there is a 03 subie for sale, with a head gasket leaking oil at 85,000 miles, (EJ 25) the owner is asking $3K for it, would it be worth or less?? its been keyed and fog light knocked out. also sounds like the starter may be going out on it when starting , real rough screeching when starting.

 advice?

If you can determine what all the problems are and if they can be fixed with a little bit of money, it doesn't sound like a bad deal.  There are probably better deals out there without having to fix as much stuff though.

$3,000 is a decent price for areas where Subaru's are abundant, sell quick, and worth a lot.  there are car buyers with fat wallets planning on spending their tax return. in general $3,000 is a substantial amount for an older impreza with a headgasket leak....but "headgasket" leak is such a general term it's almost impossible to say on that particular motor because of how slow they start leaking and progressively get worse.  where is this one on that time line?

 

case 1:  when this era EJ25 first starts leaking it's some wetness on the block that attracts dirt and will run for another 50,000 or 100,000 miles before it gets really bad, sometimes they take a long time to get worse and leak/drip any significant amount.  if that's the case it's not a bad deal and should be a great candidate for another reliable and inexpensive 150,000 miles, that's well worth $3,000 and some minor repairs for many people.

 

case  2:  if the headgasket has already been replaced 3 times and it's pouring oil on the ground and the motors been low on oil and has a risk of loosing the bottom end soon...it's a terrible deal.

 

obviously it falls somewhere in between but we can't guess where that is.