e4620

What year/model is the car? There was a recall on the brake boosters for failing in cold weather. I know my 99 was effected.

I apologize montana105, and thank you for your input and assistance. I had no intention of sounding rude myself.

Montana105, you misunderstand. I intend to go to small claims court and only after consulting with a lawyer. The limit here as I understand it is 10k. This is also a last resort, I'm still hopeing they will come to their senses, but when its all said and done I am very willing to take them to small claims.

I spoke again with SOA's representitive. It seems that subaru is concerned only with me getting a new engine, they don't care one bit about weather or not I recieve any compensation, reimbursement, or even a loaner car. The dealer tells me they still need to determine weather a replacement engine is warrented or weather they want to try to fix it. They'll get back to me on monday. I'm ready to sue them not only for a reimbursement of the original headgasket work, but for my travel expenses while I've been without the car due to their errors, as well as compensation for missed time at work and school. Does this sound reasonable or am I loosing my mind, because as far as the manager and SOA are concerned, this is not warrented.

They had no idea I had a voice recorder in my pocket. I'll have to look into the legality there...

Update: At this point, the engine is shot. I called the mechanic to tell him the knocking noise was now consistant, it happened every cold start, he told me to drive the car and bring it in monday. I proceeded to drive it, 24 miles into my commute the engine lost power and the knocking sound was back in full force. I pulled to the shoulder of the highway, immediately as I pressed the clutch in the engine died. It will not crank any more. The car was towed to the dealer. I demanded a refund and a new engine, the manager said I can't have both. Now I intend to get subaru involved as well as sue the dealer, I have a recording of the mechanic admitting fault on the 3 main issues. Edit: I just got off the phone with SOA, they say they are getting in touch with the regional service manager as well as the manager from the dealer.

Well, after the overheat I began to notice an odd clunking noise occasionally on starting...it has since worsened. Sounds like a ratteling/metalic thud on cold starts and lasts about 2-5 seconds. I'm thinking this dealer owes me a new engine. Any oppinions?

Those side windows are tougher then you think, we have to break them sometimes in extrications from vehicles after accidents. Specialized window punches sometimes take 2 or even more tries to shatter them. A good sized rock could possibly have broken it, but this was in heavy traffic.

Wow, I've had experiance breaking car windows, they're pretty tough, its hard to imagine a stray rock or something shattering it. Out of curiosity, has any body work ever been done to the car in that area?

A master tech did do this work, I've been talking to him every step of the way. SOA is definitely getting some letters to read after this, and the bbb will come into play if they don't rectify this situation.

Traffic was nice and light untill I hit rt280...where it was a nice stop and go pace. This is strike three for the dealer. Strike one, the car fell off the jack at their shop which broke the timing belt cover. They failed to mention this untill I went back the next day and demanded they replace it. Strike two, the car missfired badly on cylinders 2 and 4 after they did the headgasket work. Turns out this was because the valves were not properly adjusted before put back on the car. It still does not idle properly, and tries to stall occasionally. This did not happen before I brought them the car. Strike three, they forgot to plug in both cooling fans which led to an overheat. At this point I am sick of the crap, I've been without my car for a month and a half and now this. Tomorrow I am going to the dealer and demanding they straighten this out.

This is incredible...I got my car back finally after having the valve clearance readjusted. It no longer missfires, but continues to idle poorly. I accepted the possibility that the plugs were fouled from the missfires, and as I replaced them less then 100 miles ago with new NGK's I figured a little bit of driving should clean them up. So I drove...Noticed the car was no longer missing, but when I came to a gradual stop from 70 mph on the highway (hit some very bad traffic) and put the clutch in to shift, the engine stalled. It started right back up though. When I finally got home I smelled coolant. Popped the hood and saw some steam from the radiator cap, noticed the fans were not spinning. I then looked back at the dash, the car had in fact overheated. Got underneath the car to find both fans were unplugged. This car has had a month and a half long ordeal at Loman Subaru on rt46 in Parsippany. They have yet to find the problem they created with the car, and now thanks to another mistake of theirs the engine has overheated for the first time in its life. So, anyone have any suggestions on what may have been damaged here so I can have them replace it? At this point I'm ready to demand they replace the engine. It has a problem they can't identify, now its got this.

Its a common problem, the fuel gauge in the tank is an open potentiometer printed on a little ceramic board, after living in gas for a while and constantly going up and down they wear out. My old 1990 legacy had the same problem, easily fixed with two new floats from a junkyard. (Theres one on each side of the tank) Lasted another 2 years with no sign of failure when I got rid of the car, only cost about 15 bucks and a few minutes of work.

Yup, they were OEM purchased at that dealer less then a year ago, they gave me a new set under warrenty for free to rule them out. Problem solved though (we think) The exhaust valce clearance was set too tight. Dealer ordered a new set of shims today. Should have the car back on tuesday.

Bad idea, replace all of them, it will ruin your AWD if you dont.

Don't know if you had the plug out of cylinder 2, but how'd it look. Wet, carboned up, white...etc

Try changing the gear oil in it, its pretty straightforeward to do. Just kind of a pain to fill back up, a long funnel will help a lot. It does NOT! take auto tranny fluid, its just gear oil. If i remember correctly its GL-5 80w-90 or so. I forget the quantity though, check the manual for that.

In theory, the compression should still be good. The valves are still all closed on the compression stroke. I had the pleasure of seeing the first remaned head that came off, the valves were not bent and everything looked good. The exhaust valves were already carboned up a bit though. At least in retrospect I believe they were the exhaust, I didn't note the side they were on only their condition. Once I have the valve cover off I shouldent even have to watch the valves, if I remember correctly the camshafts should be labeled IN and EX.

This friday unfortuneately is the earliest that I can see the mechanic, first thing I'm going to do is check to see if the 2 and 4 injector wires are swapped. If they aren't I'll pull off the valve cover. (I'm lucky, the mechanic at this dealer actually allows me back in the shop and listens to my input as well as lets me get my hands dirty) The car did run perfectly fine when it went in, the only reason it went in is because I didn't like what I saw when I looked in the coolant overflow. The SOA remaned heads do not come with cams, I'm not sure about the lifters. I certainly hope they adjusted the valve cleranance though, I'll definitely make sure they did. As for the timing belt he's had to install one twice on this car, if he botched it both times I think theres a serious problem :-\ As for drivability it seems to even out when you give it some gas, I did drive it a bit but it lost power on the first hill I hit and blinked the CEL for the missfire codes.

Could be a leaking oil seperator plate. Out of curiosity, how many miles are on the car?

Thanks everyone, I'll have to check the injector wires and the camshafts for proper location/timing next chance I get, unfortuneately I won't be able to get to the shop until later on in the week.

119,470 on mine before it went...1999 Outback 2.5 DOHC 5spd

Its never missfired before, this is all after the headgasket job. The timing marks are all dead on, I'll have to look at the tensioner though. Haha as for the connections at the dealer, I'd never been to them for service before, only occasional parts. I have to admit they've bent over backwards for me on this job as I only have to pay for the original headgasket work. The reason the head got replaced again is because the mechanic and I both thought the only logical explination was a bad head and sticking valves. So, that was warrenty work. The mechanic has been exceptionally helpfull, inviting me into the shop to help diagnose the problem is not something I would expect normally. The rest was all luck, for instance the wires I had put on were less then a year old and I had the recipt. Therefore that as well was warrentied.

Thanks for the diagrams, porcupine. Also thanks for the idea 91loyale, I'll get that checked tomorrow since the cars at the shop (I wasen't about to drive it home in this condition) Rooster, thats the problem, I really don't know what the issue is. By all means it should have spark. The way the coil pack is wired I'd be having issues on 1 and 3 as well if either of the coils were bad. We tried a new pack anyway along with new plugs and wires. The injectors were also swapped from the other side of the engine and nothing changed, which indicates the injectors are good, I will have to make sure the injectors themselves are getting the fuel though. I appreciate the input and will pull the plugs again tomorrow.

Heres one to scratch your heads over... First of all, the car is a '99 outback, ej25 dohc with 120,500 miles. Took it to the dealer for a head gasket job after finding black particles in the coolant, dealer confirmed the gaskets were blown. Drivers side head was warped out of spec, too far to mill, so it was replaced. The passenger side was milled down and put back on. Oddly, the block was almost perfect. The cylinder walls still have the hatch marks from when they were honed. Got the car back and it ran rough and missed on 2 and 4 (the new head). I tried new ngk plugs and oem wires. Still missed. Brought the car back and they tried a number of theories, ranging from the egr valve being stuck to fuel injectors failing. The mechanic swapped injectors from 1 and 3 and nothing changed. He also ran compression and leakdown tests. 190-195psi on all cylinders, as well as 90psi held for one minute each at TDC for the leakdown. At this point we both came to the conclusion that the new head was bad, it was replaced with yet another refurb from SOA. Same problem remains. Oddly, there is now positive pressure coming from the oil filler neck when the cap is off while running. The dealer also tried a known good coil pack for what its worth. The car never overheated before the headgasket job and all normal maintenance has been performed. If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate input here. The mechanic and I are both puzzled. Whats more interesting is, the 2 and 4 injectors can be unplugged one at a time with almost no change at all in idle. Same with the plug wires.