Impreza Sport Start Up Problem

[Dena Leiter]

I have a 2002 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport. When I start up in the
morning the car bucks when I engage the clutch. It feels like the
underside of the car will shake loose. This behavior continues thru
each gear change for the about five minutes then it stops. It happens
again in the afternoon when the car has sat for 8 hours.

This only happens when the car is dead cold. It doesn't matter what
the weather is, or if the car is in the garage or not. It happens to
me and my partner. We've each driven manual transmission cars (Honda,
Toyota, Miata, Datsun) for over 20 years so it's not lack of
experience.

It's been to 2 dealers and 1 independent mechanic, they cannot
reproduce the problem.

Anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Edward Hayes]

Leave it with the dealer overnight.

 

[Dena Leiter]

I did, with all of them.

Leave it with the dealer overnight.

 

[dn]

It's possible that you have the "Dreaded Subaru Clutch Shudder", also known
as judder.

If you go to google, and run a search on:

subaru impreza clutch shudder

you should see a whole lot of results which describe a similar common
complaint. If you browse through the results and think that this is you
problem, you may want to take a look at a huge thread regarding this problem
on the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club forum:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=311146

This thread contains a TSB which lists the parts required to fix the
problem. Sounds like dealers have to be pushed to apply the fix, and it's
only free if your clutch is still under warranty (or you're very
persuasive).

Good Luck,
dn.

 

[Napalm]

Clutch-shudder. This is a well known issue. Do some searches through
google and you should find quite a bit of info.

Cheers,
N

 

[Dena Leiter]

THANK YOU! This is just what I needed, the dealer was making me feel like a nut.