legacycentral bbs

Hi guys,

I have a '90 Subaru Legacy. I have had a Flashing power light problem in this car. Though it used to occur very rarely, I got it checked but they could not get any error codes out of it and thought it to be a wiring problem. I never got around to get the wiring checked. However, my transmission 1 month back and I got it repalced by a salvage yard tranmssion.

Even though tranmssion has been replaced, the flashing power light problem still continues. I got it checked again and now it is being told to be a TCU problem. According to the garage guys, the TCU is getting the car to run AWD mode all the time and since this problem was there before I got the transmission replaced, it might have been the reason for the previous transmission to blow.

They are suggesting a TCU replacement. I needed some advice if this is required.

Thanks

Do you mean FWD cause your car should be running in awd all the time, unless of course it was a front wheel drive and then you would never have the ability to run in awd. If its running in FWD mode, did you check the fuse box for fwd under the hood?

My car is AWD. As per my understanding, the duty solenoid "c" determines if the car should be running in AWD or not. As per the garage tech., the TCU is providing some wrong signals causing it to be AWD all the time. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I am not DIY kind of guy since I do not know much abt cars. However due to my car giving transmission problems recently I have started look up the net.

Another thing, I read somewhre on this forum that it take hardly 15-20 mins to replace the TCU. Is taht right. The garage tech is claiming it to be a 3-4hrs work.

you can read the transmission codes yourself.

The power light flashes a default 16 times to let you know there is an issue.

http://www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/trans.html

The flashing light occurs very rarely.

I had to use the previous problems section to determine the error. It showed 24 which indicates Duty Solenoid C problem. hOWEVER, the garage tech confirmed that the Duty Solenoid C was working fine.

Now I contemplating whether I can put in a fuse and convert the car to Front Wheel Drive only. Will it cause a problem in the transmission at a later stage?

yeh, its bad to run your car in fwd