Hello, I recently bought a 98 outback and it overheated at about 89k miles. the dealership has the car right now and claims that because of a crack in one of the head gaskets, repairs will cost about 4600 dollars, which is twice what i paid for the car.

 

Part of me wants to cut my losses and go find a new car but part of me wants to pay for the repairs, and try selling it in Denver, where subarus are priced much higher(from what ive seen)

 

My questions are:

 

is 98 a lemon year for the 2.5 outbacks?

 

Will the fixed head gaskets solve the problem or are there other things to worry about on these models?

 

should i consider selling it before it hits 100k miles for a higher price, or should i commit to the car and enjoy the ride?

 

 

I am pretty broke and will need to borrow money for these costs regardless, so if the 98's have other problems besides this I will consider selling it sooner.

 

Thank you in advance for any advice on what to do!

Borrowing money to pay $4600 for a '98 for head gasket replacement to then try to flip it in Denver I think is a bad idea for a number of reasons.

 

If you need a vehicle but are low on funds possibly look around for another shop or option to repair. HG's normally you can get for maybe $1000 though if you're in a big city (Chicago) that might be more. It has to be a place that knows what to do like resurfacing the heads, using the proper head gasket etc., else they may fail again soon. If the rest of the vehicle is good and the repair is done right you will normally end up with a generally reliable vehicle (considering it's approaching 20 years old.) If you get the HG's done to keep the car you might as well get a timing belt kit put on while that work is being done since a lot  of the labor would overlap.

 

It's not so much that '98 was a lemon year, it's just unfortunately the 2.5L engines had a crappy head gasket.

$4600 for a headgasket job is ridiculous. Even though the ej25D (which is the motor you have) is notorious for head gasket failure, I don't think your problem is the head gasket.

 

I suggest you have another shop check it out

With the head gasket they are also doing the timing belt, thermostat, etc. It is alot of money but i figure i can spend 4500 on another car and run into more problems with it.  

Well it would be smart to do the timing belt etc if doing the head gaskets. Price seems really high. They might be quoting by adding together HG labor plus timing belt labor which is a rip off. Timing belt basically adds only parts cost since they have to take the old belt off to do the HG's anyway. If you get it done make sure they replace the timing idlers too, especially the geared/toothed one - those are prone to fail. Valve clearance should also be done.

+1 to what porcupine73 said. Also make sure they are using OEM only head gaskets and water pump, and thermostat. Even with that taken into consideration the price is way to high.

Edited January 28, 201610 yr by mikaleda

Before you get that work done if you're willing to pay that much you might want to just get a quote from ccr engines. You'd still have to get it installed but if paying that much the ccr engine would be far more trustworthy in my opinion than potential unknowns in having a shop do it. Another option is a 2.2L swap.

Subaru's are not priced that much higher in Denver where you would get even 1/2 of your money back with the quoted price on the repairs that you have.