Well that escalated quickly! (Unscheduled Subaru engine rebuild)

So, when I was young(er) and dumb(er) we bought a 2008 Outback to be our reliable and boring daily driver. We became the 2nd owners and the car had about 30k on it. Since then, I've maintained it religiously according to the FSM. The car now has about 95k miles and I figured it was time to do the timing belt. I had no idea how quickly things would become more involved.

Getting the car in the air I realized there was not an insignificant amount of oil seeping from the head gaskets. I figured it was a 2.5L SOHC Subaru and this was to be expected. Decided to pull the engine do the head gaskets, timing belt, and other basic while-I'm-in-there items. 

I was cleaning up the heads and decided last minute to check for flatness. The car has never overheated or had issues but I figured it was worth a quick check. Turns out they were very warped so I ran them down to a machine shop. Got a call today that they had pressure checked them as well and most of the valves weren't even seating properly! Decided to have them fully serviced with a valve job. So I'm stuck here for now:

Is this the typical Subaru experience!? I'd expect to do this kind of work on a high mileage car but man I'm surprised that it's been this bad at <100k. I'm glad I can work on cars because the bill will be less than a grand but I can't imagine the cost of paying a shop to do all this. Have you guys seen anything like this? 

Have you considered letting this escalate all the way to putting in an EZ30 flat six? 

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Nope! I've been talked off the ledge a few times regarding a STi powertrain swap though. This is supposed to be our boring daily and any money I don't spend on this car can get put toward racing!

This is par for the course. My buddy with the Legacy outback had a head gasket go. He pulled the engine apart looked at everything had everything checked, called around to a few machine shops and found out that it would just be cheaper to buy a junkyard engine and chuck it in so that’s what he did. He is currently selling the vehicle off

Though I thankfully never had to rebuild my 2.5 in 170,000 miles, I rally with a ton of Subaru guys and yeah....there is no such thing as an unexpected engine rebuild. I've actually seen guys blow TWO subaru engine in the same rally. But virtually every Subie owner I know who pushes his/her car at all eventually has to rebuild the engine, usually sooner than later. Getting 170k out of mine seemed like a lot of good luck, it's one reason i didn't buy another WRX......that kind of luck can't hold.

Sadly seems to be par for the course.  We bought a nicely maintained used Forester XT, did by the book maintenance, frequent oil changes and ditched the filters in the oil feed lines that can clog, and still popped the motor with under a hundred thousand miles on it.  Subarus are very popular here in Wisconsin, and a handful of friends and acquaintances have had to do head gaskets.  Granted there is a large sample size, but anecdotally it seems like most owners eventually have issues.  

From all the subie owners I've know over the years, you're experiencing the normal experience. non-beaten daily drivers to beaten rallycross cars.... they all suffer. 

In reply to irish44j :

Yeah, I know the DOHC turbo engines have a very finite life and have actually rebuilt/replaced a few. I just find it so surprising that a NA SOHC driven very conservatively and maintained well would look this bad. I won't say I'll never own another Subaru (mainly because I pick them up as project cars) but we certainly won't buy a newer one to use as a reliable daily. 

What would a short block from Subaru cost?

It fascinates me that they have such a large following and relatively good reputation when so many have major issues.

this is so odd, I've always hear they were reliable.  Would have never guessed

Longtime Subaru owner here, and yes, this is normal.

My machinist told me the guys running the generic green coolant have much more issues then the guys running the Subaru coolant.   

Well, you can take some solace from the fact that taking the engine out of a Legacy and taking it completely apart and fixing half of everything in it is easier than just getting the engine out of some other cars, right?

Your generation of SOHC heads have less metal in them and a different design from the earlier ones that made the headgasket issue famous. This made the heads cheaper to produce but also more prone to warping when things go wrong.

I just did the headgasket service and timing belt and fixing all the engine oil leaks on my 200k mile '01 Forester.

Also anecdotally, my previous '02 WRX had 190k miles with typical "stage 2" mods and power before I sold it. I used WOT frequently in that car and never had an issue.

I could have written that story on a 07 Forrester we had on the shop this week.

Almost word for word.

Vigo said:

Well, you can take some solace from the fact that taking the engine out of a Legacy and taking it completely apart and fixing half of everything in it is easier than just getting the engine out of some other cars, right?

This is totally true.  I had a Subaru given to me with a blown engine, I picked up a junk yard replacement that had fresh heads on it.  It was not a bad job at all, my coworker’s son is driving it to this day.

Subaru's are really cool until they break.   

The parts are expensive, when ever I walked into the dealer to buy some dealer only item I felt like I was the mark walking into a poker game with Doc Holliday, et al,.   When I found out that the fire wall at the clutch's master cylinder  mount  was going to crack and need to be re-welded, not a warranty item of course, I was  on my way to being done.  

The more I read about the stuff coming up that would either need to be replaced or was going to break and what all that would cost I realized the answer was still Miata and went back to one of those. 

My 04 WRX was staggeringly needy for a 1 owner, engineer-maintained, lightly modded car.

I loved driving it in the winter, but between the crappy interior, thin doors, mediocre creature comforts, etc, I was glad to send it down the road.

Worst was a silly little snap ring on the center diff let loose, that munched the drive and driven shaft in the center diff.  Would have been easy $2k job at a shop (diff was $600 best I could find it, shafts were $200/ea, bearings around $40/ea with my discount) I got lucky and got a new-in-box center diff for $100, used shafts, and new bearings and it was still a few hundo.  

I've never heard of the NA 2.2 having these problems. Or is that just a dirty little secret no one talks about? 

Appleseed said:

I've never heard of the NA 2.2 having these problems. Or is that just a dirty little secret no one talks about? 

That was probably one of the last reliable 4 cylinder Subaru engines.  It seems like once they tried for more than 8 horsepower, it all went to E36 M3. 

Thanks very much, thread, for you have made me realize my '03 E55 amg Brabus hotrod I picked up 4 yr ago has been and continues to be a reliable easy to maintain, all round reasonable and sensible thing to have around! By comparison! If we gloss over money spent at the gas pump! 

DSM = Subrau??

rslifkin said:

Appleseed said:

I've never heard of the NA 2.2 having these problems. Or is that just a dirty little secret no one talks about? 

That was probably one of the last reliable 4 cylinder Subaru engines.  It seems like once they tried for more than 8 horsepower, it all went to E36 M3. 

Quoted for truth

I think you’re supposed to fix it then shut up about it and continue to tell everyone how trouble free and reliable it is. The same thing goes for Volvos.

and you guys harp on discos for dropped liners... sheesh.