Yes, a Subie with a blown head gasket! But why does it cost DOUBLE to fix?!? CAR WIZARD explains

its Subaru head gasket time somehow that doesn't surprise me let's get started [Music] so this is a 2009 Subaru Impreza with the 2.5 it is not turbo or anything crazy like that the customer drove from all the way in the Kansas City area to the shop there was a leak constantly on the ground and the customer suspected it's possibly the head gasket knowing the story of Subaru's blowing head gaskets he thought well that may be the case here unfortunately the customer didn't really research what it's going to cost and it was kind of a shocker we're going to look at that today but before we do let's take a look around this thing it is a really nice vehicle so here's the front of the Subaru it does have some fading starting to happen on the headlights but nothing too serious the front otherwise is in great shape the paint is in great shape this is the smaller of the Subarus it's not very long it's not an Outback or a Forester and if you go down this side you can see the body's in good shape and you can also see that it has the the plastic hubcaps or wheel caps or whatever you call them but that's fine it still looks really good and you can see the back end it has the nice LED tail lights and as you can see on this side is very nice as well externally this car doesn't need any work it doesn't need any repairs as far as body or headlamps tail lamps or anything like that let's go ahead and open the hood foreign here is our 2.5 liter four-cylinder opposed engine and you really don't see anything leaking or anything going on up here everything looks to be in really good shape and really it is in pretty good shape you can see there's a little bit of corrosion on the battery post over there that could be cleaned up that battery is very old from 2015 we will be informing the customer of that I'm surprised it's even still working the belts look kind of aged but they're still doing fine as well everything is really looking pretty good otherwise our problems that we're having are going to be on the bottom of the engine but before we lift it up let's go ahead and check out the interior okay Legend says you can see this has a hundred and three thousand five hundred and thirty not too terribly much for such a big catastrophe to happen to that engine I'm going to turn that off save that old old battery up there but as you see it's really a nice condition in here the dash is looking really good up there no cracks no crevices has several different Shades of Gray between the top of the dash a nice metal accent and then more dark gray on the bottom for the glove box HVAC system super easy kind of reminds me actually of that Toyota Camry that we just bought for our daughter very simple controls there as well as we look at the seats they are a nice cloth no rips no tears no sags looks good and as we move to the back seat oh I feel sad now these people have a couple of little kids they don't need this going on right before Christmas this really does suck but obviously it looks basically a little kid space in there pretty well I wouldn't say there's a whole lot of leg room in there but for the kids well I don't know they're close enough that maybe they can give their parents some free massage work by kicking the back of that seat they're also too little to have touched the ceiling they're sagging no Cheeto fingers going on up there everything's looking really good so as we entered our steering wheel nice symbol in the center simple controls for our cruise control and that is it no other controls on there just simple get going down the road set it and go so looks good in here let's see what's going on underneath where the trouble is so here we are starting at the back end of this vehicle there's a little bit of surface rust but nothing too serious our little CV boots are in good shape the back brakes have about 80 percent remaining everything looks good there our strut is nice and dry go ahead and head on over to the other side brakes look good there strut is good nothing leaking over here here we have our drive shaft and you can see on the U-joint right here you can see the little dimples that go in a ring around the edge that is called staped this is another one of those drive shafts that will not be rebuilt you cannot put U-joints in it yourself and a drive shaft shop is going to refuse the work you have to buy the entire drive shaft if the U-joints go out I've been through that 100 times it's it's crazy but they designed it not to be serviced you replaced the whole drive shaft and honestly it's lasted a hundred thousand miles and it's still doing fine here's our resonator our exhaust here's our transaxle it has the front CV shafts that hook to the forward portion of the transmission right here everything's nice and dry the boots are good we did put new brakes up front the customer supplied some pads and rotors we installed them for them you can see they are currently installed boots look good there strut is nice and dry here's our sway bar link is good again new brakes boot is good sway bar link is good strut is dry everything looks good there you can notice a little seepage on the transmission pan here that is not from the transmission it is from our head gasket leak and yes that is oil these head gaskets are not leaking coolant head gaskets can also leak oil here's our head gasket and you can see oil is pouring out right there where it meets the block on both sides so unfortunately the head gaskets have to be replaced to take care of that some people have said they can smear some silicone on it and call it good that's not what we do here that's a that's not a very good repair and it won't last it'll last maybe 30 days and start leaking again so unfortunately like I said this is going to be a big job let's check our radiator before we're done here everything looks good nice and dry no leaks going on there well the only thing that's wrong with this is extremely expensive let's go ahead and get this thing on the ground it's kind of a bummer so it's a very small oil leak it's kind of annoying it's not pouring all over the ground it's just leaving a little trickle everywhere it's not overheating the coolant portion of the head gaskets are fine we pressure tested it we checked it out it does not overheat it doesn't have issues that way the oil sealing portion of the head gaskets have failed not the coolant ones which are on the very bottom of the head gasket which leaks on the ground I keep mentioning it's very expensive it is you say well how it's just a small tiny leak to get that leak fixed is massive if you take a look at this picture here you can see the engine is out that is required to get the heads off of these because the head bolts will physically contact the frame the frame rails you can't even get the bolts out you can't get the heads off because it's an opposed engine it's not a v it's not inline the cylinders face the frame rails which means the engine has to come out and go onto an engine stand and then the second big ordeal that really is expensive you do not take the heads off of this engine without first removing the timing belt and this tensioners and its pulleys that is included in the price as well an entire timing belt kit if you think I'm going to put your old timing belt on which this has a hundred and three thousand miles on it it's about time for a timing belt we're going to let the customer know regardless it's about time for that if you think I'm going to put your old timing belt and pulleys on just like Judas Priest says you got another thing coming there's no way in heck I'm going to put your old timing belt back on engine out timing belt tensioner water pump the entire service head gaskets head bolts all these things add up and depending on if there's any difficulties it can go as fast as 12 hours it can be 18 hours to do this job 3 500 that would have been included to do the brakes as well the entire inclusive job and the diagnosis and the sales tax everything piles up really really fast over three thousand dollars to do this job when we present it to the customer they said nope I'm not spending that for a tiny oil leak and I don't blame them I would just put up with the leak until it gets unbearable which it may be a year or two before that happens or more but I agree I wouldn't fix it either thirty five hundred dollars it functions just fine it does everything just fine and no there's no magical snake oil you can pour in the engine that's going to fix that I wouldn't trust anything to fix that and also know snugging up the little bolts is not going to solve that either the gasket's been compromised is already leaking I've seen this time and time again where you try to stock up the bolts it solves nothing smearing some silicone on the bottom is not going to solve this either because it's right next to the exhaust it gets very hot the oil will degrade it it would last 30 days maybe 60 days and start leaking all over again the only true fix for this is a full complete head gasket timing belt I mean a massive service just to get this done right and engine out of course we won't be doing that job here today we did get to do the brakes and again I'm not upset I get it like Mrs wizard says they have little kids it's almost Christmas time they don't have just 3 500 just a light on fire I get it so we fixed their brakes we checked everything else out everything looks okay for now we will advise and that it is time for a timing belt regardless if they fix the oil leak or not so is it worth fixing this yes it is especially if you were going to trade it in or sell it to someone they're not going to like to see oil leaks on the ground it's not like this is a two thousand dollar car this is ten twelve fifteen I don't know the exact value I haven't looked it up it's definitely worth fixing it's just not a good time right now for the customer and like I said I get it so if you're curious what kind of tools we didn't get to use to fix the head gaskets on this check my Amazon Affiliates Link in the description below we get a small cut we really appreciate it and make sure to hit the Subscribe button because I'm buttoning up the North Star engine we're going to pull the whole powertrain out of the bottom of the XLR soon I decided to do it that way because that's going to be awesome content for you guys to see how that all works thanks for watching foreign [Music]

Channel: Car Wizard

Views: 224,141

Keywords: car wizard, david long, hoovies garage, tyler hoover, car issues with tyler hoover, omega auto clinic, car repair, car maintenance, Hoovie, mechanic, Car issues, BendPak, Car trek, Car, Repair, Subaru, Impreza, Head gasket, transverse, 2.5 l, engine out

Id: LfRxCx6KaVM

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 29 2022