herm Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 What a great site glad i found it.. got a 2000 2.5 51000 miles on a outback bought two months ago..now a leak on the drivers side not a big one but 1/4 cup a week I called SOA and gave them the VIN# and it was treated with the STUFF last April(love a company that will do that) and is covered with the extended warrenty.So will the head job hold up?? Or should i sell it?? I love the way it drives it is a snow mobile... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 I would hold on to tha car, watch it, and since it is of record, enjoy the car. How long did they extened the warrenty for. nipper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cookie Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 30,000 miles and a couple of years. No furthur problem at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 thats a good deal then .. Subaru has faith in this stuff, and they gave you the ext warrenty to keep you as a customer. They dont give away things that wil cost themselves money easily. They must have faith that you will never need tthe warrenty. niiper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eseiler Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 This was my question exactly...but for the Phase I 2.5L engines. I heard that the latest-and-greatest 4-layer gasket basically deals with the problem. Can anyone offer some add'l info on that? Looks like a real epidemic for the Phase I 2.5s to me. I can understand why Subaru would want to stonewall and keep it hush-hush. I think I know what the unspeakable evil is now...at least from SOAs perspective. My hope is that by keeping an eye on the coolant and keeping the engine running cool the HG will hold in my Outback. My sneaking suspicion is that a lot of victims (who rarely look under the hood) were getting air sucked into the cooling system causing hotter-than-normal running leading to accelerated HG failure. No doubt this block design and gasket would be sensitive to heat. The old negative feedback loop...heat leads to HG failure....HG failure leads to overheating. Or maybe it was the other way around? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blitz Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 thats a good deal then .. Subaru has faith in this stuff, and they gave you the ext warrenty to keep you as a customer. They dont give away things that wil cost themselves money easily. They must have faith that you will never need tthe warrenty.I kinda wonder if mass exposure and bad publicity on forums like this & alt.autos.subaru hasn't had an impact. Add to that, the new independance from GM influence and possibly we have a company once again dedicated to long-term customer satisfaction rather than short-term profit margin & bad gambles. (fingers are crossed) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rweddy Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 Looks like a real epidemic for the Phase I 2.5s to me. I can understand why Subaru would want to stonewall and keep it hush-hush. I think I know what the unspeakable evil is now...at least from SOAs perspective. It is not the epidemic that you see from this board. I have several friends and family who have lots of miles, one with over 200k, on their original headgaskets. There are issues but it has lots to do with climate, maintance, luck :rolleyes:etc. But it is not just from Phase I btw, my father-in-laws 03 just had them replaced at 35k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 I have only seen two cars here with repeated failures, and that was because the motor was baked. I think its about 12-15% of the 2.5's are affected. my OBW i'm the second owner, its has 182K on it, and the original head gasket. The car was maintained like clockwork. Some things some cars are picky on, and i think with sooby its religously changing the antifreeze with sooby antifreeze and deminerilazed water, use Sooby timing belts, and on automatics with AWD regular tranny fluid changes. In all honesty considering these are large milage interval services, thats not really that bad. nipper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzam Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 Remember that the phase I is an internal high presure gasket leak, the phase II is an low presure external leak. The phase I gasket issue has the potential to cause more engine damage, and the phase II, if the sealer was installed by a dealer, has an extended 100k warranty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 true much easier to deal with a 14psi leak then a 15,000 psi leak (combustion pressure) nipper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skanky Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 I just had the HGs on my 98 RS replaced. Blew back in July (115,000 miles or something). I really like the car, but i almost wish i had just left it for dead. The dealership kind of screwed me over. They quoted me around $800 i think (drill the heads, replace all gaskets, water pump.....). They called me a week later and told me it would cost double the original price. They said "we didnt know it was the DOHC model". When i got the original estimate i got it in writing, it clearly says "DOHC" on it. I guess the estimate i had wasnt exactly an official one because of the nature of the repair or something, (they did say originally it might vary substatially). Eventually they did convince me they were right. I asked if i could have my car back, but appharently they had already taken out the engine. They said i would have to atleast be billed for that, because it took so long (i guess i could understand this). I caved in and told them to continue with the head gasket replacment. 2 weeks later, when i got the car back all was not well. After driving for a day or so, smoke started to billow out from underneath the car. I first thought they didnt hook up the exhaust pipes right or something. After looking more closely i could see a steady stream of oil dripping out onto the pipes. I took it back the next day. AFter a week or so, they called me and told me it was a defective gasket. Thankfully they honored the warranty, and i didnt have to pay a cent. However this was not the end.....To make a long story short: i ended up taking my car back a total of 6 times before i gave up. They never fixed the oil leak. It dosnt leak as bad as it did before. I just have to top it off every week or so. All in all, i was pretty happy with the dealership. They were very friendly and even let me drive around a red Kia for the 2 months my car was out of commision (found an old 2pac cassette in the glove box). I am just a little unhappy that they couldnt fix the oil leak. It definatly wasnt there before. If this thing blows another head gasket im gonna push it into the lake and say someone stole it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnuman Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 Skanky, your experiences are a great segway into my comment that with HG repairs, your experince will vary according to the competance of the shop doing the work. Any shop that takes 6 tries to fix a headgasket (and still not fix it all the way) is a shop that I would stay far away from with my car. From your description, I would guess that they either nicked the valve cover gaskets, used old baked ones, or did not install the new ones correctly. That is most likely where the oil is coming from. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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