Warped Heads?

[duckamuk]

Greetings, looking for some advice -

I have a 2007 Outback Wagon Basic with 175K miles. (yeah, I do a lot of driving).

Today I brought my Outback to Subaru service to have a recall attended to and have an airbag light diagnosed. Since it was already there I decided to have the coolant replaced.

The service tech came out and told me that he was having trouble purging all the air from the radiator, and suspected that the heads were warped. They wanted to send the heads out to a machine shop to be corrected, so the quote for a head gasket job was around $2200, including other 'while we're in there' jobs like water pump, timing belt, etc.

I stopped by another shop I use to get a second opinion. He's my normal mechanic, formerly of the same Subaru dealer but opened his own shop a few years ago. When I told him what Subaru found, he said not to bother with the job. He said that repairing the top end would result in a change of the compression and quite probably blow out the bottom end in a few months. He recommended trying to get a used motor with 50-60K miles instead.

I know this needs to be fixed, but how safe is it to drive? Subaru seemed more concerned of the air in the cooling system, fearing that it could throw off the thermostat and overheat. I just came back from a long weekend trip to Virginia from PA and noticed no problems.

I love the car, and still have a few payments left to make on it. However I'm hesitant on dropping this kind of cash on a vehicle with this many miles. If I keep it, is the replacement motor the way to go? I'm leaning more towards trading it in, as I'm afraid of this becoming a money pit.

Thank you for any input you have to offer!

[jbwood5]

Are you loosing coolant? I don't know how they came to that diagnoses, but it sounds like speculation. If you are driving it now, not loosing coolant, and not overheating, you are probably OK. Just make sure you really did get new coolant in there. You still have 25,000 miles left before the 2nd belt change out and assuming the first belt replacement included all replacement pulleys and tensioner, you should be fine.

[frankspinz]

Originally Posted by duckamuk

... Since it was already there I decided to have the coolant replaced.

The service tech came out and told me that he was having trouble purging all the air from the radiator, and suspected that the heads were warped....

Sounds like someone is out to make a buck ...

Has your second mecanic looked under the hood ? Or has he merely expressed an opinion based on the dealers diagnostic ?

Coolant purging & refiling should be done with:

a Vacuum-assisted cooling system re-filling tools . . . are a handy tool to help eliminate air pockets and the problems they can cause."

(from February 2008 Subaru "TechTips")

I'd have the coolant changed again by your 2nd (trusted) mecanic and forego the engine rebuild for now. Keep an eye on the engine temp - perhaps buy/install a dedicated gauge that will give you a precise temp reading - if this worries you...

[duckamuk]

Originally Posted by jbwood5

Are you loosing coolant? I don't know how they came to that diagnoses, but it sounds like speculation. If you are driving it now, not loosing coolant, and not overheating, you are probably OK. Just make sure you really did get new coolant in there. You still have 25,000 miles left before the 2nd belt change out and assuming the first belt replacement included all replacement pulleys and tensioner, you should be fine.

No, I'm not losing coolant. I did have a prob a few weeks ago where I was losing oil, but changing the pcv valve seemed to have fixed that. It was just time to do a coolant change.

[duckamuk]

Originally Posted by frankspink

Sounds like someone is out to make a buck ...

Has your second mechanic looked under the hood ? Or has he merely expressed an opinion based on the dealers diagnostic ?

Coolant purging & refiling should be done with:
(from February 2008 Subaru "TechTips")

I'd have the coolant changed again by your 2nd (trusted) mecanic and forego the engine rebuild for now. Keep an eye on the engine temp - perhaps buy/install a dedicated gauge that will give you a precise temp reading - if this worries you...

No, second mechanic didn't look under the hood.
As for Subaru's coolant purge, that's supposedly why they think there's a problem - the vacuum is supposed to eliminate air but he couldn't completely do so. I don't know if my second mechanic has the same system for doing coolant purges, but I'll ask. Thanks.

[duckamuk]

Originally Posted by frankspink

Sounds like someone is out to make a buck ...

Has your second mecanic looked under the hood ? Or has he merely expressed an opinion based on the dealers diagnostic ?

Coolant purging & refiling should be done with:
(from February 2008 Subaru "TechTips")

I'd have the coolant changed again by your 2nd (trusted) mecanic and forego the engine rebuild for now. Keep an eye on the engine temp - perhaps buy/install a dedicated gauge that will give you a precise temp reading - if this worries you...

Also - what kind of dedicated temp gauge can I look for? Not familiar with this.

[frankspinz]

Originally Posted by duckamuk

Also - what kind of dedicated temp gauge can I look for? Not familiar with this.

In my other vehicle (older) I have a ScanGauge - Trip Computer + Digitial Gauges + ScanTools permanently plugged into the OBDII plug. With 15 built-in gauges, engine coolant temperature ( °C or °F ) being one of them. It will also read codes !

At a car parts store, you can inquire about a simpler engine temp gauge - but you want one that gives a precise temperature reading. Not something your dashboard gauge...

[porcupine73]

That sounds really strange and suspicious, especially if you weren't having any cooling system problems before. If tech used a vacuum and couldn't eliminate the air, then there must have been air leaking in somewhere, or the vacuum was malfunctioning. That could potentially have been around the head gaskets but I would hope he actually confirmed where it was sucking in the air from and not just assume it was the headgaskets, which would be a convenient profitable job.

A scangauge style temp gauge is nice, you will get a fairly accurate reading from those. The bonus is it tells you what temperature the ECU is reading, which can be helpful. Plus it can show lots of other values. Yours probably has canbus, but I think they have a canbus scanguage, and there are many other similar devices out there.

[duckamuk]

First, thank you all for your input. I was at another Subaru dealer last night looking at the 2012 Impreza, but would really love to hold off on that for a while longer if possible.

I think I'm going to take the car in to my regular shop for a 'look under the hood' second opinion. I'll also see what temp gauges my local AutoZone has to offer. What would be the normal or high temperatures I should watch for?

I live in PA and work in NY 2x a week, so yesterday I did around 200 miles (with fingers crossed) and the car has driven as good as normal. This was after a 500 mile round trip getaway last weekend. The dash gauge remained in it's normal location (for whatever that's worth), I had the heater on all the time, and my mileage and horsepower all see the same. If not for the statement from Subaru service I'd never know there was a hint of anything wrong.

Last, this might be blasphemy, but I've read some posts of people using additives to seal gasket leaks - any opinions on these type of products? I've never considered them for a car I wanted to keep long term, and since I was planning on replacing the car around 200K, just wonder if these would realistically buy me some time.

Will keep you posted.

[subiesailor]

Originally Posted by duckamuk

First, thank you all for your input. I was at another Subaru dealer last night looking at the 2012 Impreza, but would really love to hold off on that for a while longer if possible.

I think I'm going to take the car in to my regular shop for a 'look under the hood' second opinion. I'll also see what temp gauges my local AutoZone has to offer. What would be the normal or high temperatures I should watch for?

I live in PA and work in NY 2x a week, so yesterday I did around 200 miles (with fingers crossed) and the car has driven as good as normal. This was after a 500 mile round trip getaway last weekend. The dash gauge remained in it's normal location (for whatever that's worth), I had the heater on all the time, and my mileage and horsepower all see the same. If not for the statement from Subaru service I'd never know there was a hint of anything wrong.

Last, this might be blasphemy, but I've read some posts of people using additives to seal gasket leaks - any opinions on these type of products? I've never considered them for a car I wanted to keep long term, and since I was planning on replacing the car around 200K, just wonder if these would realistically buy me some time.

Will keep you posted.

Only use the recommended subaru anti seepage treatment used in the 2000-2002 cars and later used when needed in the newer cars. Any of the other stuff tends to clog up more than just leaks - it clogs up proper coolant passages and the bottom of the radiator and is a very VERY temporary fix and one you do not do if you plan on keeping the car.

As for leaks the most common are bad hoses - straps on hoses - broken caps or cracks in the neck of the radiator - failing water pump etc.

A failed head gasket is easily checked for if the engine is pumping exhaust gasses into the cooling system. It's a basic chemical test of the coolant which turns color if exhaust gasses are present in the coolant.

Also a heater core can suffer some type of leak and introduce air into the system.