98 Forester flashing Hold light

Joel · Post by **Joel** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:06 pm

Hey Guys, been a while since I've posted a thread on here.

Suba-Beetle is still around and serving me well but its another car this time.

Yesterday my ex-mother in law who is needing a runaround car was impatient waiting for me to finish working as I usually suss out any car before she buys and bought something pretty well on the spot.

She picked up a 1/98 2L Auto Forester Limited, paid through the nose for it from a dealer but overall it drives well for a car with 283,000 on the clock.

Only thing she didn't notice till she went to drive it home was someone has done a Homer Simpson trick.
It had a piece of black tape on the dash which when pulled off was covering a flashing Hold light.

I really cant fault the trans, it shifts beautifully, Hold mode works fine, just a little rough shifting from drive to park.

THe light starts flashing maybe 2-3 mins after driving off and comes and goes but is on most of the time.

I'll take it over to Subi village through the week and get them to hook it up and read the code but I'm thinking it's gotta be something simple like the speed sensor or some other sensor.

ANyone had any experience with this?

Cheers
Joel

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:41 pm

There is nothing in the service manual about the hold light flashing, its the power light that flashes to indicate a fault.

Is the flashing a constant pulse either fast, 4 times per second or slow 2 times per second, or is it a mixture of slow and fast flashes?

Have you tried operating the hold or power switches?

Joel · Post by **Joel** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:45 pm

Google brings up a few people saying the hold light flashes to indicate an gearbox ECU error.

Its just a consistant flash, probably 2 per second, not like it's flashing a code.

Hold mode works fine but doesnt change the light flashing, didn't notice if it even had a power button.

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:16 pm

Power button will be located somewhere on the gear selector.

I read some of the google results, but none of them resulted in any conclusion.

Joel · Post by **Joel** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 3:53 pm

Just a follow up on this.

The hold light flashing was indeed a transmission error code.

It turns out its the solenoid for the rear diff clutch pack that drops it out on tight turns and is a really common problem.

RSR 555 · Post by **RSR 555** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:40 pm

If it was brought through a dealer, then you'll have some sort of warranty