Rough idle on new WRX

[Glenn]

6 months ago I purchased an 06 WRX and have been quite happy with it.
The only thing is the idle. It has a definite miss fire or something
that makes it rough. Its not terrible and the dealership claims that
Subaru thinks its normal for a turbo engine. Does this make sense. It
sort of does when they explain it. It can run for about 10 seconds at a
time with no change in tempo and then it shakes and smoothes out again.
Everything else seems normal though. It has lots of power and never
stalls or anything like that.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Glenn

 

[Edward Hayes]

This is NOT normal as others will chime in.

 

[Mike]

My 03 does the same thing ever since i had it. The tach stays steady, may be
something else that causes the shaking. Wouldnt the tach dip some if it was
misfiring ?

 

[Alun]

6 months ago I purchased an 06 WRX and have been quite happy with it.
The only thing is the idle. It has a definite miss fire or something
that makes it rough. Its not terrible and the dealership claims that
Subaru thinks its normal for a turbo engine. Does this make sense. It
sort of does when they explain it. It can run for about 10 seconds at a
time with no change in tempo and then it shakes and smoothes out again.
Everything else seems normal though. It has lots of power and never
stalls or anything like that.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Glenn

My 02 WRX wagon idles roughly too, always has. Car vibrates a little.
When the AC compressor kicks in it gives a little stumble (try turning
off the AC and make sure the vents are not set to defrost -it turns on
the AC 'secretly'. I don't know how bad yours is, but to a certain
degree they all do that. Smooth idling inline 4 Hondas they are not.

Unless it's really horrible, I wouldn't worry. Think of it as character !

There will, no doubt be tons of stuff about this on NASIOC.com.

Best

Alun

 

[Glenn]

This is NOT normal as others will chime in.

Thanks for your opinion.

Glenn

 

[Glenn]

My 03 does the same thing ever since i had it. The tach stays steady, may be
something else that causes the shaking. Wouldnt the tach dip some if it was
misfiring ?

It dips just slightly but not too bad.

Thanks.

Glenn

 

[Glenn]

My 02 WRX wagon idles roughly too, always has. Car vibrates a little.
When the AC compressor kicks in it gives a little stumble (try turning
off the AC and make sure the vents are not set to defrost -it turns on
the AC 'secretly'. I don't know how bad yours is, but to a certain
degree they all do that. Smooth idling inline 4 Hondas they are not.

Unless it's really horrible, I wouldn't worry. Think of it as character !

There will, no doubt be tons of stuff about this on NASIOC.com.

Best

Alun

I'll check there too.

Cheers.

Glenn

 

[Monique Y. Mudama]

6 months ago I purchased an 06 WRX and have been quite happy with
it. The only thing is the idle. It has a definite miss fire or
something that makes it rough. Its not terrible and the dealership
claims that Subaru thinks its normal for a turbo engine. Does this
make sense. It sort of does when they explain it. It can run for
about 10 seconds at a time with no change in tempo and then it
shakes and smoothes out again. Everything else seems normal though.
It has lots of power and never stalls or anything like that.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

I have a 2004 WRX wagon, manual -- nothing even remotely like what
you're describing.

 

[Glenn]

I have a 2004 WRX wagon, manual -- nothing even remotely like what
you're describing.

Thanks a lot. I'm going to force the issue at my dealer. Maybe I do need
it corrected.

Glenn

 

[M. Brumbaugh]

6 months ago I purchased an 06 WRX and have been quite happy with it.
The only thing is the idle. It has a definite miss fire or something
that makes it rough. Its not terrible and the dealership claims that
Subaru thinks its normal for a turbo engine. Does this make sense. It
sort of does when they explain it. It can run for about 10 seconds at a
time with no change in tempo and then it shakes and smoothes out again.
Everything else seems normal though. It has lots of power and never
stalls or anything like that.

I've got an '03 WRX Wagon and will get this every now and again first
thing in the morning.

I've always interpreted it as the 'boxer' being slightly out of sync.
(ie: how the boxer engine pistons work) Which gets properly sync'd up
with a bit of time. (ie: engine warms up)

I may be totally off base - but that's aways how it felt to me.

MB

 

[Danny M]

I got a 04 wrx and a 05 LGT
The idle shake you feel is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL
AND TO BE EXPECTED with the turbos, both my
cars have it and this is a very well documented
engine characteristic. You dealer is right on this
one. The reason for this is that the Subaru boxer engine
has no balance shafts like some other 4 cylinder cars
( ie: Hondas ) the advantage to this is it makes for
lighter engines, the main disadvantage is the
introduction of the secondary undampened vibartions
you feel.

 

[Monique Y. Mudama]

I got a 04 wrx and a 05 LGT The idle shake you feel is ABSOLUTELY
NORMAL AND TO BE EXPECTED with the turbos, both my cars have it and
this is a very well documented engine characteristic. You dealer is
right on this one. The reason for this is that the Subaru boxer
engine has no balance shafts like some other 4 cylinder cars ( ie:
Hondas ) the advantage to this is it makes for lighter engines, the
main disadvantage is the introduction of the secondary undampened
vibartions you feel.

Then I must have some sort of mutant engine.

 

[kaboom]

Then I must have some sort of mutant engine.

**You must, because my 05 Impreza RS does it and my bro-in-law's STi
used to do it also. On my first oil change, I asked about it and the
service guy said that it was normal. For me, it's more prevalent when
I've just started it than when it's warmed up.

kaboomie

 

[Larry Van Wormer]

I got a 04 wrx and a 05 LGT
The idle shake you feel is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL
AND TO BE EXPECTED with the turbos, both my
cars have it and this is a very well documented
engine characteristic. You dealer is right on this
one. The reason for this is that the Subaru boxer engine
has no balance shafts like some other 4 cylinder cars
( ie: Hondas ) the advantage to this is it makes for
lighter engines, the main disadvantage is the
introduction of the secondary undampened vibartions
you feel.

I think you are mixing up two different things. The Subaru engines do
indeed vibrate a bit more than a counterbalanced engine, but that's a
constant, and nothing to do with a "hiccup" in the idle that occurs
every so often, per the OP's description.

Larry Van Wormer

 

[Edward Hayes]

I've heard too many WRX engines that were very smooth at idle. I'm
talking about a fully warm engine that is not gummed up by continuous
stop & go driving. If after a decent highway run of 15 minutes or so
at 60+ the idle should be very smooth.

 

[Danny M]

both my cars hiccup all the time at idle, it's a suby
( undocumented ) trait. Go to nasioc.com or legacygt.com
for more info. Don't fret about this, you will never
get the smoothness of a Honda balanced engine but who
gives a damn, just read this and be happy:

http://www.motorimage.net/HK/news.php?newstype=latest&newsid=0

 

[Danny M]

my wrx hiccups more after it warms up
my LGT 05 hiccups all the time
who give's a shiat, read here and be happy =)

http://www.motorimage.net/HK/news.php?newstype=latest&newsid=0

 

[Monique Y. Mudama]

**You must, because my 05 Impreza RS does it and my bro-in-law's STi
used to do it also. On my first oil change, I asked about it and the
service guy said that it was normal. For me, it's more prevalent
when I've just started it than when it's warmed up.

It must be a bonus feature to make up for all the squeaking, creaking,
and general annoying noise-making characteristics of my car's
interior.

After many many hours of work, the only noise is some creaking when
the dash and the instrument bezel temperatures don't match (ie, coming
out of the garage and warming up in the sun). But man did I spend a
lot of time irritated at my car, the shop, and life in general.

 

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 17:23:46 -0600, "Monique Y. Mudama"


**You must, because my 05 Impreza RS does it and my bro-in-law's STi
used to do it also.

(snip)

That's interesting. My '04 STi doesn't do anything like that - it starts
and runs very smoothly, even starting from cold after a couple of weeks
of no use, both idling and while driving. The only time I can think of
when it hasn't is when it had a few weeks of disuse and for the first
mile or two it felt like there was a slight misfire or something, but
then it returned to normal. There's sometimes a small change in idle
speed while it idles, but that's about it.

-- Mark

 

[kaboom]

On 2006-06-06, kaboom penned:

It must be a bonus feature to make up for all the squeaking, creaking,
and general annoying noise-making characteristics of my car's
interior.

**Ha! Then my car's a mutant because I find the inside of mine
extremely quiet. Of course, my previous car was a 2003 VW Jetta. It
had one of the noisest interiors compared to my other previous cars.
The Impreza only has about 5,500 miles on it so perhaps it will get
more noisy in the future.

After many many hours of work, the only noise is some creaking when
the dash and the instrument bezel temperatures don't match (ie, coming
out of the garage and warming up in the sun). But man did I spend a
lot of time irritated at my car, the shop, and life in general.

**I used to counter that in the Jetta with a copious amount of loud CD
playing. Sadly, the CD player in the Impreza is poop compared to the
Monsoon system in the Jetta.

Have you ever had problems with your CD player? Mine plays fine for
driving around home though the CDs do come out of the player really
hot. But when I drive more than an hour or two, the CD player stops
playing CDs and the CDs practically burn your hand when you kick 'em
back out of the player. It will also refuse to load CDs from time to
time no matter what the circumstance. I went to the dealership over
this and they drove it three whole miles and gave me the can't
replicate line. It doesn't change the fact that this has happened to
me without fail everytime I drive a significant distance. I've driven
from MI to CT and back again 4 times with this car and the CD player
has failed everytime. Upstate NY is ecumenical stations, country music
stations and one classic rock station, do you know what that does to a
person's mind?

kaboomie