I just picked up a 96 outback today for 1000.00. It is in good shape and I have to ask for your opinions as to what might be wrong with it.

 

The owner said that it would lose coolant austensibly from the resevior bottle. I automatically assumed the headgaskets were bad and decided to take the car and fix it up for a friends daughter. He explained that he would drive the car 47 miles each way to and from work each day and have to top off the coolant. He said that the car never ever overheated and he decided to park the car as he was tired of paying for coolant.

 

With that information, I decided to drive the car the 75 or so miles home from his house to mine. The car never waivered from midpoint on the guage and I had heat all the way home. Once I got home I checked the bottle and the level was not even up to the top, but the radiator was low on coolant. Also, when I removed the cap there was no built up pressure.

 

Now I am questioning if the headgaskets are bad, but I', not sure what to do from here. I will pressure test the system, but I wanted your opinions as to what to focus on to solve the loss of coolant problem. I'm wondering if this could be a simple problem or am I looking at bad HG's just letting me get home? Could this be just a bad water pump or a slow leak in a hose?

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks to all of you experts.

That's not typical bad head gasket behavior. If I was doing it, I would pressure test for external, leaks. If none found I would assume it's burning coolant. At that point, I would yank the whole thing and put a 2.2 in it and be done with it. I'm sure some would think that's drastic, but it's a cheap easy reliable solution. A couple hundred bucks and a few hours work and you are done.

It may be a 2.2 already if it is a manual trans.

 

At any rate, sounds like a headgasket leak that hasn't gotten way bad yet.

There has to be more than just two opinions. I know you guys too well.

So here's a bump.

No pressure when the radiator cap was removed suggests the system either has a hole somewhere or the cap is junk. No pressure means the coolant will boil at a lower temperature. I'd replace the cap first.

if it is a hg leak, it must be pushing coolant out into the over flow and eventually,. once the 'air bubble' gets big enough, NOT sucking it all back in. try running it with no coolant in the overflow and see if you get some. not very scientific but logical.

 

or drive it on the hiway, get it up to temp, and then let it idle in the drive way. my rad cap was bad and only leaked at temp. this is how i found it.

 

if you have a leak, it may not show up untill it's warmed up and you can't see it at 60 mph. as the car cools off it willleak less?

 

will a pressure test check the cap?

 

i take it there's no gook in the over flow, or smell like exhaust gas.

Could be a bad WP gasket. Thats whats going on with mine... a small leak on the WP gasket....loses a little coolant ...radiator a little low...overflow not filling up.

I'm going to pressure test the system today. I'll let you guys know what I find. I'm hoping it's a simple problem rather than a HG. I can do a HG in about 5 hours, but I'm getting tired now and if this wasn't for a friend I'd be resting from any car work for a few months. Alas, the extra money never hurts.