February 4, 201412 yr I have a 2005 stock legacy. The dealership quoted me damn near 1000 dollars to fix my heater core. Unfortunately I can't afford that. It has yet to cause any major problem, temp gauge has been normal, the only thing that's been happening is my window fogs up when the car is off, and when the heater is on it smells like something's burning. I am a 21 year old woman and not terribly familiar with subarus yet, as it's my first, but I need help. Does anyone in the Pacific Northwest (Portland metro area) know of anyone who could fix it for cheaper than a grand?
February 5, 201412 yr The repair costs so much because the entire dash has to be removed to get to the heater core. Not a fix but you could disconnect the 2 hoses at the firewall, engine side, and splice them together. You end up with no leak and also no heater. A SMALL amount of some quality radiator stop leak could plug the leak. By small I mean 1/2 of whatever is recommended. Too much is a bad thing.
February 5, 201412 yr Beer Garage shows the sequence for a replacing a heater core on a '96 Legacy (two gens before yours) but if you look at all the pictures there, you get a sense of all the steps required to get at the heater core. It really is in the center of the dash and the everything there is built around it. As john said...the entire dash has to be dismantled to access, and that takes a lot of time. With whatever shop rate that place has ($100/hr or thereabouts) it doesn't take long to get to $1,000. I found an extensive discussion about the heater cores for your gen here http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/manual-heat-ac-no-heat-passenger-side-bad-heater-corei-129814.html Lots of talk about flushing the heater core (forward and backward). Might be worth a look.
February 5, 201412 yr Takes me about 2.5 hours But 1rst change cabin air filter mabee its gross a heater core will have a sweet sugary smell to it and fog up window when driving or drip on floor also check that the air door is on fresh air not recyle air setting this can cause fog up good luck
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