Head Gasket (OT)
 

Son-in-Law has Outback with 110k on the clock and recently had to have motor rebuilt due to blown head gasket. Job was done at local Subaru dealer where svc mgr told him that blown gaskets a common problem with Outback & Impreza motors.
Anyone else experienced or heard this?

Dan

hm... i've heard of problems with subaru motors from the late-90's.. nothing specific though..

i blew a head gasket on my '89 EA82T-powered RX.. different can of worms though..

-adam

Head gaskets and coolant blow-by were a problem on the pre-'98 Legacy and Impreza motors... they are referred to as "Phase I" blocks.

The EJ22 and EJ25 Phase II blocks had revised casting and a better mating surface and are free from the head gasket problem that plagued the earlier models when driven hard. The Phase II motors were rolled out from very late '97 through late '98 depending on the chassis and model. I remember the Legacy GT went through a half-year model change in the middle of '98.

check out this site for everything you always wanted to know about the head gasket problem, but were afraid to ask.

http://pub110.ezboard.com/bultimatesubarumessageboards

Matt