I bought the forester and loved it, sadly the design of this engine is not so nice for allowing coolant to eat the gasket material. Gladly I am handy was able to repair this myself but still had to spend $800 in parts. I had other funny issues to which will be posted in the respectful areas. bought it in December 2016 no leaks. by January 2017 I noticed coolant all over my steering rack during an oil change no coolant in oil at this point. went searching for the source of the leak (also found out that is where my oil was leaking too) all the lines were dry so I put the light under the driver side cylinder head and noticed both oil and coolant looked at the passenger side and noticed it was just starting to leak. drove it until May 2017 in between then I did one emergency flush of the engine to remove coolant that finally found its way into my oil. it took me two days. lucky my heads were not warped just the gasket material completely eaten away. so changed the gaskets all seals in between, timing belt, water pump and thermostat and spark plugs, $800 later and 16 hours of my time it was back to normal running better then it was when I bought it. ended up trading it in two years into the loan because of other issues that were going to cost me a fortune and time I currently do not have. I work outside the city so to have it in repair meant not going to work. no way I could afford that.

Second Forester to have this very expensive and inconvenient problem. Am I crazy...but didn't know it was a 'thing' on most of these vehicles prior to 2010. $3000. and 5 days to fix...without replacement vehicle. Mechanic says they should have recalled their vehicles because it's such a common problem.

The Subaru is not the great vehicle it touted to be. It is the right size for me but everything else is pretty standard. Add this costly fix and it's defnly off my list forever.Don't know why there are so many 'I love me Subaru' stickers....I hope they can peel the stickers off easily when they have to get it into the shop for the dual head gasket replacement.

Joanne S.

BC, Canada

Subaru is supposed to be one of the best cars to buy/own due to longevity and reliability. It should not be plagued by major expensive repairs at 87,000 miles. The Subaru mechanic (been there 13 years) told me that he has never seen a factory installed head gasket that had as thick a diameter as the replacement part, and that this problem is fairly common.

Why does Subaru put inferior grade head gaskets in at the factory that give out so soon, and better quality gaskets when you have to have them fixed?