dDigitalPimp

a friend is looking to buy a 97 legacy l (2.2) wagon w/ 108k miles on it. was wondering if anyone had anything good/bad to say about the car. just trying to see if there are any major mechanical issues common to that year car. what im looking for is problems like the head gasket issue with my last car a 99 2.5 legacy wagon. thanks in advance for any help.

valves it is. service guy said $1000 to do the job. ok so now i have a few questions about this if anyone can answer. i had my HGs done less than a year ago and less than 30K miles ago. should the valves have been done at the time of the gaskets? and if they were done is there any way they should have gone bad so fast? im thinking either they were not done or if they were the heads are warped because how could they have gone bad so fast. need your help guys because my parents and i are going to speak with the owner of the dealership tomorrow and i need to know these answers. here is a list of the parts used for the head gasket job: gskt cylind (2) gskt rocker (1) cover cp va (1) gskt rocker (4) wash rocker (12) oilseal-32x (4) gskt intake (2) oil seal (1) gasket (1) gasket (2) bolt (2) spring (2) lock nut (2) sealing bel (1) coolant (1) thanks for the help in advance again everyone.

well the car is at the dealer now and i printed Adnan's reply to show them what seems to be the problem because that is exacly what is happening with it. they seem to be really nice about everything. my parents are personal friends with the owner and the service manager who promised us that their best mechanic will be looking at the car first thing tomorrow. as to wether or not the car was beat before i got it i know for a fact it was not. the previous owner who had the car from when it was new til 48k miles took great care of it. she drove it from her house to work(3 miles) for 4 years and it was kept in a garage the whole time. all regular servieces (oil changes and the like) were done at the dealer before i owned it. i have been doing the oil at or before 3k as well as breaks and rotors and air and gas filter (one time) myself. it appears to be that i just got stuck with the bad 2.5 engine when they were using a less than optimal head gasket. the sad thing is i really really love this car. i love everything about it and it seems to be that i only realize this fact when i drive another vehicle. for instance now i have my mom's ford escape. it drives like a tank, the seat is so soft i sink in about a foot when i sit in it (i miss my nice hard formed seat). my first car was a ford explorer and i used to like that as well but there is no comparison. i love the gas mileage esp. now with the prices and i really like the awd... my subie runs circles around the 4wd my explorer had. well all i can do is cross my fingers but the realization is that the job will not be cheap esp. at a dealer. if anyone is actually intereseted i will post the conclusion to my saga when i find out what happens.

i think the forester in the first group of pictures looks good as does JEGIII's but that blue outback in the first group of pictures just looks weird for some reason. something about the wheel wells having that light trim around them makes them look cartoonish.

thanks for all the helpful info. i do not believe it to be a head gasket issue because the temp gauge never moves past halfway between the c and the h. looks like its gonna be a pretty expensive repair if i decide to have the valve guides / oil rings fixed, like i said before i am not able to do this work on the car myself. at least now i have some kind of idea on what may be the cause of my headaches with this car.

ok let me give you the details and the backround first: 99 legacy 2.5 gt, 91k miles, HGs replaced @ 66k half a bottle of bar's leak "coolant conditioner" in the antifreeze about two weeks ago my CEL came on and around the same time my car started getting rather sluggish meaning i would have to push it extra hard to get it to maintain decent speed up hills on my daily commute to and from work. called my local dealer to make an appt. to have the code read and see what can be done. this happened on a tuesday and they told me to drop the car off thursday night to be looked at on friday. i noticed during those two days that after climbing a hill once i started going back down if i stepped on the gas a puff of smoke would come out of the tailpipe. my car was also consuming more and more oil about a month prior to all this happening. i used to put a quart in maybe 2/3rds of the way to my oil change but i was needing about a quart every two weeks. well i explained all of this to the dealer when i dropped it off and the next day i got a call that the CEL was for a clogged cat. converter. that would explain the sluggishness anyway and i figured that maybe because the engine was having to work harder that is what caused the oil to burn off or something. i then explained to the dealer that i was afraid that the head gaskets were going bad again and i asked him to do a compression test along with replacing the catalytic converter. he called back the next day and told me that the cat. was done, the compression test passed and that the engine oil looked clean and it was at the proper level, he was basiclly telling me that he didnt believe my car was smoking or there was anything wrong with the engine or gaskets. i picked up the car and everything was fine for about a week and a half. car accelerated much easier and all the rattling from the heat sheilds was gone(thank god, sounded aweful). two days ago on my way to work i noticed the smell of what i would think was burning oil and then a few minutes later i saw the first puff of smoke out of the tailpipe again. since then after the car has been running for about 20 min it will randomly spit out a good sized puff of smoke when i step on the gas. not all the time but just sometimes. so here is my question(s) what do i tell the dealer to start to look at as a possible cause? let me say first that i am not to sure there was a compression test done, i got the impression that i was blown off when i asked for it to be done. if the compression test was done and passed what could be the reason for my car to be burning oil? would they keep a record of the compression test for my car or now that its almost two weeks later am i screwed with that. i was telling my story to a guy i work with who builds/races racecars and he tells me that the bar's leak could be turning my oil to sludge but the coolant system and the oil system have nothing to do with one another do they?(im not by any means mechaniclly inclined). could it be that my poor little 4cyl engine is just tired from running 60miles a day up and down hills on the way to work, i am somewhat loosing faith in the subaru name i thought i should be trusting when i purchased this car from the dealer used with only 40k miles on it. please anyone offer your suggestions on what i should tell/ask the dealer today when i drop it off again. thanks for the help in advance.

before i got into doing simple fixes and oil changes myself (before my subie as well) i had an explorer i used to take to jiffy lube for oil changes. aside from the fight i had to put up every 3k miles with them not to change my filters (air and fuel) and all the fluids a car has they were also charging nearly $40 an oil change. at the time i had no idea how much a oil change could be done for. well the day after i had my oil changed at jl, my last oil change by anyone besides myself, i was about an hour from home when i noticed the check oil light come on. i pulled over at a gas station and the oil level was not showing up on the dipstick. i figured maybe they forgot a quart or something so i got one and began to feed it to the engine. there was a noise like dripping water under the car so i looked under and bingo.... no oil pan plug and the oil was dumping right out onto the ground. their rocket scientist techs there prolly hand screwed the plug in and forgot to use a wrench to finish it. had to leave the car overnight and when i called jl the next day i had to almost beg them to give me 5qts of oil and a drain plug to go back and fix my car.

what frag said happens to my '99 rusted POS legacy wagon all the time. its goin back in the shop today after CEL came on and started burning oil and smoking quite bad this morning. only have 90k on it had HG's done once and im sure thats what the problem is again. yup its the aweful 2.5 engine as well. sorry just venting.

yesterday i was driving home from work and at a red light the rpms dropped from like just under a grand to almost 0 and the jumped up quick to like almost 2K. the CEL came on but the car temp stayed right where it always is and it didnt seem to drive any different. after about a 30 min commute i got home and thought about what could be wrong so i checked the air filter and it was filthy. i bought a new one and drove up and back to work today with no issue. car seemed to accelerate a decent bit quicker and i have a feeling that the filter is what caused the car to puke for a min. how can i reset the CEL to see if it i fixed the problem. while at work today i had the neg. batt terminal off for about 9 hrs and that didnt do the trick. any advice?

would i need to go to subaru to get the block test done or can somewhere else do it besides the dealer?

i have a 99 legeacy wagon 2.5 which had its head gasket redone around 60k. im now a little under 90k(so 30k on the new gasket). i added a half a bottle of coolant conditioner right after the gasket was redone(about a year ago). on the bottle it says to add a half bottle (for 4 cyl.) once a year to ensure protection. so the other day i added the other half of the bottle to the coolant and recently took a trip about 180 miles away and on the way back i noticed a few times for about a min. only the car smelled like it was burning oil and then it would go away. i talked to a guy at work today who knows his stuff(i really dont) and he said that coolant conditioner can cause your oil to turn to sludge and then start to burn off. so today i called a local garage to talk about flushing/draining and filling the coolant. i told him of why i had the coolant conditioner in the car in the first place and he said that if he flushes the coolant and i have a bad or weak head gasket that it will go right after the coolant flush. so what im asking is for your skilled opinions on what i should do with my coolant issue. flush or just drain and fill?? i am taking the car to the garage in about 4hrs. any help would be great. ooh and btw, if i have them just drain and fill the coolant will that drain only whats in the radiator or will it get the engine block coolant as well??? like i said i dont really know cars much past changing my oil and other simple fixes.

did you maybe knock a weight off... threw a wheel out of balance? just a thought.

when i got my head gaskets replaced the dealer told me that it was normal for it to smell for a few days. not sure why but it did, then it went away by the weeks end.

4.7??? the book w/ the car says 4 qts. im confused. should i add half a quart?? btw i went with castrol blend 10w30 it was on sale for $2.50 a qt.

i think the last 5w30 i was using was max life. i called my local subaru dealer and the guy i spoke with in the service dept. said that they use 10w30 snythetic blend on all subies there and change at 3k. he didnt really give me a brand name on the oil tho. i priced some synthetic blend brands online compared to straight synthetic and the blends tend to be right around $3 a quart while the synthetics can be up to $5. my friend gets a mad discount at advance auto so hopefully i can buy a case a lil cheaper than $3 a quart. i guess ill give the blend a try. so which brand is the best??? ha ha.