Just when you think its fixed

[powderhound]

I'm getting the creeping feeling I may have a headgasket issue with my 2.2. gasp. I recently had all the front seals, tbelt, oil pump, water pump, and tstat replaced. Ever since I got the car back I've noticed the sweet smell of coolant though it is not as strong as when I first got it back. I contributed this to a flousy mechanic that may have spilled some in the engine bay. I've been checking the coolant after driving and have noticed it is above the fill line on the resevoir...again thought the mechanic just overfilled it. BUT today I was checking PS fluid and looked at the coolant resevoir and it was right at the full line. Additionally the coolant in the resevoir is much darker than that which is visible in the radiator.

Q1. Does the coolant resevoir overflow or just raise in volume with a headgasket leak?

Q2. What are the chances that this could have been caused by the recent repair work?

Q3. Do you think the oatmeal conditioner might fix the problem?

Q4. Why do I hit 6 digits and the car falls apart? LOL.

[Setright]

First of all: Even with faithful servicing, a head gasket is likely to fail around 10 ten years or 120k miles. Even in the supremely reliable EJ22.

 

When one of my HG's went, in my Gen1 Legacy, the coolant overflow tank did just that, overfilled and leaked fluid out of the system. It can be tricky to trace, since it tends to escape as vapour. This could be giving the smell in the heater system.

 

OR, the cabin heat exchanger might be leaking. I don't think so, because this would not cause the overflow tank to fill up.

 

Of course, before ripping the heads off, you want to make sure there is no air in the cooling system. Search around the site, the procedure has been described many times...

[frag]

First of all: Even with faithful servicing, a head gasket is likely to fail around 10 ten years or 120k miles. Even in the supremely reliable EJ22.

Really?

I'm in my ninth year and have 125,000 miles. I should be expecting to have a head gasket go?

[The Dude]

I can't help noticing that both posters live in pretty cold parts of the world. It seems that Canadians, and other world-wide frost belters have more than their share of head gasket failure. Aluminum has much greater expansion and contraction that than steel or iron over the same temperature range.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I do not accept that head gasket replacement is standard maintenance for an engine with only 120,000 miles. Some people on this board appear to "dumbing down" expectations for Subaru reliability. A Subaru used to be a great car because of it's outstanding reliability. Simply putting a Subaru name badge on a vehicle with a failure prone engine doesn't make it a great car.