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Strange issue when taking off from stop

Model Years 2012 to 2017
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4.1K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  jaradclement  
J
#1 ·
I own a 2013 Subaru Crosstrek with 40k miles on it. I bought it used, and it's always had this "issue".

At speed, the car is fantastic and I have no complaints other than this annoyance. Sometimes when I come from a stop the car takes off fine in "1st gear" and then the RPMs drop considerably and the car will slug its way up to this point a few seconds later where is catches up and the torque comes back. Problem is, its not consistent. When I first got the car I went through a barrage of tests, trying to figure out what it was. I found out that if I removed the negative from the battery and restarted the system, the car acted completely normal until it eventually starts the behavor again after a few days. Then winter came and it rarely happened, that I noticed. Now that summer is back it started again, and I have no idea where to look.

Another note, sometimes I will turn on the car and the problem doesnt exist and the car drives great, but majority of the time the problem happens. If I lightly tap the accelerator pedal consistenly when leaving a stop it will skip the issue as well.

Anyway, it's really annoying and dangerous especially when driving in traffic. Anyone else have this issue? I do not think its a CVT problem, it's almost like its switching to 2nd gear early and swapping back to 1st when it realizes its mistake. Thats what it feels like.
 
R
#2 ·
What you are seeing (or at least describing), actually seems pretty normal due to the engine tuning of the car. If you look at the dyno results from various postings on the FB20 engine, you'll see that drop in power just where you are describing. In fact, one of the big reasons why people get a tune for this engine is not because of the potential for increasing a huge amount of power (you can't and it won't) but to even out the power issues at certain RPMs.
 
J
#3 ·
That is really interesting, it truly feels like something is wrong with the car but after doing some searching apparently "the hole" as they call it is a real thing.

Why the hell would they not notice that while testing the car during manufacturing, its a major issue.

Have you done the tune yet? If so what did it cost?
 
R
#4 ·
OEMs sometimes have different considerations when they design and test a car that are different from our own. Unfortunately, we, as consumers, are always left wondering what those different considerations are.

There's a few threads on tuning through local shops and a guy out in Australia that does it remotely. They all seem to address the hole but the prices vary from about $500 to $1,000 or so. I haven't done it but a few members have.
 
S
#5 ·
Mine has been doing the very same thing for a long time now.. it gets better in cooler weather but it's very dangerous.
I mentioned it to the dealer and they had no insight other than it's the CVT building pressure or some ****..
Basically from a stop it feels normal for a second then it feels like it's going into 3-4th gear.. no power at all and I've had the almost stall feeling many times.
It's extremely dangerous.
Let's keep this thread going!!
Looking for solution
 
J
#6 ·
Yes it does get better with cooler weather, quite strange. I'm going to research the pressure with the CVT thing. It feels like its starting in 3rd gear or something then switch down to 2nd. Pain in the *** when trying to take off from a stop, and other times it works great and there is a ton of torque. Pretty sure this is my last CVT car.
 
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