I have an outback that was over heating so I took it into the dealer. They just told me that I need to replace the radiator, upper and lower hoses, ac belt, power steering belt and the thermostat. They said the lower hose was collapsing due to the vacuum. Is that normal to replace the whole shoot and match or would you start with the radiator cap and a new lower hose?
I first would check that the cooling fans were both operating. I would flush the cooling system and replace thermostat to start. The flush & stat will probably fix it but, if not then look further.
yeah the fans are working great. I was going to flush and replace the lower hose, radiator cap and stat... although I wouldn't be surprised if it was a head gasket, should have put that in my original post, he said that they weren't sure if replacing the radiator would fix it and that the head gasket may need it also.
When I mentioned that the head gasket was still under warranty there was a long pause, and a reluctant "yes" My sinking suspicion is that there is nothing wrong with the radiator but they want some money out of the repair instead of just replacing the head gasket first under warranty.
I picked up the car and will try a few things first, then take it in for a head gasket next week!
Edward Hayes wrote:
In these cars, if the head gasket is bad, there is usually a visible leak.
Are there any visible leaks?
Hi,
In my limited experience, Subies suffer from two types of HG leaks: external "weepage" that makes a mess but isn't really all that serious if you just keep the coolant topped up, and the internal "blown" HG that causes the heating problems. If it's the latter, coolant's quite likely disappearing into "nowhere" w/o a visible leak.
Rick
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