Bucking Bronco in the rain!
 

So I get on 80 yesterday in the pouring rain and accelerate hard on the highway in 3rd gear. My car hesitates hard and I immediately let off the gas. I slowly accelerate and all is fine. Later on I try again and the same thing. I look to see if I have a cel and what I have is just a flashing cruise which goes out after I restart.

Any thoughts:

I thought maybe I injested some moisture through the Perrin sponge filter? With no cel, it's hard to tell what is going on.

Did you check to see if there is any moisture on the filter?

May just have been a big hiccup/timing pull due to the very dense air and WOT or close to it causing knock.

Assuming your intake is in the fender or under the hood, water is unlikely unless it was many inches deep.

You mean actually open the hood?



Yes, seemed dry but it was pouring when the incident happened.

Anyone else ever get just a cruise flashing?

It's under the hood. I hope your right and it's just not ready to go Boom!

Flashing cruise could be the Vehicle Speed Sensor... There's a few reasons that a cruise light would flash, but not really any others that'll make the car run like crap too. Most of the other reasons will just cause the cruise itself to not work, but the VSS could def. screw with drivability. I'm not sure what the DTC set schedule for the VSS is, but if it's, say 3 cycles, then you may not have a CEL, but it's still F*ed.

When you turn off the key, the cruise self-diag clears, so it SHOULD go away after restarting.

If that helps any...

It reset in one cycle.

Thanks.

I just talked to Jeremy, (my buddy that works at Lithia Subaru) and he said basically the same thing. If the Cruise light flashes, it'a a problem with something that affects the crusie. If it's giving you driving issues, there's probably some failure that's causing both that, AND the cruise light. The VSS is *likely*, but not definitely the answer.

Shit. You're in Truckee... I was gonna say swing by Nissan if it acts up again.

If you get it to act up again, and have the chance to go have the ECU checked for codes, that's my suggestion. DON'T SHUT THE CAR OFF... It looks like it "soft set" so if you shut it off, it'll clear the codes, if there are any... If it doesn't throw a CEL, you'll have to get it to act up, and have the ECU checked without shutting it down at all, so it doesn't reset.

He has an AP I beleive, so pulling codes should be easy.

Nick, start carrying your AP...

I thought Nick had EcuTEK from the old S-Squared days

Could be...

Yep, ECUtek here. I have an OBDII reader though.

That'll work...

I think you were right Dean. The problem appears to be gone. No issues at all yesterday or today so far.

On STIs the cruise light is kind of a "CEL Lite"... i.e. it flashes for issues that aren't CEL worthy but are issues nonetheless, and not necessarily cruise control related. Many STI owners mention seeing flashing cruise lights in addition to their CELs.

That said, the bucking happened to me when my speed sensor popped out (due to a bad install after my clutch was replaced under warranty at about 14k miles). Basically the car drove normally up to about 4000 rpm then hit a brick wall because the rev limiter was dropped in limp mode. But it was easy to know it was the speed sensor because my speedo read zero. If your speedo's working it's not a wholesale mechanical faliure of the speed sensor like I had.

Correcto.......anytime that I have ever had a CEL it was accompanied by a flashing cruise lite. This one just seemed odd as there was no CEL. My speedo works fine, it just seems to run a little low when I am at the track.

I think the problem there is with your right foot. ;)