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Changing a head gasket in a 2007 tribeca


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I have a 2007 B9 tribeca with approximately 107,000 miles.  During my last service I was told that the head gasket will need replacing at some point in the near future.  I'm not looking forward to dropping the $3,000 cost and am wondering whether to attempt this on my own.  I was hoping to get some advise on whether this is advisable or not.  I have very limited experience under the hood and am more than a bit hesitatant as I fear a project like this could be way more than I can handle.  Thoughts on whether a novice should even attempt this type of repair?  I would only consider if it does not requre lifting the engine.  Thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

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Hmm if you don't have much experience I prolly wouldn't try it. Let allown the tools needed to do a proper job. Where are you located? The shop I work for in Oregon I do believe wouldn't charge that much. That's kinda steap. Proper way to do it is remove the engine, makes life easy.

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I'm in Boulder CO where every third car is a Subaru :-).  I haven't really price shopped yet - just went to the Subaru dealer in town.  Thanks for the insight.  I was afraid that would be the general consensus

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i would question the diagnosis.

who told you the head gaskets were going bad?

 

the H6 is not known for head gasket failures.

i have only heard of it happening when severely overheated.

but my experience is limited to 95 - 04 cars.

there is a fair amount of H6, EZ30, head gasket info at subaruoutback.org .

(you may have the ez36, 3.6L engine, idk, but the same procedures.)

 

there are several H6 head gasket threads there,

grossgary is active in one of them.

Edited by johnceggleston
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The dealership in Boulder CO gave me the diagnosis when I went in for the last service and oil change.  Otherwise no indication from a driving perspective - no overheating at all. 

 

Thank you everyone for the great advice.  Really appreciate everyone's help

Edited by hassop45
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Did they also try to sell you a new car at the same time?  :rolleyes:

Check to see if you have coolant/oil mixing. Oil will look white and nasty on the dipstick, coolant will have an oil sheen on the surface. You might want to get it looked at by a different (reputable) shop before diving into an expensive repair that may be something simple.

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I have a '06 Outback 3.0 in the shop with a misdiagnosed cylinder 3 misfire. Another shop put a coil pack on it and said they "fix it" but it came in on a flatbed. Did a leak down test and had rolling coolant in the overflow bottle because of the breech. It has 103k miles on it too. Do get a second opinion on it but it is plausible for it to start failing.

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The second one had just under 100k miles. I have seen them seep from the outside and blow on the inside. My 2004 currently has a dried layer of coolant on the bottom of the passenger side head but it's not actively leaking and no coolant loss between oil changes that's noticeable.

 

I've also seen them seep oil at the same place.

 

Now I want to update that after tear down on the first 3.0 Outback I looked at, found a cracked head between the intake valve and exhaust valve seats on the #3 cylinder.

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