Headgasket class action website

[mandorichard]

2005 Outback, about 86K miles. Seems early to have head gaskets leaking. Not being a mechanic myself, I just went through the exercise of pricing a 2011 Outback. Nice, but I'll get 2005 repaired. Subaru wants $2400. Local repair shop $1600. My question is, should I go ahead and get a valve job while the engine's pulled apart? Given the history, Subaru giving any breaks to dealers they can pass on to customers?
Thanks,
Richard

[subiesailor]

First off 86K what exactly do you mean valve job? Have the shims adjusted? Also if your having a non Subaru shop do the heads I wouldn't bother with the valves given I would not keep the car more than another year with a non subaru shop doing the HG work.

If you want to keep the car for a while have subaru do it and call HQ give them **** tell them your thinking about buying another subaru but this HG issue has you second guessing the thought of another one. HQ will probably share some of the cost with you in the repair possibly matching the non subaru shop price except you get the subaru workmanship warranty on it. My HG was covered by Subaru at 65K out of warranty and had zero issues with it when I sold the car at 160K. No they did not touch the valves during the whole 160K run and it was fine.

[rbutcher]

The Subaru dealer told me that there are two types of head bolts. They look exactly the same except the two center bolts are painted black on the ends. The Felpro head bolts do not have the ends painted black. I assume Felpro just ignored the difference in head bolts, whatever the difference may be. Is it ok to use the Felpro head bolts? Is it better to re-use the old head bolts? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy dealer Subaru head bolts?