Legacy randomly turning off.

[MarkSubi]

Hey I have a question,

at random times my car tends to turn its self off, it always has happened (SO FAR) while in idle.
but the thing is is that this only happeneds like once every like month to two months or even just in a few weeks apart.
and I would just like to know if this has happened to others and could anybody give me any info on this or an idea of what it could be.

[jey]

Let's try to narrow this down - does it just stall, or do you lose all electrical power too? (Radio, lights, etc.)

[MarkSubi]

I lose everything.

[1996Battlewagon]

Check your battery terminals: post and leads.

[02_Legacy]

Check your battery terminals: post and leads.
specifically that the leads are tight. This happened to me once and the negative cable was loose.

[ouch1011]

Check your battery terminals: post and leads.
specifically that the leads are tight. This happened to me once and the negative cable was loose.

Ditto. Caused my radio to pop a lot as well.

[MarkSubi]

I speakers pop but thats cuz the music is loud lol
but yeah It did it again today and I its actually stalling i think cuz everything works electronically but the car just turns off. and of coerce the radio and stuff dose to when that happens cuz our cars were made to do that but why would it be stalling if its an automatic?

[jey]

Check the idle controller - does it ever do it when it's in Neutral/Park, or always in Drive?

[MarkSubi]

so far when in drive, and also for some reason its hard to start like you can hear the starter cranking and everything but sometimes it takes longer then its suppose to and even while its cranking sound like its about to die or turn off but then thats when i keep pushing it and it starts.

[MarkSubi]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

going toward my last post, it dose whats stated above but as well doesn't do that all the time also.

[Huffer]

Check your electrical connections for ignition, and your crank sensor

[ShadowGT]

Air idle control valve, back of the engine - top of the block next to the PCV and throttle body. Two coolant hoses, an air hose and a sensor / magnetic motor plugged in on top of it. Looks like a little rectangular box with 4 bolts holding it in.
Take it off, scrape the gasket off and clean the body with carb cleaner. See if the valve moves freely open to close and doesn't stick or is seized in place. (You can move it with your finger from the back.) Clean it well.
Take the motor unit off the top of the body (two screws). Check to see it there's little magnetic bits of metal stuck to the little axle on the underside of the motor.
If something is wrong, these things are expensive new. But they're cheap from a salvage store on eBay. Make sure the one you get if you have to is good. If not, you can mix and match if you want.. your bad valve body for the a good one and swap your motor and sensor unit or the other way around.

I've done that before. My valve was good but the motor thing was bad. They sent me one with a seized valve but a good motor, I just hot swapped them. It was 20 bucks.

Use gasket maker to make to carefully make a new gasket, reinstall.. Forty five minutes tops.

This is assuming there isn't another electrical fault at the battery.

The problem I had was that my car would just cut off at idle. It drove well above idle, like wide open throttle state. But going to idle it just cut out, no warning and nothing violent. Just dies. Took a second to restart, idled rough, was a bit harsh to get going then would die the next time I went to idle. As soon as the RPM's dipped below 1000 at idle.. dead.

I chased it down to the IACV, swapped it and never had the problem again.

[MarkSubi]

Badass ShadowGT thanks a hole lot for all that info I have a feeling thats what i need to do.

Ill try all this as soon as possible and post up the end results.

[ShadowGT]

Badass ShadowGT thanks a hole lot for all that info I have a feeling thats what i need to do.

Ill try all this as soon as possible and post up the end results.

If this is what you have to do, there are three routes to go at with that gasket. One is to order the proper gasket from a dealership. Since I didn't have one near me at the time, I decided to make one. Harbor Freight sells high temperature gasket sheets, just cut it out to match the back of the IACV body. Since I didn't know that at the time.. I chose the RTV gasket junk.
Since this is a flat surface that must meet flush, it just takes a very tiny bit to make the gasket. Don't make it too thick or it might ooze inwards and muck up the IACV internals. Just a solid fine line is needed.

The IACV is like a mini-throttle body. When your car is idling, the actual throttle body closes and the IACV controls the idle speed by opening up. When you want wide open throttle, the IACV closes and the throttle body takes over.

The downside is that when it screws up and goes bad, the car doesn't just idle poorly, it just fails to go to idle all together.

If you have a manual transmission and you're hauling ass down the road and you shift to neutral to coast to a stop or whatever, you might notice that the car's tachometer starts to bounce around between 700 to 1200 RPM like it can't settle down. That is a good indication that the IACV is going bad. This goes on long enough, you can get a check engine code from that.
But chances are it happens fast and your car just flat out turns off with no fanfare or warning when you stop at a light.

My personal disclaimer I should make.. there could be about 20 or more things that could be wrong.. just in my experience with my GT, tearing it down and rebuilding it.. That's what caused a similar situation you're having.

Good luck, any sort of air intake system - stock or after market will have to come out to reach the IACV. Also be prepared to lose a little coolant when you disconnect those two little coolant lines on both sides of the IACV.
Also any IACV from any Subaru car with the same engine and reasonably the same generation will do. Mine came from a wrecked Forester.

[MarkSubi]

Yeah Its probably going bad because two of the times it turned off on me I turned my car back on and the check engine light came on, and then was on for 4 days then the check engine light turned off.

[Perkul8r]

I was gonna say that if you lose everything when it happened start by checking all electrical connections. I had a 94 S10 pickup that i bought that every now and than would just shut down. And i would lose everything. Motor would shut off and everything electrical would die. Came to be a bad battery lead connection at a terminal box causing it.

[MarkSubi]

idk is it has anything to do with my leggy stalling and stuff but I did find out I need a new starter, it works still but probably not for to much longer.