# Sluggish car **URL:** \ **Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\ **Tags:** impreza, subaru\ **Created:** [April 30, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/sluggish-car/64261 "2011-04-30T18:54:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Niceshoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Niceshoes](https://community.cartalk.com/u/Niceshoes)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/sluggish-car/64261/1 "2011-04-30T18:54:18Z")
I have a 2009 Subaru Impreza, 17.5k miles. It wasn’t driven for over three months. I changed oil, and it ran fine, but now, 4 months later, it’s running sluggishly, almost seems to drag while it’s running. When it idles, it surges instead of running evenly and quietly like it used to. I don’t know what’s wrong or what I should do. ---
**Author:** ![cigroller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@cigroller](https://community.cartalk.com/u/cigroller)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/sluggish-car/64261/2 "2011-04-30T19:33:08Z")
Is your check engine light on? It probably should be. Surging at idle sounds like a vacuum leak. Vacuum leaks are generally less noticeable when you’re off idle, but the car will be running lean. Its a little young for the vacuum stuff to get brittle & cracked or things like that, but while it sat its quite possible that rodents made a mess of somethings. Its also quite possible that there is actually some kind of intake manifold defect or something like that. Its also possible that something was bumped/dislodged at some point like during the oil change. You said you changed the oil. Did you pull out & inspect the air filter? I’d pull the entire intake snorkel & inspect - you might have a vacuum leak. Or its possible that the intake is clogged up with something like a rodent’s nest (then the car has trouble getting enough air).