Subaru Repair: 2002 Forester Head gasket, head gasket failure, engine coolant

Question
I brought my car in because there was smoke coming out of the back along with hesitation and the check engine light on. The mechanic tells me it need a head gasket. The car has 120,000 miles. I am now told they replaced the head gasket but it is not holding pressure and it could be the head is cracked, but they have to do some more research before they can tell me more. I don't understand, I change the oil regularly and it has never run hot. I don't abuse the car. I did some looking adn found an article about the engine coolant but that is not the same thing as what is wrong with my car, right?
Any thoughts?

Thanks for your consideration.

Answer
The head gaskets do fail .But as far as the rest of your concerns Its really hard to say, we do lots of headgaskets and never have had a problem but we Specialize in Subaru and know what to look for.What I am leery of is the check engine light ,what was the diagnoses?Smoke out of the tail pipe isn't usually the symptom we correlate head gasket failure to on a Subaru.Did the car actually ever overheat or leak coolant on the ground?At this point i would say there is a communication break down and i would try and get a better explanation from your service manager.

I truly hope you get this resolved and get back to driving your Subaru.

Justin
All Wheel Drive Auto