I'm looking at a 1996 Outback in a few hours and It had the headgasket and valve cover gaskets replaced a year ago, supposedly by a Suburu mechanic after hours. It is the identical car as mine pretty much 96 vs 97 but I'm worried about the damage that might have been done by a headgasket blowing or shoddy repair. It has 155,000 on it and its an auto 2.5 . Also how to you check for the torque bind problem? Any help would be appreciated!!

If it was a shoddy repair, it would have gone poof already.

 

I would be more concerned about torque bind then a head gasket at this point.

 

 

 

 

nipper

PS .

 

Make sure all the tires match

Drive the car in a tight circle. With an auto on level ground it should be able to do it with no throttle or very little throttle. It should do it in a smooth motion.

 

Check the condition of the tranny fluid.

 

nipper

torque bind - drive around in tight figure eights. If it shudders it may be torque bind.

If the car was repair it 'may' be OK. It may also have been damaged prior to the repair. My repair 2.5l developed rod knock 25K miles after the HG repair.

 

I wouldn't bother with one of these, but that is just me.

Well i bought the car. it had 155,000 miles on it. tranny was fine. headgasket and numerous other gaskets and seals were replaced 7,000 miles ago, by subaru mechanic, showed me all the receipts. engine wasn't perfectly clean but dry as a bone everywhere. oil, tranny fluid and coolant looked fine. told him 3000 was highest I'd go and he accepted it. he was asking 4100 a month ago, went down to 3600 last week and I felt it was worth 3000. body was in good shape, no rust, no dents. looks identical to my other outback, cept its not all beat up. time to sell my old one i guess:(

Sounds like you done good! Pictures! We need pictures!

Well i won't pick it up till Monday or Tuesday, but i'll post pics then. After seeing Nippers good looking "Blue", I didn't want to install my new A.A. lift kit on a beater. So I bought an identical better looking "Green" Outback more worthy of the transformation into my offroad warrior. I have the lift kit, struts, and skid plate, now if I could just find a deal on the scorpion springs...... Oh and a off road front bumper!