Are they still having issues with 2.5 head gaskets needing replacing ?

[subie94]

should be getting a 06 Outback 2.5i and the one thing weighing on my mind is the head gasket issue with 2.5 engines awhile back..would the carfax report mention if it was replaced/fixed (providing the 06 engines had problem)..i haven't looked at it yet but supposedly 1 owner,clean carfax report..

 

Thanks,Matt

[AdventureSubaru]

Short answer, Yes, but the issue was less severe by the generation you are speaking of. The 2.5s of the late 90s were horrible with the HG issues. Early 2000s were better. I think the issue went until the 09s being the last with the "issue"

 

I was a car dealer for a few years and did a carfax on every car we sold. (This was for customer assurance only.) I can say having seen hundreds of carfax reports that the only consistent reason to get a carfax is to satisfy your curiosity. Usually all you get is a random smattering of maintenance that's been done over the years, and the dates and location in which it changed hands.

 

Accident history and such would only show up if the car was taken to specific dealers within the system. If I hit a tree, then took it to my local shop for repair, or did the repair myself, it will not show up on a carfax. Carfax has good advertising warning of totaled cars and flood cars. That sort of thing will result in a title branding. You don't need a carfax to tell you what the title of the car already says.

 

There's very little that carfax can give you an advantage on that a thorough look over on the car wont. Was it maintained? Modified? repaired? Repainted? Looking a car over well will give you a good idea on these things. And I always maintain that a car repaired properly is repaired properly. I know a guy who quite happily bought a branded title Honda Accord. The car had been totaled, repaired and re-titled. He drove that car for over 10 years and 100,000 miles with nothing out of the ordinary. Cars are just metal, nuts and bolts, so I feel like carfax mostly just makes people worry. Those unsafe sort of patch jobs that you do want to worry about are done in backyards and private garages and will not show up on a carfax.

 

Like the dodge stealth i saw at an auto auction. It had been rear ended. someone welded the front of a dodge stealth to the back of a 3000GT (unibody mind you) and repainted it. Car looked great. had to look close to see where welding had taken place. CLEAR title.

 

So with or without a carfax, be sure to go over the car with a fine toothed comb. Bring a buddy along for a second opinion. A car is a machine and a proper evaluation of that machine will let you know what you're getting into with little surprise.

Edited July 14, 2013 by AdventureSubaru

[natext6]

From my understanding the issue was pretty much resolved in 2004....Basically had to do with how the coolant was being routed through the engine. Essentially there wasn't any form of bypass valve, or any separate coolant "injection" past Cylinder 1, so by the time the coolant got to cylinder 4, it was super hot, which would put excess pressure on the headgasket, create microfractures, which would then eventually cause the headgasket to fail.

 

In 2004 they added some bypass valves and more or less redesigned the cooling system so that it was no longer a problem....I haven't heard of many headgasket issues on the 2004+ vehicles....but that's just me.

 

Also, in terms of the carfax, and to be clear, the American and Canadian carfaxs may be different, but from what we get up here in Canada, the only time anything appears on a carfax is if there was an insurance claim, or a registration.....

[86BRATMAN]

From my understanding the issue was pretty much resolved in 2004....Basically had to do with how the coolant was being routed through the engine. Essentially there wasn't any form of bypass valve, or any separate coolant "injection" past Cylinder 1, so by the time the coolant got to cylinder 4, it was super hot, which would put excess pressure on the headgasket, create microfractures, which would then eventually cause the headgasket to fail.

 

In 2004 they added some bypass valves and more or less redesigned the cooling system so that it was no longer a problem....I haven't heard of many headgasket issues on the 2004+ vehicles....but that's just me.

 

Also, in terms of the carfax, and to be clear, the American and Canadian carfaxs may be different, but from what we get up here in Canada, the only time anything appears on a carfax is if there was an insurance claim, or a registration.....

Not to doubt you nate, but I've never read anything of the sort with the coolant system. The block and cooling system are essentially the same between all the phase 1 ej engines, and from what I've seen the phase 2s as well. If every ej was a head gasket eating machine I would be more likely to believe it, but unless abused beyond belief or severely overheated the ej18, ej22, ej20 na, ej15, and ej16s of the world don't just blow head gaskets for the heck of it like the early ej25 does.

 

Short answer, yes up until 09 head gasket failure is still am issue with the ej25.

[AdventureSubaru]

In 2004 they added some bypass valves and more or less redesigned the cooling system so that it was no longer a problem....I haven't heard of many headgasket issues on the 2004+ vehicles....but that's just me.

 

I have heard that everything after 04 was much better. Also, even though the heads were a bit of a weakness, getting better gaskets on there still makes the EJ25 a good engine. My wife just drove her 2000 Outback to California (over 2200 miles) without a hiccup. That engine turned over 330,000 miles during that trip.

[subie94]

Ok cool..Thanks everyone for the info and ease of mind that it doesn't need to be something i really need to find out if it was done..it's a one owner so hopefully they had all service done by dealership so i can find out what was/wasn't taken care of..

[Rooster2]

Ok cool..Thanks everyone for the info and ease of mind that it doesn't need to be something i really need to find out if it was done..it's a one owner so hopefully they had all service done by dealership so i can find out what was/wasn't taken care of..

If work was done at a dealership, a print out of work/service should be available from the dealership. Just call and ask for it.

[idosubaru]

EJ25's have headgaskets issues at least to 2009 - well documented.  an ongoing failure log on subaruoutback.org with gobs of references points for statistically relevant data. there's also a new thread with the new 2.5 liter FB engine having an externally leaking headgasket at 30,000 miles.  still isn't definitive that Subaru has resolved the issue.  i hope so with the FB and have been strongly favoring that Subaru would be keen on doing something definitive about it, time will tell.

 

the 05-09's leak external coolant or oil - oil being very common.

they are still required to have Subaru's Coolant Conditioner added to them.

 

doesn't matter too much if it was replaced.  probably have just as much chance of a "replaced one" leaking at some point later as one with the original gaskets.  Subaru installs the same failure prone gasket that it came with *and* most don't resurface the heads.  not really a top-notch headgasket job, so i wouldn't let a "dealer headgasket job" reassure me too much.  that being said - i don't know that non-resurfaced heads cause any higher failure rate so that's just speculation i just simply wouldn't ever skip that step on such a frequently leaking headgasket myself.

 

if it ever needs replaced in the future make sure to have the heads resurfaced and use the EJ25 Turbo headgaskets, they don't leak.

 

HG replacement dosn't show up on car reports - or if it does it is simply a positive, but if it doesn't show up it's not necesssarily a negative - or it's a false negative, it by no means precludes that it could have been done (and not reported via the methods used to compile those reports).  those reports aren't humans that go look...they simply tap into existing systems of data.  a job off those data lines, which is frequent since car maintenance/repairs aren't typically compiled like other data, won't show up.