Dear Scotty,
I have a 2010 Subaru Forester with 165,000 miles on it. It has a standard transmission 5 speed. When the vehicle is cold(has been sitting for hours or until the next morning) while I'm down the road the vehicle will shut off once. I put it into neutral and it fires right up and drives okay. It shifts well, with no late responses and no hesitation. I check for codes. I have an atuel MaxiDAS DS808 and I did a full body scan, the only code that is coming up is for the steering angle sensor C0071. When I drove it last night, the steering wheel was straight. When I drove it this morning down the road. I did notice the steering wheel was a bit off-centered. It was between 12 o'clock and 1 o'clock. When I saw that The vehicle shut off. once I started it back up and kept driving it. I noticed the steering wheel was back at 12 o'clock. Could the steering angle sensor cause the vehicle to shut off? I checked to make sure no connectors were loose, checked air filter was good, checked engine oil level was good, transmission fluid was good as well.
Dear Scotty,
It is great to hear from the legend himself. Sorry, I haven't gotten back to you. I have been driving the car after finding a form about an idle re-learn. a friend of mine who also has a Subaru had almost the same issue but with their symptoms. I followed the steps it stated to do and it worked very well for 2 weeks. Sadly, it has come back. However, It no longer shuts off on me when driving. If I leave it running on my drive at idle with the a/c off, the rpm drops close to zero. It then stabilizes itself and stays close to 1,000. If I have the a/c on max at idle it does it runs very well and does not want to shut off. Now if I leave the a/c at the lowest setting on the fan. It will do the same thing with the a/c off. I did check the throttle body and boy it was really nasty. I did another scan for codes and nothing came up besides the steering angle sensor. Once in a while, the slip light comes on for a mil a second and turns right off. Other than that, I can shift into gears with no problem, when shifting it responds very well. No noises, I even put premium and a fuel system cleaner of royal purple.
Dear Scotty,
wanted to give you an update. I have solved the problem. I took apart the throttle body and was horrified to see how much built up it had of carbon built up. I cleaned it all up. I did a re-learn on it and it is running very well. I turn off the a/c and it runs very smooth and does not want to shut off. The same thing happens when the a/c is one on low speed.
Thanks for your feedback.
Well theoretically that sensor could cause the car to shut up because if you get a short in any sensor on the vehicle it could feed back to the computer and cause it to shut down. It's not that likely of a scenario, but it could happen. More often. A cold car though shutting down has something to do with either a small vacuum lake or dirty fuel injectors. Clogged air filter or not spark plug something like that
