Hey everyone, I recently started having problems with my 05 wrx. When starting the car (after its warm), my RPM goes up as it should but then bogs down to almost 0 before idling. It does this most of the time, sometimes its more severe than others. This one time, my car did go to 0 and shut off.

I described it to two of my mechanic friends and they both told me it was a vacuum leak.

I took the car to the dealership because it is still under warranty and got a call this morning telling me its the clutch slowing down the engine speed but to me that doesn't really explain the drop in RPM because i start the car in neutral so isn't the clutch disengaged?? Not to mention all the guy at the front desk wrote down was "owner states eng dies at times" which probably doesn't explain much to the mechanic diagnosing my car..

BTW i have an exedy stage 2 clutch if that helps? Still think its a vacuum leak though

Any feedback would help I just got my car last year and am still fairly new to subarus! thanks!

 

help anyone?

 

There are smoke tests that machanics do. Undo some hoses and plug in the smog machine and let it rip. Then if you see smoke pouring out from places it should not, that might be the cause of your leak.

 

My car does that sometimes, but I would not blame it on my clutch. I would probably blame it on my flywheel wheel though because it is lighter and rpm's drop much faster than a stock wheel. Unless you still have the stock flywheel.

 

Turns out its not my clutch. I ended up having to go to the dealership to explain it directly to the mechanic. He was just having a difficult time driving my car and assumed that it was my clutch. As for the vacuum leak, they still have no idea. Ended up just taking my car home and i still get the RPM drop. I might look for a shop who can test for vacuum leaks.

Does anyone know of any in the bay area?

 

Could be the idle controller, very common for them to get sticky and cause erratic idle issues. See this thread on NASIOC for cleaning procedure-
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=781242

 

are you the same **** mod on NAZIoc?