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I accidentally discovered my oil leak when I changed out the oil pump. The old mouse eared gasket again got hot, expanded and buckled inward, so as to then pump oil straight outside of the gasket containing boundary. For my new mouse eared gasket install, I RTV'd the offending portion of the gasket in place, so that it cannot buckle and leak. My mysterious engine oil leak then completely disappeared.

Oh wow, they dug in. It may require dash removal. That's often mentioned as being a 8-12 hour swap for a dash but I've never done one. $4k implies 25 hours of labor. Still a lot of fat in there but maybe there's more to remove and there's a little bit (not much) engine side disconnecting too. Best case scenario would be to identify the precise cause. If it's just light damage or concentrated to a couple wires, find the compromised wires and replace just those individually by passing them one by one through the fire wall. But Subaru can't do that. They only replace entire parts, they wont just run a new wire to bypass a bad one. If that's the case you'd be better off going somewhere else who can do that. If it's excessive damage like rodent damage - then you're probably sitting where you are right now - need a whole new harness and to make sure no other wires were also damaged. The rodent damage I've seen is always one of two areas - really easy/convenient areas like behind a headlight or areas with lots of food - around seats or foot wells in a car with kids. Maybe anecdotal but I've seen a few and those things have always held, not counting old cars that sat for years which is unlikely to be yours.