Hello, my mom's 2014 subaru outback with 101,000 miles sometimes shuts off after engine start-up and sometimes she has to rev up the car in order to maintain a steady idle, but this doesn't happen all the time. What could it be? Battery is fine btw.
Update: my mom's car was recently in an accident (she's fine fortunately) so i doubt a little bit of spray cleaner will fix it. Thankfully however, the engine is still fine for the most part except for maybe the radiator and other components near the front.
Because the engine cut off randomly??
Not really, someone ran a red light and nailed the front end of the car pretty hard
A code reader would be useful. My initial thought is that perhaps it's a pretty simple issue: The Mass Air Flow Sensor and the Throttle Body have carbon build up, and need to be cleaned. Particularly with the Throttle Body, a carboned up Throttle Body butterfly will produce very poor idle.
On most vehicles, it's cheap and easy to clean. See Scotty's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWCKvU2FmDc
Have you had it scanned for any indicating codes? It's free at any major auto supply store. This would give us a starting point to solve your problem.
There isn't any codes that i can see, also when i first started the car up in the morning the cabin had a terrible smell of raw gasoline
Check the fuel trim. If it’s running lean check the intake for leaks and try running a good fuel system cleaner through, not seafoam. You might have a clogged fuel filter. also try cleaning the map/maf sensor. If running rich check the air filter and also check the map/maf sensor. Also check the spark plugs. If there’s no codes it’s probably not the crankshaft or camshaft sensors.
With it being intermittent probably the maf sensor. If your smelling fuel your either leaking fuel or running rich. Check for any fuel leaks as well
Fuel filter was my thought too. At that mileage, it’s probably due.