Bought a 2009 Impreza with 109k miles with engine problems. Owner said it was blowing cloud of exhaust out of the tail pipe. Had my Subaru Tech friend stop by. He didn't see any evidence of head gasket failure or bearing failure. I pulled the engine, did a leak down test and all the cylinders had less than 5% leak. However cylinder #1 has oil residue on the exhaust valves. He thinking its a ringland failure on the #1 cylinder. He is coming back in a couple of days, redo the leak down test and probably pull the #1 piston. I was wondering if anyone had experienced ringland failure. 

Edited September 7, 20196 yr by steve56

I had one in my daughter in law's 09 2.5 at less than 100K miles.

But, that car head a dead number four.  It was literally running on three cylinders.

 

John