I'm looking at head gaskets on RiffRaff. I see the FMC gasket at $95.87 each, and then Mahle at $29.88 each. At a cost difference of $66 apiece, what is the difference between the two? RiffRaff has a solid reputation for not carrying crap parts, so on one hand I want to save the $132 difference for a pair. But on the other hand, as a result of what I have seen among this forum as well as from my own experiences, there are a lot of non-OEM brands (mostly those that cost much less than OEM) that just don't hold up. Going back in to re-do a head gasket in 6 months or so is not something I want to do. Can any one vouch for Mahle head gaskets standing the test of time?

 

If you don't get an answer here you could check with Clay. I'd like to hear the final determination. Here's a bump either way.

 

Much appreciated. I'll give that a try also!

 

Here is the response I got from Clay

Mahle it is

 

I'm late to the party but FWIW, Swamps used Mahle when they rebuilt my engine. If anybody should know head gaskets, those guys should. Having said that, they also installed fire rings in between my block and heads so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

 

Thanks for the input. Swamps I believe is more performance oriented and fire rings are commonly used as an extra layer of reinforcement in performance applications, so it makes sense that they would add them in. Even when using fire rings, you still don't skimp on the head gasket on a performance build. I know Mahle has been around a while and have many different products, but I've never used any of them.

 

I used Mahle on my rebuild and they’ve worked so far, ive only got about 3k on the rebuild but no issues so far