BlueDevil Products38386 Head Gasket Sealer - 1 Quart

Bought my 1996 Subaru Outback Impreza new off the lot during its birthyear (96). Since then, it has taken me through a dozen or so states, two wives, two kids, two dogs, five cats, and around 75 chickens. I've hauled trailers, firewood, camped from and lived out of this vehicle (the latter being a temporary homelessness between graduate schools). I had the head gasket replaced after around 140k miles ... about 15 years ago, and over the past year she wouldn't start again after running without a 20 minute rest. I've basically rebuilt every pump, filter, belt, and other doo dads myself, but a head gasket is beyond my ken. I should also mention I coated the vehicle with two layers of black semi-gloss housepaint after 200K miles ... she's not much of a looker but has always gone forwards and backwards, all the windows still work, as well as heat and AC ... When she started overheating like mad three months ago, I took her to my local mechanic who said he could do the head gaskets for "cheap" at around $1600, if he were to do it right and machine the heads. The car is worth less than $400 on paper (the tires are literally worth more than the car), but ... it's like putting down your favorite dog. I got to shopping for a new/used Honda, drove my motorbike to work for a few weeks, and prepared myself for the worst.THEN! I stumbled across this magical fluid, which still seems too good to be true. $50 for a functional vehicle? I figured it was worth a hail-mary, and had some delivered. While waiting for its arrival, I did tons of research - the odds seemed about 50/50, but worth a Saturday afternoon given our history. I followed instructions EXACTLY, flushed the radiator, etc., pored in half the bottle, ran it for 45 minutes and prayed for the best.Next morning she got to work, but just barely - I had to run the heat full blast to keep it from blowing up, and the radiator reservoir was bubbling over like mad (not a good sign). I came home despondent and wondering what the chances were of me doing a head gasket repair in my driveway ... ran across some reddit threads, and followed some random advice that said sometimes it takes more than one application. So without even removing the thermostat, I chunked the other half of the bottle in the radiator and figured it couldn't hurt at this point. Ran it 45 more minutes and ...The next morning she made it to work without overheating at all! And over the next 3-4 days, she seemed to be running BETTER every day! Lo and behold, the thing will now crank up every time without a cooling period (I have NO idea how it fixed this issue, but don't really care). After a couple months, it started to overheat just a tad bit and didn't restart for ten minutes while running errands, so I got another bottle, dumped half into the radiator, and ... viola!Hell, even if I have to toss a bottle in there every three months or so, that's $20 / month, which by my calculations is much cheaper than a car payment, and I get to keep my OldBaru :) I ended up buying a 2023 Honda CRV for highway / roadtripping, but purchased a cover for it & it sits under wraps in the driveway for 2-3 weeks at a time, as I keep the miles off it by rolling in the Subie whenever possible. Thusfar, I've had her on the road for up to 90 minutes with no problems, but I'm wary of taking her out for much longer, and don't need to anyway with the Honda in reserve.Long / short - this stuff actually works, but you may have to tweak the directions / application a little bit. It's a win-win if, like me, it's either the magic fluid or the scrapyard :) Good Luck!

I purchased Blue Devil head gasket sealer and blue devil 3 in 1 radiator flush for a blown head gasket in a pt cruiser. Firstly I am capable of changing the head gasket, but am a single parent to two young kids and don’t expect to have that kind of time until they’re older, so I rolled the dice.The radiator flush is required for making sure the surfaces that need repaired are clean. This gives the sealer a better chance if “sealing” and should help the repair last longer. It’s application was simple and should be possible for anyone to do. However I was concerned about the 20 mins of idling. I didn’t need to be.Now the instructions for the sealer seemed a bit much until I considered what it was for. My car required removing the thermostat housing and since the thermostat gasket is what sealed the housing I had to use the gasket. My system uses 2 gallons of coolant so I first poured in 1 gallon then half the bottle of sealer and topped it off with regular water(I didn’t have any distilled). I did this with the engine off because of how bad the leak was.50 mins of idling seemed like a lot for something that would overheat in 20, but the temp never went above normal. As per instructions after the idle time I let it cool off and then reinstalled the thermostat. I was presently surprised how little liquid the vehicle had used during the idle time and thought that was a great sign. After the coolant got topped off I had to drive a lot further than I had in a long time, and the temp again never went above half way, but what did surprise me was the restored fuel efficiency and performance(gutless car to begin with so any improvement is noticeable) as well as how smooth it ran.I am now a believer. Considering it’s been less than 24 hours I cannot comment on its life span, but will if it fails. I don’t expect it to. I’m hank you!!!