Head gasket problems which years?

[pinkhorse]

As the very happy owner of a 1994 Legacy with 211K I know that I'll be driving this car for several years more. However, just in case...I've been thinking about a potential replacement. I've recently heard about the early demise of many a Subaru engine and my mechanic told me today (don't worry, it was only an oil change) that it was a head gasket problem.

 

My web searching has not come up with further information about what years and models in which this was a problem. It seems obvious that Subaru recognized it and (hopefully) fixed it. Anyone have any word on this?

 

Many thanks.

[outback_97]

Lots of information here:

http://users.sisna.com/ignatius/subaru/headgasket.html

 

Steve

[nipper]

As the very happy owner of a 1994 Legacy with 211K I know that I'll be driving this car for several years more. However, just in case...I've been thinking about a potential replacement. I've recently heard about the early demise of many a Subaru engine

 

Odd, i consider the early demise of a an engine as throwing a rod or spinning a bearing.

 

Right now alot of the headgasket issues IMHO are moot. A lot of these engines are getting over 100k on the clock, and either have been repaired, or like any engine with over 100K on it, have an increasing risk of things going wrong on them. I would personaly by a subaru engine with over 100K on it as opposed to any other car manufacturers 4 cyl with 100K on it. Also part of the plan is what cost and risk are you willing to risk when buying a used car. Ask the owner if its had work done on it. As time has gone on, less and less people are having head gasket issues, because most of them have been fixed.

Also it's not like it was 100%, but from one thread here it was estimated at about 12-15 % (no im not going to go through the 100's of threads here to find it).

If your car was to blow a headgasket tomorrow, would you blame the poor engine design? i dont thnk so.

Demise of the engine hints that the engine turns into junk once over heated. Some do, some don't. Usually when they do its because the car has overheated many times (gee my car has been doing this for a few weeks ...).

Overheating an aluminum engine will quickly turn it into scrap if its done repeatedly.

Unless one is buying a new car, one realy does not know how well the car was maintained, so you always asssume a risk.

Personally the head gasket issue never figured into my purchase of my OBW. I wanted the more powerful engine. I did budget for it just in case something did go wrong, and so far nothing has.

I have always worked off the theory on buying a used car, the lower the purchase price, the more likly i would have to put 50% more back into the car in the first year. Since i never pay more then 4000 for a car, it has sort of held to the low side of that esitmate. So far i am into the car for tires, and crossing my fingers on the torque bind issue.

In fact i cant think of a single car out on the market today that i would cheerfully buy that at 180K other then a subaru.

 

nipper

[Snowman]

Basically, avoid the Gen I EJ25 engine, which was offered from 97-99.

 

Although I agree that HG failure isn't generally considered the demise of an engine, unless you are repairing it yourself, the bill would be quite substantial. On an older car, many people would consider getting rid of the vehicle rather than fixing it if that happened.

 

I would also agree that by "normal" standards, an engine lasting 100k is pretty good. By subaru standards, that's just getting broken in....I would bet money that a large portion of the early EJ22 cars on the road today will still be running around (with their original engines) when a large portion of the phase I EJ25 cars are sitting in junkyards.