MTJack

Just bought a 2001 Outback. 107000 miles, very nice condition, looks to have been babied its whole life. Probably overpaid at $7000, but dealer went through engine, new head gaskets, timing belt, plugs, etc. New tires, all fluids changed. Looks and drives like a new car. I've been reading about the EJ251 motors in these cars, and the problems with the leaking head gaskets. This seems to be the most prevalent problem, and even if the new ones fail in a year or 2, it doesn't look to be all that difficult to replace them. Certainly easier than my Mom's '06 Cadillac with the Northstar engine. As with any new (to me) car, there is always the worry about what might go wrong, and how much it'll cost to fix it. But these Subaru's seem to be very well engineered and built, so I'm going to hope for 8-10 years and another 100,000 miles out of this little guy. Does this seem realistic, or am I dreaming? Of course, all routine maintenance will be done, and I tend to drive like an old Gramma, so there won't be many hard miles.

Just bought a 2001 Outback. 107000 miles, very nice condition, looks to have been babied its whole life. Probably overpaid at $7000, but dealer went through engine, new head gaskets, timing belt, plugs, etc. New tires, all fluids changed. Looks and drives like a new car. I've been reading about the EJ251 motors in these cars, and the problems with the leaking head gaskets. This seems to be the most prevalent problem, and even if the new ones fail in a year or 2, it doesn't look to be all that difficult to replace them. Certainly easier than my Mom's '06 Cadillac with the Northstar engine. As with any new (to me) car, there is always the worry about what might go wrong, and how much it'll cost to fix it. But these Subaru's seem to be very well engineered and built, so I'm going to hope for 8-10 years and another 100,000 miles out of this little guy. Does this seem realistic, or am I dreaming? Of course, all routine maintenance will be done, and I tend to drive like an old Gramma, so there won't be many hard miles.

Just bought a 2001 Outback. Probably overpaid at 7000 but 1 owner car, fairly low miles and clean as can be. Looks to be amazingly easy to work on, which counts for a lot. I've been reading about head gasket problems with these motors - how much truth to this? Even so, doesn't look to be too difficult to replace if they do go bad. Hoping for reliability above all. I have the Carfax report on it - no problems reported. How much can this be trusted? FYI, the newest car I ever owned before was a 77 TransAm.