Just had a rod bust its way out 3.4L

I wouldn't rail on your 19 yo too much. I had an engine failure on my youngest's (17yo) first car. I couldn't believe that failure could happen to that "indestructible engine" and gave him some grief about it.

After I got the old engine home from the swap and tore into it and starting putting the pieces together, it turned out the previous owner had a radiator leak that they covered up with stop leak. The stop leak patched radiator soon failed after I bought it. Knowing about aluminum engines, we didn't let it overheat. I'm sure the previous owner let it overheat multiple times. So they patched it up with stop leak and sold it. Also, it had a bad head gasket that some stop leak must have been holding.

Naturally, I change the radiator and flush the cooling system with distilled water and start doing the right thing with maintenance. Then all hell breaks loose a couple of months later.

 

Hate that shit...really do

 

my mom's 2003 TL has been through 2 transmissions that I know of. I will never buy Honda/Acura because of their shit trannys

 

Yeah I'm not being hard on him about it. I'm pretty sure there is nothing he did to cause this. I've beat the hell out of vehicles and I've never seen a catastrophic engine failure. In fact, I've never actually seen anybody's engine do this. This has been a tough week for so many reasons.

 

I'm in Northern California, WAY up north, right next to Oregon on the coast.

 

do you have lemon laws in your state? It might be something worth looking into.

 

We have some members in that area. Yep. You are not alone.

 

You'll figure out the right thing to do. It was a bitter pill for me in the early days and considered just using it as the "haul stuff to the dump on weekends truck" and letting it blow and go someday. This week, I've had three people hit me up wanting to buy it. One was the HVAC serviceman last evening.

It's been a long time since I've had a vehicle that causes people to press me to sell it to them. It's kind of weird. So I'm kind of emotionally connected to it now having gone through the build. We'll be keeping this one in the family for decades. For the cars we've had that I didn't rebuild, there is no emotional connection with them and we have no qualms about selling or trading them.

 

I got to watch my truck, if it see’s a Honda product, it goes over and shits on it’s hood, lmao!

 

Just be glad you didn’t buy a damned Subaru, (Super-poo) mines sitting with bad headgaskets because I ain’t gonna let it blow up, it leaks @ 90-100,000 on every n/a Impreza, Outback & other models. This happens even on well taken care of used cars, BUT A TOYOTA 5VZ!! Whaaa, the bottom end is one hell of a badass peice of engineering. The seller stuffed you like a piñata it must have had alot of sludge or no oil, or there is sand in the oil which is a longshot, looks as if the rod bolt snapped off. This is not your sons fault believe me.

 

It's because of the high number of "odd sized" (9mm, 11mm, 13mm, 15mm) metric nuts and bolts. I can't get along with them either.

 

I drive an outback! It's got about 88k on it right now.

 

Oh shit! What year and mileage if between 96-12 your in for a surprise, and I take insane care of my vehicles. I should have got on NASIOC forums before I bought that vehicle. Its very smooth and quick but the head gaskets at 100k that’s just unbelievable, Subaru won’t address the issue because if they admit fault to one they will have to do em all. It pisses me off when subaru says after “10 years 90% of our vehicles are still on the road” I say, says who? Maybe the dmv giving out our info to Subaru, all of the ones w/90-100k are probably non op status.

 

2012 Outback with the 2.5 and CVT. It's got about 88k on it right now. I have all the recommended service performed at the dealer except oil changes. Fingers crossed I don't have head gasket issues.

 

Been there. Done that. Bought the EJ25 tee shirt and special sauce. Success hint. The new FelPro PermaTorqueMLS head gaskets are your friend.

 

Fuck crossing fingers go on Nasioc forums now don’t wait, it could happen as soon as 70k so count your blessings and chalk it up as lesson learned. You need to sell ASAP you have the same engine and JDM or reman engines won’t cut it. You have to put STI head gaskets in to save it, along with a head resurface and valve guides and valve adjustments. It’s 850 for OUTFRONT Motorsports to do the heads in So Cal they are dune buggy guys that build boxers for all the west coast so-called indie Subaru shops. It’s 2,900-5,400 just to have some shit mechanics to do it for you, those are real quotes. Sorry, Don’t shoot the messenger.

 

Damn, you too! That sucks. The Fel-Pro are great as well as STI and 5 star, I hear. I’m doing this when the weather cools.

 

CS-AR not to derail ya but you gotta check out comedian Stephen Lynch about Craig Christ, funny as hell.

 

Exactly

 

Subaru Life.