at idle every 20-30 seconds when I'm running the fan at all. I get no stumbles at all when I turn all that off. If you still get stumbles then you probably have something else going on.

The reason they don't see any TSBs is because the TSB only applies to 2013 and early 2014 cars. The fixes outlined in the TSBs are already applied to all 2015 and newer cars so they won't find one for your car.

I don't know about that, Lynxis. I brought my new 2015 in for an oil change at the 1000 mile mark, and mentioned that I had the "hesitation" at idle. They did the TSB for me, and it fixed the situation. Maybe some 2015s were missed....just sayin'

Just the other day, actually. I shouldn't have had that 2nd burrito. Lemme tell ya...

This is why you need to work with the dealer instead of being combative.

If there's no 2016 TSB, either 1) it is not a known issue, 2) the issue is corrected, or 3) it is a temporary issue due to bad gas.

TSBs usually have a date range or VIN that it applies to. TSBs are meant to correct some type of manufacturing, procedural, or product defect that is specific to a certain time and place of assembly in the vehicle manufacturing process.

To take a TSB that applies to 2013-2015 cars and say "oh this must apply to my car also" is the wrong way to get your problem solved.

-alex

I'm not being combative. I took it in and told them my issue. I'm griping here a bit but I've been nothing but nice to them.

And I disagree about your TSB assumptions. I had a 2012 Mazda 3 that I bought brand new. It had an issue with surging while letting out on the clutch. I mentioned it a few times to my dealer and nothing happened. Guess what though; about a year later a TSB came out for my exact problem. I got it fixed and never had another issue with it.

Yes, a year later.

I'm not assuming anything about TSB, I'm just telling you how they work. I don't care if there is a TSB a year later for your specific problem, I'm merely stating that to use a TSB that doesn't apply to your VIN or vehicle production date(s) to fix a similar problem is not a solution for your problem.

Most of the idle issue(s) that have been addressed via TSB on this car have been related to cam sprocket (entire assembly or shims causing malfunction), or ECU tuning. Both of these were addressed in subsequent vehicles that were manufactured after the affected VIN range. So, either you have a new issue that Subaru was previously unaware of, your issue is unique to your car, or it may have been temporary and may not show up after the next tank or gas, or the next rain.

2013-2015 TSB does not do a single thing for your 2016 fix, that's all I'm saying. Even if you want to throw it at the dealership, they can't use it to perform actual work because corporate won't reimburse them for improperly applying a TSB.

-alex

Maybe you're misunderstanding me. I'm not asking anyone to put a 2013 to 2015 TSB on my car.

But 2013, 2014 and 2015 all got separate TSBs for this. Separate. Meaning they didn't change anything at the factory and were letting the TSB fix the issues as people experienced them.

So for mine, there may not be a TSB out yet but maybe there should be. And how will they know to lol into it unless I tell them?

I'm not misunderstanding you.

I'm just saying to ignore TSB from 2013-2015 and look at your problem as unique.

The more you stick to using previous TSB as guidance, the more you can overlook other, more realistic sources of problems on your car.... but keep insisting on Jalopnik and prior year TSBs as your backup info, and you'll kind of get nowhere fast on diagnosing your problem.

Good luck.

-alex

Sorry to piggyback but I'm looking for the '15 TSB for rough idle. I keep throwing a P000C CEL and it usually correlates with rough idle. Car goes into limp mode for a bit, then it clears itself within 30 miles or so. It's happened enough times that I can predict it when I start seeing the idle go wonky. I've only had the car for a few weeks and am looking to take it into the dealer as soon as I start a new job that I can commute to on my bike.

Can someone please point me at the '15 TSB for rough idle so I can do some research before taking it in? I did check the TSB thread but the link on the front page is for '13 models and I read through the last few pages from '15 on and don't see an updated TSB

Well homie, sorry I made you upset with all this.

And I can't help but use prior years as a point of reference when all three prior years had the exact same problem. Counterspace Garage even described and posted a video of my exact problem on this forum.

It's the same issue this car has had for three prior years.

Yes, and you are putting dealership(s) in a bind if you use that as basis.

TSB is only useful for the technician to use when it applies to specific VIN that it references. Otherwise, Subaru will just view your case as an individual isolated case of "bad idle" and go from there to diagnose it.

You can reference a TSB all you want, but at the end of the day the dealership can't use that TSB to actually write up a work order, nor use it to perform any repair work. They can write it up almost word for word, but the actual TSB itself can't be used because it doesn't apply to your car.

-alex

Just call Toyota first. Mine was out off the year for reflash ECU, I called Toyota, they told me some vehicles post-ECU TSB still had the old ECU software. They called dealership, 20min later I had my ecu reflashed.


:)

OK, here's what my invoice said for my "hesitation" problem:

"Found TSB reprogram for this concern. Out of calibration. Reprogram ECU. TSB0021-15.4"

I don't know if this will help any of you out, but I hope it might send you in the right direction. Again, this is for my 2015 Scion FR-S automatic transmission. Good luck!

I've already said that's not what I'm doing. All I'm doing is exactly what you said to do which is take it to them and tell them what it's doing. I politely told you that a few posts back but you decided to keep at it.

I don't care how it gets fixed. I'm also not the one who will be diagnosing it. On MY end, I can't help but notice how my issue is eerily similar to the issues from 2012. On THEIR end, I couldn't care less how they fix it.

My OP was mainly about how my dealership says they've never heard of this car having any idling issues whatsoever when that's clearly a lie, and if it's not then they're a Subaru dealership with their head in the sand.

This car (to them) could mean 2016 BRZ.

This car (to you) could mean 2013 - 2016 BRZ/FRS/86 worldwide.

The dealership being 1) fully aware of TSB, 2) never experiencing specific customer issues with idle out of cars sold at their dealership, and 3) not having issues on MY 2016 is entirely possible. Just because there's a TSB for a car doesn't mean the TSB will actually be used...

Another example is the taillight condensation issue and the TSB issued for 2013 model year cars. My car was serviced using this. I've heard of 2014+ cars with the same issue, even after the supposed manufacturer fix was put in place at the factory. Those cars were fixed using the same method, but the key part is that the TSB was not used as a means of justifying the warranty reimbursement between dealer and corporate.

As someone else already referenced:

So to say that the dealer is lying based on 3 years prior cars w/ TSB and Jalopnik is all types of wrong information being tossed around... all I am doing is getting people to understand is that if there's no TSB for your car, you can't use a previous model year's TSB as a fix for your car. Conversely, if you have a TSB that may apply to your car and there's no issues, the TSB is useless.

People misunderstand what the purpose of a TSB is and throw it around like it's a fix or solution. Plenty of cases have popped up where a TSB really didn't fix the warranty issue at hand.

-alex