GF has a Forrester that has low miles, but is leaking glycol from one of the heads. I understand that Subaru is aware of this problem, yet I cannot seem to find a recall notice. The rectification is to spend a couple grand and have the head gaskets replaced.
Any ideas for an economical method of dealing with this?
Ah, as is so often the case, the Devil is in the details. The very vital details that you omitted were the model year of her Forester, as well as the actual number of odometer miles.
These details are important because Subaru of America will–in many cases–cover about half the cost of head gasket replacement on a vehicle even if it is out of warranty–if it is not too old or has too many miles on the odometer. I can tell you that my family wound up paying something like $700 for replacement of both head gaskets on a '97 Outback in…2002 or 2003, IIRC. The car had something on the order of 110,000 miles on it at that point, and was long out of warranty.
Give Subaru of America a call. The toll-free phone number can be found in the Owner’s Manual. Be prepared with information such as the details that you omitted from your post, as well as the maintenance history of the vehicle. Be sure to keep it civil, and whatever you do, DO NOT say that you “will never buy another Subaru”. If you do that, you will remove most of their motivation for assisting someone after warranty expiration. The worst that they can say is, “no”.
Good luck.
Depending on how badly and how long it’s been leaking it may be possible to stop this by having the cylinder head bolts retorqued.
There is an 8yr/100k warranty for it on early 2000 Foresters.
Couple grand sounds right or put a miracle in a bottle(stop leak) in the radiator hope it stops leaking enough to get a decent trade in. My sis in law did that with a 245k Forester and went back for more and got another.
some people have good luck with radiator stop leak, but I have tried it and never had any good results.
That was my thought process. I had a BRAT years ago, and it was recommended as scheduled maintenance.