I know the Subarus with the H6 are often recommended here because they go a long way without head gasket issues.  Looking at a 2005 Outback with the H6, is it typical for the head gaskets to have little seeps at 105-110K miles? Would that be a concern?  Could I still expect to go to/near 200K without needing head gasket replacement?  Here are a couple photos.  These were first noted on service papers about 5K ago, and may have been around much longer, so not much movement of the seeps.

Edited July 29, 20196 yr by Lightning Racer

Gut opinions welcome too.  I know no one can guarantee anything.  The car is a second car (or third car if they keep the old Grand Caravan) for my parents, who are 81/79 and don't drive that much.  This would be going maybe 3000 miles a year.  They probably won't put in more than 50K miles on it in the rest of their driving lives.

My opinion as a non-mechanic is that it doesn't look bad.  If we had been long time owners, I'd say, just drive it until it becomes an issue, and then decide.  But we just picked up the car this week, and I'm trying to decide if it's going to be a problem more near term than far.  If it's not likely to be a problem for years (at 3K per year) or ever (meaning 50K+ additional miles to eventually 160-170K total in our case), we're going to go ahead and do things like replace the struts, front lower control arms, valve cover gaskets, power steering pump leak, etc.

Informed opinions also wanted of course, such as do H6 head gasket failures first exhibit as external leaks or internal?

 

Edited July 29, 20196 yr by Lightning Racer

That's benign for almost any driver.  That engine gets worse very, very slowly over a long period of time and those external oil leaks are no indication of future issues. 

They show signs of wetness like you have now......and in 5 year or 10,000 miles the bottom of the heads might get wet and in 50,000 miles maybe it'll start dripping 3 times per week...I'm just making up numbers, but that's how they progress in general.  You've got all the time in the world to just take a peak every time you change the oil and see how it's doing. 

Replace both serpentine pulley bearings - they're $10 for good bearings, take 30-60 minutes to replace both of them, and they fail all the time, by a looong shot the most problematic failure and stranding event on H6 engines. 

Edited July 29, 20196 yr by idosubaru

Thanks.  Sounds like this car will work for my parents then, and I'll get it fixed up for them.  I'll add the serpentine pulley bearings to the to-do list

Edited July 29, 20196 yr by Lightning Racer

yeah those look fine.

Nothing to worry about.

Just use the coolant conditioner.

On an '03 H6 I had a seep like that the conditioner mostly controlled and drove it for almost 200k after seeing the seep.

H6s rarely fail externally. So you'll want to give it a good hard drive (A/C on, freeway speeds, up hill) and see if it gets hot.

I don't even inspect for an external leak, and that wouldn't give me the slightest pause if I were buying it.

My 2.5i head seeps too and looks way worse than this. I monitored it for the past 3 years and came to the conclusion the engine makes per 10k km 1 L oil disappear (leak or burn). I see this as a non-issue. Maybe just monitor the usage of oil.