Subaru Head Gasket Options

[Andrew1972]

these cars are junk. our 2002 outback had new cylinder heads-2 radiators -2 blown headgaskets all before 67k. .

A counterpoint is my parents own a 2000 Forester since brand new with 199k miles. Original head gasket and no engine or transmission issues since new. Just a starter, radiator and alternator , bearings, muffler in the last 6 years. They were so elated with it they bought a 2015 Outback which has been faultless also for them although only 40k.

That all being said I would not touch the gaskets if nothing is wrong. You may unsurfaced more items.

 

[Al]

I owned a 2008. At 120K miles I started putting money into it. New HG's, Timing belt (idlers, tensioner, water pump, rear wheel bearing. A few other things. Now 100K miles later my granddaughter has it. Before I gave it to her I replaced the radiator and a few other things. She loves it so much she refuses to get rid of it. She is a successful engineer.

1. It needs HGs only if COOLANT (even a drop) is leaking at the HGs.
2. If you get the HGs done, go with new studs.
3. Do all the stuff that touches the belt.
4. 4000 is on the high side but if the shop is good and warrants the work..go for it.
5. Switch to 40 wt oil. I guarantee if you take it on the highway and drive it hard it will come lots and lots of 30wt oil.
6. Do a couple drain and fills on the auto transmissiion. (8 oz less than a gallon each time)
7. Consider a radiator change.
8. When you put 4K$ into it you have made a commitment to keep it a long time.
9. I put the $$$ into it bc I was tinking about a new vehicle and did not want to have a buyer take a screwing.
10 You have gotten 16 years out of the vehicle. Maybe consider cutting your losses. You had a great run on a great vehicle. I bought an '18 Forester XT and a'19 Crosstrek. I love them both.

Subaruforester.org

 

[MRC01]

I noticed that the Subaru letter WWP-99 which introduces the coolant conditioner to address leaks, mentions model years '99-'02. My Forester is an '04 that I bought in '03. That letter came out in Feb '04. I used the conditioner anyway, but wonder why Subaru limited the letter to those years.

 

[wdn]

and now the new ones burn oil and have bad cvt trans

No, the new Subarus do not burn oil either. The FB20DI engine that was introduced in the 2017 model is not an oil burner. The new engine was a complete redesign with 80% new parts compared to the previous 2016 model. Sorry you had a bad experience with a Subaru you bought two decades ago.

 

[MRC01]

I've put a few hundred miles on it since all the work, driving it hard to really exercise it. The good news, it runs like new with good power and pulls smoothly all the way to redline and and the timing belt, water pump and thermostat area is clean and bone dry, no leaks. The bad news, it is still gradually losing coolant. Externally, the head gaskets look great no leaks of oil or coolant. And there are no obvious symptoms of bad head gaskets. But I have found 3 spots that seem to have pinhole external leaks, around the radiator and hoses. So here's my plan:
1. Pull 3 oz of oil and send to Blackstone for UOA with a note that my primary concern is any signs of coolant in the oil.
2. Add another 4 oz of the Subaru stopleak conditioner. Is this advisable, or could adding more cause problems?
Other than that, keep driving it and monitoring the condition to see if I can chase down these leaks.

 

[t1snwrbrdr12]

I wouldn’t overdo the stop leak. One more may be ok but feel out others opinions.

If you don’t feel the amount of coolant you’ve lost is from the seepage you’ve found, do you think it is from the system working out little bits of air you didn’t get bled out after the work? That’s what I’d lean on. Even experienced techs don’t get all the air out properly every time.

I’d look at addressing the obvious first though. Those minor leaks won’t fix themselves. Keep a close eye on them. If a lab can analyze oil for coolant presence, that sounds like a good plan.

 

[wdn]

More isn't better, but waiting longer for stop leak to work may be better. Also if there is a pinhole leak in the radiator itself or a bad weld, the Subaru stop leak can't fix that. It's really for gasket seals. Here's what I would suggest, if you have a garage. Get a stack of moving paper that moving companies use to wrap your stuff. It is kind of tan color and about a yard squares, it's big, thin sheets. You can get it at a U-Haul store. Paper the garage floor, slightly overlapping to cover the whole are you would park on including everything under the car. Then just wait, try not to drive it for several days or a least a weekend. Look for the wet spots that are much easier to notice on paper than on a driveway or a concrete garage floor. Any drops will get bigger as they soak into the paper and be easy to see. The radiator is way in front of the engine so if it's coming from there you will know it's a radiator or a hose leak and pinpoint which it is, and where.

 

[MRC01]

It doesn't lose coolant when parked - only when the engine is running. That means:
A. Coolant could be leaking internally into the combustion chamber.
B. Coolant could be leaking internally into the oil.
C. Coolant could be leaking externally, through holes so small it only leaks when under pressure.
D. Coolant could be filling in gaps or bubbles from the flush.

Perhaps (D) was happening at first, but it can't be anymore since I've put about 250 miles on it since the flush. I know that (C) is happening, as I found 3 spots in the engine bay evidencing trace amounts of leaked coolant. The UOA will tell me whether (B) is happening. Whether (A) is happening, I don't know. If it is, it's small enough not to have any obvious symptoms.

 

[wdn]

Getting the radiator pressure tested is not expensive. If you are trying to ratchet up the repair costs slowly you might pressure test the radiator to rule out radiator and hose leaks. If it were me I would take it to a radiator specialty shop not a general mechanic. At this point we are all guessing. Good luck to you.

 

[MRC01]

Good idea. I might as well buy my own radiator pressure testing kit and add it to my toolset. For the price of having someone else do it once, I can do it myself for the rest of my life on every other car I own.

 

[super20dan]

I noticed that the Subaru letter WWP-99 which introduces the coolant conditioner to address leaks, mentions model years '99-'02. My Forester is an '04 that I bought in '03. That letter came out in Feb '04. I used the conditioner anyway, but wonder why Subaru limited the letter to those years.

optimizem

 

[super20dan]

No, the new Subarus do not burn oil either. The FB20DI engine that was introduced in the 2017 model is not an oil burner. The new engine was a complete redesign with 80% new parts compared to the previous 2016 model. Sorry you had a bad experience with a Subaru you bought two decades ago.

now its the cvt trans that go bad all the time.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

now its the cvt trans that go bad all the time.

Dan, did you join the board just to bash Subarus from a bad experience at the turn of the millennium? OP clearly doesn't have a CVT... and your "go bad all the time" statement is blatantly false. You've made your point that you don't like Subarus. Why not leave the OP's thread alone so maybe he can get he help he's seeking for the Subaru he obviously wants to keep??

OP, the SCC should seal small leaks, the stuff that's in it is designed to plug/fill into a gap, and then if one side of that gap is exposed to air it will swell as it dries out, hopefully sealing the leak. When you're bleeding the system, in addition to something like a Lisle Spill-proof funnel kit, it never hurts to park the car on a slight incline to make sure the filler neck is the highest point in the system.

 

[MRC01]

... When you're bleeding the system, in addition to something like a Lisle Spill-proof funnel kit, it never hurts to park the car on a slight incline to make sure the filler neck is the highest point in the system.

When I filled it, I used a spill-proof funnel and had the front wheels up on ramps, so the nose of the car was elevated. I've driven it a couple hundred miles since doing the work, and the cooling system is working fine, so I think any air gaps should be expelled from the system by now.
However, if there are any special steps to take to "burp" the system, I'm all ears...

 

[super20dan]

Dan, did you join the board just to bash Subarus from a bad experience at the turn of the millennium? OP clearly doesn't have a CVT... and your "go bad all the time" statement is blatantly false. You've made your point that you don't like Subarus. Why not leave the OP's thread alone so maybe he can get he help he's seeking for the Subaru he obviously wants to keep??

OP, the SCC should seal small leaks, the stuff that's in it is designed to plug/fill into a gap, and then if one side of that gap is exposed to air it will swell as it dries out, hopefully sealing the leak. When you're bleeding the system, in addition to something like a Lisle Spill-proof funnel kit, it never hurts to park the car on a slight incline to make sure the filler neck is the highest point in the system.

my mission is to spread the word and stop people from buying terriable cars like Subaru. our 2002 only had 27 k miles when we bought it yet the coolant over flow bottle had peices of head gasket in it allready. and yet subaru sold us this lemon. Subaru denied there was a flaw in the ej25 engine for decades! . there should have been a recall campaign and or buyback for these defective engines. instead the fix is stopleak!

 

[t1snwrbrdr12]

When I filled it, I used a spill-proof funnel and had the front wheels up on ramps, so the nose of the car was elevated. I've driven it a couple hundred miles since doing the work, and the cooling system is working fine, so I think any air gaps should be expelled from the system by now.
However, if there are any special steps to take to "burp" the system, I'm all ears...

you've gotten the air out by what you’ve done. If y put it through a couple warm up/cool down cycles and you have heat, any little air pockets will have worked themselves out.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

my mission is to spread the word and stop people from buying terriable cars like Subaru. our 2002 only had 27 k miles when we bought it yet the coolant over flow bottle had peices of head gasket in it allready. and yet subaru sold us this lemon. Subaru denied there was a flaw in the ej25 engine for decades! . there should have been a recall campaign and or buyback for these defective engines. instead the fix is stopleak!

Your mission is to spread the word about something that’s been fixed for more than a DECADE? #ignore
Since you’ve obviously missed the last 10 or so years of reality, Subaru has had the best resale value something like 4 of the past 6 years. Maybe your “message” had traction in 2002, but not 2020. Subaru has passed you by, bud.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

When I filled it, I used a spill-proof funnel and had the front wheels up on ramps, so the nose of the car was elevated. I've driven it a couple hundred miles since doing the work, and the cooling system is working fine, so I think any air gaps should be expelled from the system by now.
However, if there are any special steps to take to "burp" the system, I'm all ears...

OP, are your leaks on hoses or on engine parts? Subaru hoses have been EPDM for a long time, but eventually even those can fail. If you think it’s hose-related, grab a clean pan, pull the thermostat housing and collect the fresh coolant. Replace the hoses (and clamps!), then refill with collected coolant, and it sounds like you have correct burping procedure. A double dose of SCC won’t hurt, but if it’s not leaking from a gasket, you should fix the source of the leak.

 

[MRC01]

I pressure tested the cooling system yesterday, at 15 psi which seems to be its max operating pressure. At first it looked like it was holding pressure, but that was because the needle was dropping very slowly, losing about 1 psi per minute. So it has a very slow leak somewhere. While pressurized, I could find no external leaks. It was all clean & dry - hoses, clamps, drain petcock, etc. That's actually bad news because it suggests the leak is in the head gaskets, and must be internal because there are no external head gasket leaks that I can detect.

Next, I should pull the spark plugs and pressurize the cooling system, check if I can hear any leak into the combustion chambers. But for now, since the leak is so slow, I just added another 4 oz dose of SCC and will continue to drive it and monitor/replenish the coolant loss. Give the SCC a chance to do its job (or not!) before I commit to more work. And I'll do the UOA to see if there is coolant in the oil.

 

[super20dan]

Your mission is to spread the word about something that’s been fixed for more than a DECADE? #ignore
Since you’ve obviously missed the last 10 or so years of reality, Subaru has had the best resale value something like 4 of the past 6 years. Maybe your “message” had traction in 2002, but not 2020. Subaru has passed you by, bud.

no I got smart and started buying Toyotas. had 3 since the subie and no major proplems and 2 no problems ever