chris427

I have a 1999 Legacy Outback 2.5 that keeps spitting all the water out on long journeys.
I can use it for shorter trips and around town and it is no problem but on a longer trip of around 1 hour on motorway or dual carriageways it goes from normal temperature to off the scale and i have to stop.
After a short time it cools down and i can fill it up again and off i go until the next time.
It seems the top rad pipe from the engine is hot and under pressure and the rad water is cool.
It's had a new rad,water pump,thermostat, an engine clean out and head gasket test, which was all ok, by my Subaru garage but it still does it.
All the Subaru garage says is "it must be an air lock!!!" If it was then it would do it all the time.
I check under the car for leaks and it shows none but the water has gone down and i have to put about a litre a day in it. The only other place it can be going is down and out of the exhaust, but that should have shown up on the head gasket test surely??? The rad cap also seems to smell of fuel/oil so i've ordered a block test kit myself to check it again.
I'm seriously thinking of running it without the thermostat and see it that stops it.
Anyone got any ideas????

ZEN Performance

headgaskets failed, it's a common problem on those.

chris427

That's what i thought before the Scooby garage had it. They told me it was all ok but the cooling system was blocked and changed the rad,water pump and thermostat and charged me £800 for the pleasure and it spat the water out the next day. They still maintain that the headgaskets were ok when they checked them and were justified by telling me to get the new parts fitted as they were stopping coolant flow.
Any idea of a rough price for the gaskets to be changed???

scoobyboy

agree with headgasket problem easy to spot if you know about them

ZEN Performance

Many head gasket problems are hard to spot with a gas test of the coolant. The problem being that if there going, they only leak on load, so you don't get any leakage on the test.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Id take it back and insist they now repair it free of charge, since its still doing it.

chris427

Called the dealer and after a bit of a heated discusion they refunded me the labour charges not the parts used so better than nothing and admitted they must have "missed" the gasket leaking!!!
So Constitution Motors of Norwich this is for you

scooby L

to$ers.

It's not your fault they miss diagnosed the problem... ask them to put your original parts back on!