1997 Legacy Outback overheating (sorry its long)

Hi guys, Jeff here, as you can tell I'm new to the forum. I was refferred to you guys from another user on another forum, and he said you guys may be able to help. I am hoping to hear from anyone who may have had a similar experience or may have a potential fixing idea to offer. Here goes....

My fiance and I bought a used car in March of this year, a 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback with 100K miles on it.

May/June--It overheated and blew out coolant shortly after we got it. I spent about an hour trying to figure it out, and it would overheat every time I tried to start it up, and finally noticed that the radiator cap appeared to have a tear in the seal. I replaced the cap and all went well. After this incident, I noticed that the coolant resevoir had been completely full, so I unbolted it, and dumped some coolant (until it read "cold full". No problems after this, at least for a while....

November--car overheated (not sure about loss of fluid). We took it to a reputable mechanic who looked it over and could find no leaks in the cooling system. I asked for the thermostat to be replaced, which they did. They spent about two days with the car, checking it out. They refilled the cooling system, and sent us on our way. On the way home, it overheated and lost coolant again. At this time, I noticed the loss of coolant seemed to be due to the overfilling of the resevoir, and a result of the overheating, not the cause. We took the car back to the mechanic again. After two more days with it, and checking emissions, for hydrocarbons in the coolant, they were not sure what to blame the overheating on. They were able to get the car to overheat EVERY time they drove it just a short distance. I talked to several other people, and we decided to go ahead and replace the water pump (maybe the impeller wasn't turning???). Well, the old water pump seemed to be just fine. Either way, at this point, we replaced the water pump, the timing belt, and the hydraulic tensioner (that puts pressure on the water pump to tension the timing belt), and also had the flow reversed on the cooling system to help flush the whole system out. After that, the car drove absolutely fine, for about a month....

December--car overheated and lost fluid again (as a result of overheating), and after this lost heat (presumably due to no hot fluid going through heating system). We took it back to the same mechanic as above, who could not find any leaks or obvious problems. He then suggested we take it to a dealership, and that is where the car is at right now.

Now, I have had a car with blown head gaskets before (Ford Thunderbird), and this doesn't seem to be the same. The first sign in the Thunderbird was a failed emissions test, then loss of heat (complete loss every time the car was on), overheating every time the car was on, and thick white smoke pouring out the exhaust (every time the car was on). This Subaru is displaying none of these signs, so I am reluctant to blame and or believe that is the issue. It seems almost as if there is something preventing cold coolant from entering hte engine block--like hot fluid is being allowed to leave, but no cold allowed to enter (hence the fluid loss when the radiator/resevoir overfill with hot fluid exiting the engine). Is it possible that this is all due to a loose connection between the radiator and engine block--and that EVERYONE has overlooked this--would we not see a sign of leakage there too??? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions as to what I might be looking at? Thanks in advance to anyone that has any suggestions to offer. This is an ongoing problem that I would just like to get fixed, even if it is the headgaskets and I have to sink another $2k into it (might even go for a whole new engine or a rebuild if thats the case). Thanks again.

 

Thanks for the quick replies, Matt, I really appreciate it. I'm not sure if it has two radiator caps or not, as I haven't ever seen that in any car, and I also don't have the car to look at it right now. Any way I can find out?? I am waiting for the mechanic to call me back to make sure that he is going to do a compression test on it as well--do you think that would normally be included in their "$115 diagnostics testing"?

 

Just talked to the dealer a few minutes ago, and was assured that they "will find the problem before charging us more"--of course I don't expect them to pull the car apart and only charge me $115, but I am pretty sure that we are on the same page about me not wanting to pay for a lot of things that have already been done and found to be inconclusive.

I will be sure to ask about the 2nd radiator cap and cooling system not being full idea. I did mention the idea of an air pocket to the previous shop as well, but they dismissed it due to the fact that we didn't see the problem EVERY single time we started the car and all. Of course if this is the issue, it would be strange to have driven the car from June until November with no problems, wouldn't it??

 

i referred him.

 

Well, just heard back from the dealer again. They were able to do a compression test on it to find that it does have blown head gaskets. They were also able to find evidence of oil being in the radiator. The car currently has about 110,00o miles on it, so I am going to ask them about the overall mechanical shape of the car, and assuming that is good then I will go ahead and authorize the work. Is there any reason that I shouldn't let them fix it--is it more likely to blow the head gaskets again after this repair??

 

They said that they were able to fail the car on the compression test and also were able to find evidence of oil in the radiator. They said it would be $1700-$1800 (someone please tell me if this is more than I should be paying) and about three weeks before it could be finished. Guess it was a bad time to have this happen--I just wish the car would have remembered the holidays too!!!!

 

yea dealer always try to get your money.

 

So are you saying I should look elsewhere? I know that replacing head gaskets is expensive, but have no idea what I should be paying--what kind of price should I be looking to pay?? Other things to consider are the only two places I trust to take the car are A) the mechanic that didn't know it was the head gaskets (one the other hand they did advise me to take it elsewhere for a final diagnosis--meaning they didn't just want to take my money and fix something that wasn't the problem), and B) the dealer its currently at who did what they had to do to diagnose the actual issue. I'm in Atlanta, GA if anyone would like to make any specific reccomendations. Thanks guys, I really appreciate all the help.

 

Yeah, I'm in GA. At this point I was willing to look for answers to this problem anywhere I could find them--and Johnniz reccomended these boards, so here I am. I hate the idea of paying $1700 too, but I am so frustrated with this situation that I am just looking forward to it being over. Also, I know I'm probably capable of doing the work myself, but the time commitment and standing out in the cold (yeah, I know, its only 20 and thats not cold to you guys, but hey, this is Atlanta!!) just doesn't sound good to me. I really appreciate all the advice you guys have given me and now I know where I can always come when I have questions about my car. Thanks again everyone, and enjoy your holidays!! I'm sure I'll be back in soon to post about how the car is doing. Take care.

Jeff

 

I am also new to the forum and ironically my problem in intrest of finding this great site also is an overheat issue with the 2.2 liter 1990. I will tell you my story and hope it might help solve your problem. bought car with 160k and it ran great for 2k and then the spontaneous overheat. it has a new radiator, and I went through it and did the waterpump, hoses, thermostat, and finally a couple of chemical flushes suspecting blockage of the heater core. By the way the teltale sigh I have is the heat in the car goes cold when it does the overheat. Next tried a bypass around the heater core with a valve inbetween to open or shut it at will. It has overheated with the valve wide open allowing it to bypass the heatercore and next I took out the thermostat and noticed the first sign of some bubbles indicating the tell tale head gasket delima but this car has not seemed to use any water from the coolant system. To end the scene I will tell you that at first before doing all these things the car would run fine at short periods and them get the cold air in the car with a cool hose going into the heater core at the overheating interval. After sitting I am always able to save a tow fee and start it up to get home usually looking as though things were ok. Good luck with yours and I will surely provide feed back it anything good comes out here

 

yes, it could be a headgasket, but 2.2s only blow headgaskets once in a blue moon...does the coolent smell like exhaust?,does the exhaust smell like coolent? does it have black chunks? is the engine misfiring? it is possible that you put in a bad thermostat...maybe try taking it totally out and see if that does anything for you...also its also possible that it isnt overheating at all...get a real temp gauge and see what it reads...my dad once put an electric temp gauge in his camaro, that would pegg at 250, he was ready to tear down his moter, but he put a mechanical kind in, and he sees that it doesnt get over 190...so there are alot of variables..check them out!, and good luck