i have an 03 Subi Wagon that the head gasket just went. i’ve had Subarus for years and never had such a problem. My '92 Legacy wagon had nearly 200K miles on it without such a thing and my wife’s 01 Legacy GT Sedan hasn’t had it (yet). Is there a problem with Subi head gaskets? i don’t mind having to replace them if necessary, but at 80,000 miles it seems a bit early.
For about 13 years and up until about 1999 the gaskets were a fairly common issue. Redesign of the heads and gaskets helped solve the issue. I think if you have yours done properly you will be ok for a long time. I recommend you use genuine Subaru gaskets if you have it done.
Although not all Subarus suffer this fate, the brand is actually quite famous for head gasket problems, but by 2003 I thought they had it fixed. My friend’s 2000 needs a head gasket at 75K miles. The older 2.2 liter engines don’t seem to be as susceptible to head gasket failure as the 2.5 engines, which explains the 200K on your '92.
You didn’t allow the engine to overheat, did you?
Nope, it didn’t overheat i just noticed puddling below the engine after an oil change and thought it was oil. It wasn’t. i took it to one shop and they determined the head gasket problem then took it to the local Subaru dealer to have the work done. Pretty expensive but it should last quite awhile (i hope). i just never heard of it before and was kinda taken by surprise. The dealer intimated that it’s done pretty frequently on '01-'04s.
Thanks,
Dave