Toyota 86/ FRS / BRZ Blown Head Gasket
 

Im sure most of you guys are familiar with Subaru head gasket issues.

That being said, has anyone on here has blown a head gasket or a leak?

Ive noticed these problems were common when their cars hit around 100k. It has been 5 years since the 86/BRZ has been released, so I would like to see if any problems has arise in our cars.

Any high mileage people feel free to chime in. :)

Oh, although my 2013 FR-S is about 5 years old, it's not high mileage, I have never had any head gasket problems.

From what I've read on this forum, head gasket problems with the FA20 engine are rare on a stock engine. So, I think you can relax - :)


humfrz

90k and going. Bone stock. Zero problems. Well engine wise anyway.
Only major issues was the throw out bearing at 75k.
Other than that leaky cam plate sensor at 55k. Seems like it's back again but too minor to get it fixed.

Just becuase other Subaru engines had issues does not mean they all do. There have been maybe two reported here. Not even a blip statisticaly. I do not see these being a problem.

One Subaru engine was the common culprit with a high frequency of blown head gaskets and that was the EJ25. The earlier EJ22 on the other hand was extremely durable and extremely rarely blew a head gasket. The blown head gasket on a EJ25 was most serious on the DOHC versions of the engine basically the late 90s Subarus, those leaked coolant internally and caused serious problems. Later EJ25s were SOHC and the big change here is when the head gasket blew on these, the coolant leak was external and no longer catastrophic as it was previously. Subaru has revised this head gasket a few times, thus far EJ25s with the new revised head gaskets appear to operate fine for the moment.


Our FA20 is quite a lot different from the EJ family and our FA is a lot closer to the Subaru FB engines. A change on the FB engines over the EJ is that they don't have coolant passing through the head gasket, an attempt to further reduce the chance of oil and coolant mixing. So the same issues with blown head gaskets of the past will at the minimum not affect the newer Subarus in the same way. Any engine however can blow a head gasket, you just hope its when the car is finally done after several years of service.


That said Prodrive has made a Subaru engine without head gaskets. If it can be mass produced who knows, Subaru might actually build that instead and at that point the head gasket problem is unquestionably over.