The switch at the top of the clutch pedal travel is for detecting the clutch is fully released. As above as you start to press clutch it trips and will disengage cruise control and on manual cars the gear indicator will turn off.


The Switch at the bottom of clutch pedal travel is for the start inhibit, if clutch is not to floor to activate the bottom switch car wont start.


Unplug switch and measure with multimeter, you should be able to bypass it by either unplugging it or looping the connector depends if its normally open or normally closed operation.

Well now I feel bad. I was just trolling mav.

So I finally found it and I noticed one thing: when the clutch is fully depressed it only pushes in about 2/3 the plunger.

On second thought maybe the switch IS bad because I just noticed this post:

So I assume that gap is normal. Maybe the switch is just going bad because it still works sometimes. I'll leave it up to the dealership I guess but I don't think I'll leave without them having ordered the part.

make sure you point it out to them which switch is bad, otherwise they might replace the wrong one lol.

Gonna bump this as I've been having the same issues.
@pevsfreedom how did you end up fixing this? Did the dealer fix it, and if so what was the issue? Hoping to figure out if its just a misalignment or if they had to replace the switch.

Pull the connector and jumper it. I bypassed mine long ago for totally OCD reasons.

Thinking bout doing that. But kinda worried about dumb parking valets that dont realize the car is MT before hitting the button.

Whoops, no way. Don't even consider it. I wouldn't do it myself if I had pushbutton start.

Didn't think about that. :bonk:

I got mine fixed at Subaru. They replaced the clutch switch and the battery and now it starts every time.

I think the bigger issue is that you allow people to valet your car :confused0068:

I had to do it once at a ritzy hotel. It was truly painful. After chastising him for slamming the door shut (I demonstrated by pushing it closed with one finger) he let me keep it in the staging area.

Hard to avoid in NYC. A lot of the parking lots here use valets. Even at my own parking garage, they let you park the car yourself but they keep a spare key in case they need to move it because a lot of the cars are double parked.

I'm gonna take a peek at the switch and see if i can just adjust the nut a bit. If not, I guess I'll go to the dealer.. sigh.

Interesting experience today...

Went to dealer to have them fix it under warranty but they told me I'd have to leave the car for 4-5 hours. Since its a $20 part and some really basic work, I decided to just pay for the part and do it myself.

But here's the interesting part, their system showed the clutch start safety switch as part #83281AA000. From doing my own prior research, I knew it was part #83281AA010. Checked on the subaru parts site while I was at the dealership, confirmed part #83281AA010. Looked under my dash and caught a glimpse of the switch confirmed it had no blue bit on the port (the clutch cruise control switch is partially blue). Finally asked an actual mechanic there and he agreed, it was part #83281AA010.

Not sure what the hell is wrong with that dealership's computer.

Could not freaking get to the nut holding in the old switch. Took off the bottom half dash cover, sat backwards in the drivers seat and had my head down there. Still could not get my wrench on that nut properly.

Any tips?