general problems of the 2002 Subaru Forester

I had stopped my Forester in the left hand turn lane about 3 to 5 feet behind another vehicle while waiting for the signal to change from red to the green arrow. I put my vehicle into park and took my foot off the brake. I turned to check the pocket of my jacket in the rear seat. I turned back in the driving direction, put my foot on the brake and moved the automatic gear shift into the drive position. My car surged forward with the engine racing and hit the vehicle in front of me. I could not control the speed with the brakes, so I shifted back into park. This stopped my car. There is damage to my front grill and hood. This is not the first time I had this happen. The first time this occurred, I called Subaru headquarters and explained the issues to a Subaru representative. I was told this was a new issue and no recall was being considered. I took my car into the Subaru dealer and they checked it and said they could not find any problems. The same thing occurred at least two more times prior to August 10, 2015. I never had any damage to my Subaru or any other vehicle because I was not near any other vehicle when this surging occurred and I could get control of my Subaru by putting the automatic gear shift into park. I purchased my Subaru Forester new and currently have 160,845 miles.

In very cold conditions. When the car is in idol or running it has a very strong gas smell around the engine and in the cabin area. I have heard the wrx and outback models have also have this problem. I was told it is the fuel line hose the connects to the clamp and contracts in severe cold and extracts when it gets warm then seals its self to the clamp. I think this is a serious issue with Subaru and it should be investigated and possible recall on the older models if it has been corrected with newer models.

Intermittent engine surging and/loss of power.

On three occasions when placing my 2002 Subaru Forester in reverse, the engine has begun to race uncontrollably. In each instance, because I had my foot on the brake and was able to shift into neutral, I was able to maintain control of the vehicle and avoid a crash.

Consumer stated the engine started hesitating during acceleration from a complete stop, hesitation occurs one second to a few seconds after acceleration and can lat approximately three seconds. Since the problems have been happening with the hesitation, the transmission now shifts with a slight thump to a loud bang, during acceleration the automatic transmission misses a shift and goes into neutral causing the engine to instantly over speed to 2,000 rpm's the transmission searches for different gears while gently accelerating, on 2 occasions the dealer has reprogrammed the computer modifications which has made the problems less intense, but still exists.