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This is my first Subaru and I bought it because I thought they were good cars however my 07 Impreza with 90k is leaking oil from the head gasket. The mechanic estimates repairs to be about $1500.
I don't know exactly how bad the leak is, I don't see anything in my driveway but when looking underneath, there's a noticeable amount of oil on the lower suspension.
Should I sell this car now, get it repaired or just keep driving it and see if it gets worse?
My '01 Cherokee had a leaking valve cover gasket somewhere around 50K miles. Took me 5 hours to replace it myself, but that includes BS'ing with the neighbor who was showing me how to do it, plus changing the oil. It wasn't hard, took me longer to get everything away from the cover so I could get it off than it did to do anything else. If you go that route though, make sure you scrape off everything from the old gasket first though!
There is alot of differance between changing a head gasket and a valve cover gasket.
I'm aware...however, he was mentioning as well that it had already started leaking at 90k. If the worst he has is a leaking gasket, fix it and drive away. If I worried about gaskets leaking, i'd have dropped my Jeep at 50 instead of 75K, esp since I had a rear diff seal go on me at around 17k. The replacement was still going strong at 75 and the front never had to be touched.
The point I was making is that repalcing head gaskets (on a subaru) is alot more complcated then replacing valve cover gaskets. To replace head gaskets requires removing the heads which have the cam in them and removing the timing belt (if you get it out of time ..big problems). Also torquing the head bolts to specs in sequence Head gaskets would prob. be a $1500-2000 job as compared to valve cover gaskets would be about $200. But if the car is in good shape and he wants to keep it go ahead and fix it.
Like I said, if the worst is a leaking gasket, 2 grand is cheaper than a new car! Only reason I replaced my Jeep at 75k was it was starting to pop up with more issues than I had time to deal with..plus it was time for something roomier, quieter and more comfortable.
I'd want that second opinion as to the source of the oil seep ... if you're not seeing a measureable drop in oil level on the dipstick in significant mileage, than this is a "seep", not a "leak".
There's a high liklihood that the source is a valve cover gasket and not a head gasket. At that, if the engine has not been overheated, a $1,500 quote to replace a head gasket is way out of reasonable. If the source is a head gasket, then I'd want another quote from a shop that does a fair number of subie's.
What does your coolant look like? If the head gasket has been compromised it is very likely that the coolant will contain oil and it will float to the top of the radiator. I would suggest having a compression test done on the cylinders to increase the amount of information on your problem.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I've had several older Toyota's that leaked/ burned oil and IMO there is really nothing you can do to have the problem totally corrected. I had head gaskets replaced etc and nothing helped in either case. If you're short on cash then just keep pumping oil into it. Otherwise think about getting something new.
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