2008 Legacy PZEV cat and head gasket

Hello, New member here.

My wifes 08 Legacy 4 cyl w PZEV blew the headgasket about 2 weeks ago. Covered under extended warranty and I had the timing belt changed out since the car was at about 94K. 275$ out the door from the dealer, so I was pretty happy since most of the cost was the belt work. They did cut a lot of the labor cost for the belt since they had it tore down for the head.

While there I had asked them to check for a heat shield rattle, when the car first starts at the higher rev, which I've read is normal, it vibrated pretty bad. So they weld the heatshield on the CAT. Again, I guess there is a known spot that rots loose on the shiled and the weld is the fix.Then they call and say there is a problem w the CAT. Now it sounds like a full blown exhaust leak and they say the CAT needs replaced. Burn thru ?

I take it home and the wife takes it in to a indy garage today to check the exhaust. They can't check anything because of the heatshield welded onto the cat and will have to destroy the shield to check the CAT. He did mention it was odd that the car wasn't throwing a CEL if the CAT was bad.

So they call another Subabu dealer to source a part and they say it should be under warranty . Original dealer said Not covered.

I live in PA and have the PZEV Legacy. Subaru website says 7/70 for non PZEV and 15/150 for the PZEV. However it seems PA didn't sign off on the warranty w Subaru for some reason. Does anyone have any experience with the PZEV and CAT issues ? Recalls? Internet and dealers are giving conflicting info.

Thanks in advance.

I'm on my phone so I can't look into it too much, but it looks like this pzev cat recall should apply to you. I had this recall done to my car a month ago or so. If your heatshield is welded to your cat, they should give you new heatshields since I doubt they'd go through the trouble to try to reuse them.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/service-program-wqd-40-front-catalytic-converter-replacement-engine-control-203916.html

Thanks for the link, I followed to the WQD-40 link and then called SOA. Seems there is a replacement program however, my serial number isn't included??? I said this was unacceptable, the Subaru site shows 15/150K for PZEV vehicles, then there's a Subaru service recall on the CAT, my year was the first vehicle to have the PZEV and the problems existed to the 09 model year however mine is not included?

I guess the logic is that mine was built before the problems? So why did it fail?

I'm still baffled how a head gasket fails but there is no warpage on the head or the block? Seems Subaru figured out a way to make two parts that should never fail very poorly.

The rep was very nice and escalated my issue to her supervisor who is supposed to call me back. I'm waiting.........

Actually that was not the first year for PZEV, PZEV goes as far back as 2004 (maybe further) in CA, CT, NH, NY, MA, MS, RI and VT

The CAT recall goes back to my 05 4cyl pzev wgn. The cats were replaced at 60k, no questions asked, no CEL, we're now at 100k. I hope if we have issues again it will pop up before 150k

For you the CAT should be replaced under warranty.

Ok, David from SOA called and said it's covered 8/100k ( another set of numbers) He called the dealer and then called me back. I called to make an appointment and the service writer told me he had to wait for an authorization. I know the guy and he said he wanted SOA to Ok that they would pay the claim. Seems they have had problems before on getting local payback on these. David couldn't guarantee it would be paid.

So I mention the WQD-40 and he said he heard about that in Jan. but hasn't seen a whole lot of anything on it there. He ran my VIN and said it should be covered under the WQD-40. WTF.

Monday will be interesting.

In the meantime I had the wife leave the car and crawled under earlier this morning to check things out. The welds on the heat shield look OK to me , no burn thru anywhere. The noise seems worse on the Passenger side near the flange for the intermediate pipe. I took the grinder and cut off the tack welds and removed the shield. Nothing stood out as far as a bad seam or anything. It seems the noise is loudest where the chamber for the cat sits, or possibly the gasket above it at the manifold. Maybe the honeycomb let loose inside.

I'm not getting a CEL or error code at all.

Hopefully it's covered and I don't have to get further into it. Every bolt is rusted to the point of not taking a socket on the heads. Then there's about 10 spotwelds to grind off.

Ok, David from SOA called and said it's covered 8/100k ( another set of numbers) He called the dealer and then called me back. I called to make an appointment and the service writer told me he had to wait for an authorization. I know the guy and he said he wanted SOA to Ok that they would pay the claim. Seems they have had problems before on getting local payback on these. David couldn't guarantee it would be paid.

So I mention the WQD-40 and he said he heard about that in Jan. but hasn't seen a whole lot of anything on it there. He ran my VIN and said it should be covered under the WQD-40. WTF.

Monday will be interesting.

In the meantime I had the wife leave the car and crawled under earlier this morning to check things out. The welds on the heat shield look OK to me , no burn thru anywhere. The noise seems worse on the Passenger side near the flange for the intermediate pipe. I took the grinder and cut off the tack welds and removed the shield. Nothing stood out as far as a bad seam or anything. It seems the noise is loudest where the chamber for the cat sits, or possibly the gasket above it at the manifold. Maybe the honeycomb let loose inside.

I'm not getting a CEL or error code at all.

Hopefully it's covered and I don't have to get further into it. Every bolt is rusted to the point of not taking a socket on the heads. Then there's about 10 spotwelds to grind off.

Hey there, i too have had this problem I cut ALL the shielding off the cat-pipe and wrapped it back with DEI Hi-Temp wrap to protect the metal and keep the operating temps normal. THis solved my problem. At first i cut the band and front section off and the rattle persisted then all of it and it went away.

Just an update because I hate when these things don't have a resolution.

I finally got the OK from the dealer. The District Manager and Dave from SOA got together. The service manager got what he needed.

they replaced the cat and the heatshields where needed. Car sounds like it should now. The service manager said not to be surprized if I got a recall notice in 6 months or so and said my VIN was covered under the one mentioned above.

I was expecting to have to pay for the heat shields or bolts and hardware but the invoice was 0 dollars.

Funny thing is next day I got the recall notice for the brake lines.