Subbie Drama

And it's a darned good thing we didn't sell the car this weekend because mine wouldn't start when I tried to leave for work this morning. So I'm working from home today while I try to figure out what's wrong and make arrangements to get it fixed. My guess is the battery is dead dead dead.

There's no clicky noise when I try to start the car, so that makes me think the ignition switch could be a factor, but the alarm, radio, and door locks won't work either and the car is approaching 5 years old, so the battery is definitely a huge piece of the problem. Luckily we still have Scoob's car so we can try to jump it and run about for parts if we need to. (Not that we have any tools to do anything with the parts.)

I need to take the Subbie to the shop anyhow. Actually tried to do it before we left for North Carolina, but there was a good chance they'd need to keep the car overnight to finish the work and life was just a little hectic already approaching the holidays and I didn't want to risk not getting my car back before we left town and then getting stuck with "storage" fees.

And what needs to be done to the car besides the battery? Well I'm glad you asked. I'm about to roll 96,000 on the odometer and I haven't had the 90,000 mile service done. It's been about 9,000 since the last oil change and tire rotation. (I know, I know.) And I received a recall notice at the beginning of December. Apparently there's a fuel valve in the fuel tank reservoir that is not functioning as designed and they need to replace it.

As I understand it there's the fuel tank, and then there's also this reservoir so that when the tank is empty, it's not truly empty and the engine will draw fuel from this reservoir. Only problem is that the yahoos that designed this thing used a one-way fuel valve between the reservoir and the tank, so sure the engine can draw fuel from the reservoir but the reservoir can't refill because it's a one-way valve. So yeah, gotta get that fixed.

Okay, and my check engine light came on right around the same time I got the recall notice. The check engine light is on solid while the cruise control light flashes. I did a bit of digging on the internets and found that this is something of a common problem for the Subarus and apparently Subaru has had a very difficult time fixing it properly. Most people I've found online have had recurring issues with this.

So, since I have to take it in for service anyhow (and I know I can't pass smog tests if the check engine light is on) I'll at least give them the opportunity to try to fix it. If they can't, I may take it to a tech in Santa Rosa. A friend at work had the same problem with her Subbie and her mechanic eventually fixed the problem (after, like, 7 tries), but he's in Santa Rosa.

And, I really would still like to put a trailer hitch on the Subbie. But I'm thinking I'd better wait to see if they can fix the check engine light problem before I shell out the cash for a hitch. Because if they can't resolve the problem I'm going to need to get rid of the car.