idosubaru

Good feedback. Unfortunately there’s no way to tell what caused it without definitive tangible evidence. Oil leaks are a predominant and ubiquitous cause of lower end failure exactly like you’re seeing. Oil gets low, then the oil overheats, degrades, localized overheating comprises the bearing surfaces, which take awhile to actually fail. Like days weeks or months depending how bad the initial damage was. So you’d need quantitative proof they caused this. Not just guesses. The easiest way it’s their fault is if the sump is bent or it was low on oil. But if they already drained the oil there’s no way to verify how much came out. So the sump is the item to inspect. But that requires pulling or cutting the pan off to look at. How do you know the mileage was tampered with? If you’ve been “chasing oil leaks” either this car may have been in rough shape with many leaks or the shop didn’t do a great job of diagnosing what was causing the leaks to begin with.

How long have you owned this car? If it’s a recent purchase number 2 is more likely. It sounds like you’re chasing oil leaks. “cam seal replaced”….not long after….”oil pan seal replaced”. This makes number 2 sound likely. Other than that missing info: 1. The pan doesn’t easily drop out like it looks like. It looks like it does but the sump won’t clear the pan baffles so the engine needs lifted. So if they’re used to some other easy cars/truck manufacturers that just unbolt and come off they could have wrestled the pan and damaged the sump. Pull the pan and check the sump. If it’s damaged then they wrestled it off. Given it a Midas that sees all makes and models it would be very easy to look at a Subaru and think it’s easy and try to rip the pan off and damage the sump. 2. If the cam seal, pan (and maybe other items) were leaking then it could have previously been run very low on oil which frequently comprises the lower end bearings. 3. They forgot to add oil. How much came out when they drained it?

If I had to do this I’d look into cutting the metal pipes or core access area and to avoid pulling the dash If it was a rust bucket good for two years or less I’d consider a bottle of subarus coolant conditioner but maybe a bad option if the engine heating/cooling are suspect. Maybe to help someone limp it to summer. Yes I know you said no diagnosis and this will irritate you, and yet this probably isn’t the heater core.

Right on beast, good luck and hope you have a garage to do this in, it was 4 degrees at my house!

Ask for one for a 1992 legacy or 1994 impreza - those shouldn't have any additional gaskets to confuse someone reading a computer screen. And all 1990-1998 legacy/impreza 2.2 and 1.8 valve cover gaskets are the same. The guy doesn't know anything about Subarus and is just clicking a screen and reading it to you. There's only one gasket it can be, this one, which as you can see is listed for all 1990-1998 ej22 and ej18: https://www.subaruparts.com/oem-parts/subaru-valve-cover-gasket-13294aa012

FWD auto, 4WD Auto, 4WD manual available here. Some of them from there were part of subaruxt forums so I know of them from there. Have you ever seen one in person or know any of the owners? I get Aus and NZ owners confused but I think Dima was in NZ. I shipped him some parts 20 years ago. Lol

OEM converters are worth hundreds, aftermarket $25 on a good day, happy scrapper, if he rounds up. If aftermarket converters had more value in them the market would find a way to extract it and entice people to sell them. This isn't just twice as much...no way they're comparable when there are orders of magnitude difference in value to scrap yards. More anecdotally you'll see it on forums - aftermarket converters throwing codes, being problematic. I've bought cheap aftermarket exhaust and it'll be rusty in a year. Which is fine for a car not long for this world anyway. But they're not going to use cheap materials everywhere else and top shelf precious metals for the catalysts.

Nah, it's a FWD.

Ignore shifting clunking (for now and probably for a long time). Bushings or delayed engagement which are both usually benign with no risk of breaking down yes the cooling system needs to not leak. aftermarket radiators Subaru hoses like GD said what made this car go to pasture for 2 years and not get used?

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/prestone-all-vehicles-50-50-antifreeze-coolant-gallon-af2100/7020013-P?navigationPath=L1*14922|L2*15020|L3*15924 Ask the auto parts store. It’s the half a century old ubiquitous generic green coolant available anywhere. Prestone or other brands. but the full strength snd mix yourself 50/50 with distilled water. If you don’t have an owners manual get one - it lists all the fluids and weights. Old radiators fail, I’m not a shop/mechanic and I’ve lost count of how many radiators I’ve replaced. The area you mentioned is a frequent fail point. When it cracked is immaterial, it was bent, sat for years and old. Install a new one.

Oh right on. I know you get it. I was thinking about the op, didn’t want op to think the shop is completely off base or dishonest.

It’s worth whatever someone will pay. I chose my words appropriately and didn’t condemn the price. 99% of buyers won’t pay that. That’s the price of a near perfect 4WD low mileage one. But the 99% doesn’t matter. Seller is probably flipping it and clearly looking for those 1% of buyers with cash to burn. given the microbe sized market for XT6s that could take 10 years or 10 minutes. That’s how selling anything goes. Higher prices above average take longer average time to sell. like someone sitting on property hoping a large commercial development company buys it for well over nominal price. It happens, but not often, and most people who want it don’t get it.

That’s a brutal ride, every bump makes you cringe! FWD so no air suspension and makes the price more unattractive than it is.

It's las vegas...I guess we should expect excess. lol I agree. At the same time, many shops have to have simple one size fits all solutions that are easily repeatable for the dozens of different vehicles/years/makes/models they see monthly. Imagine doing this for every quote, phone call or question on 50 different engines in a month. One size fits all solutions are typically wasteful but they are common place in almost of business. Lots of shops do this, or use aftermarket parts, or don't replace the ideal parts (just the t belt or belt and pump, etc) That's the norm. The surprise isn't those - but the shop that can dial it in for platform specific service on each engine type. That's where manufacturer specific service can be helpful. I agree with you but I don't necessarily call them evil or cheats. Their business (and maybe reputation) is apparently good enough, or Las Vegas crazy enough, the market allows them to do it.

EA82s were not commonly blowing at 16,000 miles under warranty, receiving headgasket TSBs, and extended head gasket only warranties. TSB/warranties were on later EJ25s. but those are “better” and still needed legal help, TSBs,band extended warranties. The sentiment that EA82s were bad is largely a function of age or a small, skewed (more EJ25s than EA) sample size. They were already old when forums started. They were never high value cars in most areas of the US, which typically means reduced care and maintenance. Few people commenting between EA82s and EJ25s were *equally exposed* to the large number of both engines new, zero miles, under warranty. You don’t need to be but most people see best that way. Im not even against EJ25Ds. Just know what you’re getting into snd do jt right. Get a good one install new headgaskets snd resurface and they’re a reassemble engine. Just a few more issues, less forgiving, and labor intensive than others.