legacycentral bbs

So the car did this a few days ago and I thought I had it fixed but apparently not.

Go to turn the car on, turn the key to the Accessory position, everything is fine, radio turns on, antenna goes up. Turn the key to the On position, everything's fine all dash lights turn on, AC fans kick on, Fuel Pump primes. Turn the key to start... All power loss. Nothing at all. I here a click and then nothing, sometimes everything turns back on when I release the key back to the On position, sometimes I have to turn it all the way off and back on to get power back. (Oh and this resets the radio btw)

The car has done something similar before and it was when I needed to replace the battery terminal. So for the first time it did it I got out, disconnected the battery cleaned the terminal and reconnected it and everything was fine. Drove it to work the next day, went to go home on my lunch, no go. Car won't start at all.

So I replaced the terminal with a new one, no change (so apparently cleaning it the first time and it working was just a coincidence.)

Is it just a bad starter thats shorting something out somewhere? I've had starters go out before and they've always just clicked but never the weird power loss issues.

I've checked the fusable link as well and its fine. Is there a relay somewhere that runs the starter that I'm not aware of?

Have you had your battery load tested? Sounds like a bad battery to me.

Well I tried jumping it so I don't feel like it could be the battery. I could toss the battery from my Lincoln later.

Definitely not the battery. Any other thoughts? Is there a relay somewhere that could be shorting out?

It sounds like a bad connection, either at the battery or bad ground. Starter wouldn't cause the power loss even if the wire was off the starter you would still have power to everything.

I know you cleaned the terminals but it sounds like you have non stock battery cables end or ends and where the wire clamp in the cable end is it clean and a good tight connection? One other place to check is the ground wire where it bolts to the bracket on the transmission and make sure it's clean and tight also.

Just noticed the shop that worked on it last put the ground on the f**cking intake manifold instead of the transmission and the bracket is missing. Son of a....

That sure might cause a problem. You may want to verify that the ground you have to the chassis is good as well.

Yea the chassis ground seemed fine. I'm going to move it back to the starter today and see if that fixes it. I wonder why it would have been fine from November until now though if that's the issue

My stock legacy JUST got this issue!

But each time i go try if its dead it start fine again.........

The only 2 things i can think of are:

* ignition switch or ignition relay
* inhibitor switch/neutral switch


The inhibitor/neutral switch would make sense because the car might think its in gear so it will NOT start.
The ignition switch/relay might be a problem also. I have NEVER seen what the car does if thats the problem.

Also

Have you maybe figured this out yet??

I don't know if he's on the board any more. You might want to try emailing or sending him a PM to see if he ever resolved the issue.

Hi Tommio,

I had been dealing with a random no start issue for quite a while. Random no start click. Seemed related to heat(more resistance) After enough attempts it would finally turn over. Replaced starter, nuetral switch, ignition switch(x2), key cylinder, battery, cleaned cable ends, I even swapped out the relay under the dash.(pain)

The only component left in my setup was the cable set. Once I replaced that, it was good to go. It even cleaned up the intermittent idle and random miss. Runs great now. Ready for the 550 tune and ditch the 440's.

Good Luck!

@camped69 what cable set? Running into similar issue.

Hi Farias,

Yes, my post was referring to the battery cable set. While that appeared to fix it, the problem eventually came back.

As everything else had been replaced my hail mary fix was the starter relay bypass wiring. I can confirm that it is still working to this day. Pretty sure the stock wiring to the starter solenoid is the culprit. I opted to bypass. Even though my soob eats starters every 2 years.

Good Luck!

http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=25362

http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthr ... osch+relay