Wide eyed and legacyless

I have a 2006 Subaru Legacy 3.0. It is a blast and I love it. But it will stall with no warning or fuss on the first journey of the day. Other times of day it is fine - it only happens first thing at roughly the same point in my journey (approx 1 mile from home). The engine is not fully up to temp according to temp gauge. It does not happen every day. It starts ok and goes well. It stalls when I am changing gear or coasting. Has happened twice in the last week.

I have had the car since May so I cannot be sure this is not a pre-existing problem. I don't have any warning lights or anything on the dash when driving about before or after stalling (when it stalls it looks like all the lights I would expect light up just like you are about to start the car from parked). Do you have any thoughts? Will it store the reason in the computer? I am concerned this will cause accident because power steering goes and it appears at random with no warning.

Asked on 4 September 2011 by JO, Horley

Answered by Honest John
Might be electronic interference in that location. But I wonder if it's an interruption to the fuel supply from the tank sender pump. Might be the pump, might be its relay. Most likely to be the earth to the pump or the relay. I'm guessing that the car starts and runs on the fuel already in its system until it runs out. Re-starting with the key gets the pump back into life. Faults with these components never show up on diagnostics and it also explains why you get no warning lights. All just guesswork, though.
Tags: stalling
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