Hesitant acceleration

[Audio-Fusion]

Guys,

I hope that someone may be able to help....

My car is coming up to the 30k service and for the last few thousand miles I have noticed some strange behaviour. The first is that the gear change seems to be a bit lumpy. When you change gear it seems very difficult to judge the amount of throttle needed to smooth the change. It may be that I am useless, however I didn't used to struggle with this and I have done 28K in the car.

The second issue is that acceleration in 1st, 2nd and 3rd at low speeds seems to be a bit hesistant until the revs climb a bit. The best I can describe this is when you drive around a car park in first, the throttle is very senstive to movement and if you aren't careful, you end up kangaroo'ing. Mine seems to have started doing this in 2nd and 3rd too.

I have suspected things had changed recently but when you drive it every day it is difficult to say. I have had a hire car for work this week and driving the car today, definatley notice the above and know that it didn't used to happen.

It may be that it just needs a service but I am a bit worried as the warranty is up in 6 weeks and I don't want Subaru to claim that there isn't anything wrong and then get stuck with a repair bill....

Anyone?

[marky mark]

MAF or Lambda sensor, From what you describe most likely the Lambda...

[Audio-Fusion]

Cheers Mark....

I was waiting for you to reply

Looks like I will be calling in the week then.

Stupid question but what does the lambda sensor do?

Ta

[marky mark]

It measures the oxygen content in the exhaust gas. The ECU can tell from this content if the Air/Fuel ratio is correct (i.e is running weak or lean). ECU will then adjust this ratio until sensor says engine is a happy bunny again.

If the sensor is sending spurious readings, your AFR's can be all over the place.