I'm curious if anyone has run into cars with NO leaks as they age beyond 10, 15, 20+ years? And when I ask this question, I mean with NO gasket changes.
Gasket eventually go out. With that said, which automaker design withstand the test of time and mileage?
Also, which cars have you seen that are notorious for leaks after just 5 years?
Wifes CRV is a 2010 and no leaks at all at 156k. We had a VW passat and that started weeping oil about 7 years in. Had the passat for 20 years/210k miles. Had to replace valve cover gaskets, cam seals along with the PCV trap twice in its life.
My 2001 Honda Civic had absolutely no leaks until it hit around 200K miles when it was 18 years old. At that point the rear main seal and valve cover gasket went bad and started leaking. The rear seal was leaking pretty bad - it started dripping on the ground. But, the valve cover leak was just seepage - it did not even make it onto the exhaust manifold.
On the other hand, a friend of mine has a 2015 Hyundai Sonata 2.4L. The valve cover gasket on that went bad in 2019 when the car had 60K miles. This was covered under Hyundai's excellent warranty, but the valve cover gaskets are known to go bad on these.
Crazy. How much did it cost to get the rear main seal and/or valve cover gasket done?
I didn't bother replacing them. The rear main seal alone was going to cost around $1200-$1300 with all the labor involved. I tried AT-205 reseal and it slowed the leak a lot, but didn't completely fix it. The car is hail damaged and high-mileage so I didn't want to pour that kind of money into it - I just use it as a backup car now.
Early-to-mid 1980s Jeeps and the AMC Eagle with the 258 six-cylinder engine are notorious for leaks due to having a plastic valve cover that invariably warps. As I recall in 1987 they finally went back to a metal valve cover.
British cars from the BMC and British Leyland era are also known leakers. Saabs with the Triumph-derived 4-cylinder engine also like to mark their territory though not as badly as their British cousins. The Saab 2.3 also has a problem where the head gasket will develop an external drip on the front left side due to head bolts in that area loosening up over time. (There was a factory TSB recommending retorquing the head bolts when this happens.)
