oil for subaru forester

[M1Accord]

A friend of mine just bought a subaru and needs advice on oil. She said that a lot of people she knows has problems such as head gasket failure, oil leak, and oil relate issues with Subaru. She want to know if anything she can do to avoid this; may be running thicker oil and having short OCI. Car is 07 Forester turbo version.

I told her I know zippy about Subaru but do know that I haven't bought one because of such information I found and heard about the oil problem. I actually have 3 close friends all with head gasket problem and moderate oil leak with their Subaru. Nice car and excellent awd system though.

 

[Tremo]

The head gasket problem on the 2.5 was fixed back in 2003.

I have an 04 OBW, 48k on the clock, no leaks or gasket failures. I'm running PP 5W-30 in it.

 

[spOILEDrotten]

Do like me, buy one with the 2.2L.

Seriously though, yes they fixed that a while ago. I had one of those engines in a different vehicle. No leaks, plenty of gasket replacements. Just run a nice syn and your friend will be fine. The leaking is just the seals getting dried out. Mine never did until the day I sold it with close to 200K. A guy gave me $7,000 because it ran like new.

I currently own a 96 that leaked a bit when I bought it. I did a pair of ARX cycles and I run Mobil 1 HM 10w30. No more leaks.

 

[Titan]

Have an '06, and an '07, another '99 in the family. Zero problems with any...ooops, the '99 was slow to go into first in the AM, but ARX for Automatic transmissions fixed it within a week...it has well over 100,000K miles on it. My '07 already has 35,500 on it...very impressed with it. Nice Leather seats that are holding up very well, good ride quality, excellent traction and handling, of course. Run Pennzoil Platinum 5-30 for 7500 mile intervals, WIX 51365 filters every OTHER oil change, UOA's are boringly good, except for once had a streak of Lead..."particle streak" they say. Once the warranty runs out, looks like PP might go 10,000 miles in this engine the way I run it (mostly highway at 72-76 mph). YMMV.

 

[Tremo]

I am also impressed with the quality and ride of my Outback. The bugs have been worked out of the 2.5, it's a solid reliable motor now. Just run a good oil in it and do all the other needed maintenance, and it shoulod be a trouble-free car.