Hi all,
I own an ‘02 Outback Limited with the 5 speed manual trans. The car has about 176k miles on it and for the 10 months/13k miles I’ve owned it, it’s been a solid vehicle. I recently drove it from texas to Michigan and before I left I did have quite a bit of work done it. It got a new valve cover gasket, front left axle assembly, and shifter linkage bushing. The day before I left for this road trip, I was cruising down the highway (65-70mph) when my steering wheel started shaking a bit. It got worse and worse and within a few seconds it was clicking and shaking really violently. I pulled off at the next exit, looked at my tires and around the car and hoped a rock had just lodged somewhere bad (I was in a construction zone). Rest of the trip was trouble free, and the 1500 miles I drove north were also trouble free. Then a couple days ago it did the shaking thing again and I repeated the exact process I described earlier except this time 5 minutes after I’d gotten back on the road, my check engine light came on. Code reader says 2 general P0420 codes (Catalytic converter below minimum efficiency threshold).
any thoughts? I’ll need to drive this thing home soon…
thanks!
Well if it has anything to do with that code I have the cat gets clogged up it will run my crap because you can't exhaust all the fumes from the engine. I can't see what that would have to do with wobbling though that is more often a warrant suspension part like a strut strut mount bent control arm bad rubber bushings or flat out just bad tire that has a stretched belt or something that occasionally will get hot and start robbing
Thank you so much for your answer!! I got the wobble fixed for free under warranty (unbalanced tires) but was told for the CEL I’d have to replace cat and O2 sensors and that it would be 1.2-2K or more. Mechanic (from out of town) recommended that I just drive the car but the trouble is once I get back to Texas I’ll need to pass inspection and don’t know if I will like this. The car runs fine. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to put lacquer thinner in my fuel tank like you do on the video because my car is so much older than that one and has 176k miles and already burns oil….
Wha would your advice be?
That death wobble reminds me of the 1970s Ford twin I beam front suspension. Talk about Death Wobble!.
like the Broncos had
