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“For a head gasket? Sounds more like an engine replacement.”

That's because that is what usually results if you fail to notice the start of the discoloration of your coolant reservoir. As the gasket starts to fail engine combustion gasses/oil contaminate the coolant till total failure/overheating result. I was considering a Forester at one time. My SIL bought a used Forester. I knew about the head gasket issue and decided to wait and see if the problem had been resolved. It wasn't. End result a $3500+ engine replacement.

http://www.smart-service.com/blog/2010/02/subaru-head-gasket-will-subaru-pay-for-repair

http://allwheeldriveauto.com/subaru-head-gasket-problems-explained/

Everytime you get your coolant flushed, be sure to add the special $6 bottle of additive to your radiator you get at the dealership.

Lot’s of people get their radiators flushed at Jiffy Lube and don’t do that. A little bit down the road and ffpffp goes the head gasket.

I bought my Ozzie wife an Outback in 2000. We leased a Tribeca when they came out too. She loved that thing, but I just didn’t want to keep it when the lease ended because we have a few funny things start to go on with it.

So, we still have the 2000 OB, and I do just about everything to it myself. Did a timing belt change last year. Was sort of mad I didn’t give it another 50K because that belt looked brand new. Just about everything on the Subaru is engineered to make it easy to work on, except I guess the dreaded head gasket. Have a job to do on it, just look it up on Youtube and you’ll be able to do it all yourself.

They run great in snow. BTW, this outback is 13 now, and looks really really good. They hold up very well. We definitely got our money out of it. If it died tomorrow, we’d get another.