Howdy folks,
03 Baja here, smelled antifreeze in the car, brought her in. Found a leak in head gasket with only 400 miles left on the warranty! If you smell antifreeze while driving your ride, you might want to get it checked out. Good luck,
Roger
Head gasket leak
Moderator: bajabob
Head gasket leak
Howdy folks,
03 Baja here, smelled antifreeze in the car, brought her in. Found a leak in head gasket with only 400 miles left on the warranty! If you smell antifreeze while driving your ride, you might want to get it checked out. Good luck,
Roger
Roger B.
Richmond, Vermont
Richmond, Vermont
-
Newscutter
- Scoobytruck Lurker
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Wed May 31, 2006 7:22 pm
- Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Re: Head gasket leak
I will post this a couple places --
I had a complete loss of coolant (unbeknownst to me) one fine day. Apparently the coolant had been leaking out slowly--- I recall just a few weeks prior I saw the level was low so I topped it off with normal Prestone. The leak worsened suddenly at some point and with wife and kids in the car on a really busy urban highway I nursed it as best I could (heat full on) to a safe stopping place. We "hopped" it home with breaks to cool down (not far). Over the next month I regularly had to top off the coolant every 3 days or so as the level visibly dropped-- but with no smoking, no puddles, no drivability issues. Finally one night I caught a faint mist coming from the driver's side head, as seen in a combination of headlight reflections and floodlights in my driveway. A trip to the dealer confirmed the gasket was leaking. Further work showed that both heads were warped and both would need machining, new gaskets.
So -- pretty standard story. Here's the tidbit that was new to me-- and maybe it's just dealer service department BS and maybe it isn't. The tech told me that there is a thicker viscousity coolant spec'd for the Subarus-- that the factory coolant isn't nearly as watery as normal coolant/water blends. He also referred to a "conditioner" that was added with each change/yearly in addition to the coolant being different as well. Their experience was that NOT all Subarus would have headgasket failures, but ALL Subarus that they have seen that HAD failures ALL were not using the factory coolant/conditioner. Additionally, most of those had RECENTLY had coolant changes (within weeks) to non-spec'd coolant (mine was the large amount I added a few weeks before the overheating episode).
Take that for what it is worth. For the costs, I'd recommend going back to the dealer (or getting Subaru coolant/conditioner) whenever you're due.
MCS
BTW-- I forget what the bill was--- it was somewhere around $1500-2000, but dealer knocked off a big portion as a courtesy. I think in the end it was $500-800ish, but I also had all the belts changed, etc. while they were in the neighborhood.
I had a complete loss of coolant (unbeknownst to me) one fine day. Apparently the coolant had been leaking out slowly--- I recall just a few weeks prior I saw the level was low so I topped it off with normal Prestone. The leak worsened suddenly at some point and with wife and kids in the car on a really busy urban highway I nursed it as best I could (heat full on) to a safe stopping place. We "hopped" it home with breaks to cool down (not far). Over the next month I regularly had to top off the coolant every 3 days or so as the level visibly dropped-- but with no smoking, no puddles, no drivability issues. Finally one night I caught a faint mist coming from the driver's side head, as seen in a combination of headlight reflections and floodlights in my driveway. A trip to the dealer confirmed the gasket was leaking. Further work showed that both heads were warped and both would need machining, new gaskets.
So -- pretty standard story. Here's the tidbit that was new to me-- and maybe it's just dealer service department BS and maybe it isn't. The tech told me that there is a thicker viscousity coolant spec'd for the Subarus-- that the factory coolant isn't nearly as watery as normal coolant/water blends. He also referred to a "conditioner" that was added with each change/yearly in addition to the coolant being different as well. Their experience was that NOT all Subarus would have headgasket failures, but ALL Subarus that they have seen that HAD failures ALL were not using the factory coolant/conditioner. Additionally, most of those had RECENTLY had coolant changes (within weeks) to non-spec'd coolant (mine was the large amount I added a few weeks before the overheating episode).
Take that for what it is worth. For the costs, I'd recommend going back to the dealer (or getting Subaru coolant/conditioner) whenever you're due.
MCS
BTW-- I forget what the bill was--- it was somewhere around $1500-2000, but dealer knocked off a big portion as a courtesy. I think in the end it was $500-800ish, but I also had all the belts changed, etc. while they were in the neighborhood.