Several months ago our Subaru Forester blew a head gasket. I had done a little bit of work on our vehicles before but nothing this major. I've wanted to become more mechanically inclined so I decided to tackle the repair myself. The repair went up 2k in about 5 minutes when I found out that both heads were cracked between the valves. I ended up buying new heads and having a shop do a valve job on them for a cool 1300 in parts and 500 in labor :/. This doubled the amount of my repair. I ended up buying a good amount of tools (about 1100 worth). After all was said and done I replaced the head gaskets, cylinder heads, water pump, timing belt, belt tensioner, several pulleys, several sensors, lots of random gaskets, battery, and other random stuff.
Total cost? Haven't finalized it yet, but around 1100 in tools and around 2600 in parts/labor.
Got it running the other day and so far it's running great. Let it idle for about an hour or so and drove it for about 15 miles. No leaks or overheating issues. On the plus side, I get to keep a ton of tools for future use and I learned SOOO much more about automotive repair.... I've also been told that this could have cost 4-5k with full cylinder head replacement if I took it into a shop, so I may have come out ahead in the end anyways.
It will have been totally worth it if the repair lasts for 50k miles. (Crossing Fingers) lol
SS
