The Subaru Outback has a problem: its head gasket tends to blow out at around 90,000 miles. Someone told me this, and I checked with my mechanic and he confirmed it, mentioning he'd replaced an Outback head gasket just the previous week. Subaru may have fixed the problem by now. Ours is a 1999. The problem may be so common that you might exepect Subaru to have issued a recall about it, but one can imagine that that would be extremely expensive for them, and it's probably not normally a safety-related issue.

My mechanic says the best way to prevent the head gasket blowout is to make sure the engine never overheats. Always make sure there's enough coolant, and replace the coolant every couple of years.

This post is way out of character for this weblog. My main purpose in posting it here is to have it show up in search engine results so people can find it, and maybe pester Subaru about it.