A flickering check engine light with a rough idle on your Subaru Forester V often means an active engine misfire.
Here are the likely causes, what to check first, and whether you can keep driving.
If your Subaru Forester V has a check engine light that flickers intermittently and the idle feels rough, you're right to pay attention. A flickering CEL is different from a steady one: it usually means the engine computer is seeing an active misfire right now, not just a stored fault from last week. On a Forester V, that can be anything from a tired spark plug to a failing ignition coil, a vacuum leak, or dirty fuel injectors. The rough idle is the engine telling you one or more cylinders aren't firing consistently.
