Forester head gasket failure

Dealers don't usually offer financial assistance for off-warranty component failures. They have little real incentive to do so.

The manufacturers, on the other hand, sometimes will if you contact them directly and offer a polite but firm, focused and persuasive argument.

Unfortunately, a good many "low-information" customers don't understand the difference between a dealership organization and the manufacturer.

I've been reimbursed couple of times over the years by Honda and Toyota but struck out with Ford- once in the early 80's then again around 2005, both for different F-150s.

I had a bad time with Ford over 30 years ago that resulted in me having to sue both them and dealer. They settled out of court when their lawyer saw my documentation and gave me the repairs and cash I needed but the car, a Mercury Lynx, was a lemon. Sorry to hear that they are still like this. We had a Mazda that was a great car and at 10 years was stolen and stripped for parts which led me to get a '98 Forester.

My wife would not even consider another Mazda because of Ford part ownership. Screw us once like this in a lifetime like this and you have lost us forever as a customer. If we had had to pay for the repairs of that Lynx it would have cost us maybe $3,000 on a car we bought for $6,000. The engine had failed 11 months into the 12 month warranty and warranty repair was inadequate leading to whole engine replacement. Hell of a battle with Ford.

Working on car, a couple of cracks were found and cost is up $1,000 and Subaru upped reimbursement $500. He is going to go through repair but has my wife worried about her '08 to the point of saying that since it happened to my Forester twice and now son's, that is her last Subaru.

New cars have new engines but she is still worried. What can I tell her? We are at that age where our Foresters could be our last cars.

You can tell your wife that Ford divested itself of nearly all it's Mazda stock and has completely ceased any co-production of autos with Mazda. Mazda does share some manufacturing with Toyota these days.

Sorry I missed this when it was first posted, and I'm not sure if it was Frank or Wade whose wife doesn't like Ford.

Unfortunately, it's not just Ford which can give owners a hard time over warranty work. I personally know BMW and MINI owners who have had major components fail which still under warranty and they have had a hell of a time trying to get full compensation. One hears of other marques suffering similar indignities. Owners of an BMW X5 were stranded in the USA for more than a week while the dealer tried to get their vehicle running well enough to limp home to Canada. (Of course the fact that BMW USA is a separate company from BMW Canada just adds more confusion to things when it comes to warranty claims.)

Over the years my personal observation or feelings were that original Japanese manufactured cars were cheap but not as good as American. I recall looking at Subaru's thinking why in the hell do they put the spare tire under the hood above the engine? Over the years the quality of their cars improved considerably. A car was not expected to fail until sometime after the warranty period. US nameplates would get similar warranties but cars would fail and warranty just meant you did not have to pay repair cost. This was pointed out to me by a AAA tower who showed me a lot full of cars and pointed out that there were no new Japanese cars there but many new US ones. The US maker would make a good car then strive to make in cheaper for greater profit whereas Japanese worked on improvement. I had a Chrysler worker tell me this about the Chrysler transmissions which he said were the best in the world but quality dropped off when they started making them cheaper.

Edwards Deming the guy who thought the Japanese quality has been dead for 25 years, while Japanese companies have been bought into by US manufaturers and slowly are aquiring similar cost cutting manners. Japanese quality is diminishing and future quality is no sure thing at all! In the future, top quality may be reserved for premium Japanese brands, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti. The rest may be let go.

There was no Deming in Korea, they have produced good cars, but now quickly cheapening out. I would never buy an expensive Korean car because of that. And I've had an old Hyundai for years, decades, one of the early and disparaged Excels. Wanted to get rid of it many times but it was so reliable, I couldn't dump a car that would just never break.

Nowadays, plenty of horror stories coming from this manufacturer. Plastic parts in engines, transmissions, recalls due to catastrophic engine failures.

Basia

Our son has an expensive Kia but paid extra for warranty out to 10 years and 100,000 miles.

Consumer reports still rates the Forester highest of small SUV's ahead of Honda CRV and Toyota Rav 4.

Sorry should have read taught, past participle of teach.

Basia

Some of these posts sound like the US manufacturers used to give better support. In 1968 we bought our first, and so far only, NEW car. It was a Plymouth, bought off the lot from vehicles left over at the end of the model year. From day 1, it had a slow leak of hydraulic fluid at the valve body on top of the steering box. Of course it was still under warranty, however long that was supposed to last. So I naively took it back to the dealer. A day or so later I was told it was all fixed. I got it back, and before I got home it was leaking just as badly. I took it back, went through the same cycle, half a dozen times. Eventually I managed to talk to their power steering guy who was given it each time to work on. He told me that there was a crack in the casting of that valve, but that the service manager was sure Chrysler would never believe that so the dealership would be out the cost of repairs, so he (the mechanic, who seemed quite capable) was told to clean off the valve each time and claim it was fixed, and eventually I would give up. I did give up: Nowadays I would probably try some legal action. But I unscrewed the compression fitting where the high pressure fluid came in from the pump, worked some Permatex into the threads, and screwed the hose back on. The car went for another 140,000 miles (and may for all I know still be going) with no further leaks there. (Screwing in the hose fitting had forced some of the Permatex back into the crack, I have always believed.) So at least fifty years ago last month Chrysler was just as willing to gyp the customer!

And does anybody out there remember the little Ford straight sixes that would saw through the rocker support tube? I had one of those. The rocker arms working off the camshaft pivoted about a tube, with oil coming from inside the tube. But some stupid designer had put the holes where oil came out of the tube on the lower side, so after 20,000 miles or less the hole in the tube got plugged up with metal worn away from the tube. So no more oil at that rocker, metal wearing away even faster. (On the upper side would have been OK, after all the oil had just come from the pump at significant pressure!)

On my engine there were two cylinders where the wear went clear through, sort of like a plumbing pipe cutter. Plenty of oil now... But a support shaft that flopped back and forth. Great for reliable valve action. I had this in a Mercury, Ford ignored the problem also in Ford cars, but I guess nobody bought this small an engine in a Lincoln or Continental...