car ran out of water & blew gasket

[asp746]

the recovery man said i'd put water in the screen wash rather than the water tank (doh) and it had run dry. anyway, it's smoking from the exhaust and the recovery man reckon it's blew a head gasket. My question is..now that there's water in can i still take it on short journeys - i'm a bit skint till payday. Also is it an expensive job? The car's only worth about £500 to me if that so maybe time to scrap it.

thanks

[adandem]

My darling son did this to my car. If the HG has gone, don't drive it. The only problem was with mine was the only way to tell if it was the HG was to fit a new one which can be costly - mine was £300.

[sexy_fufu]

Is it a Rover 25 by any chance ?

[MORPH3US]

Was speaking to my uncle (mecanic) about the very same thing yesterday and he said it costs £400 - £800 depending on the car and other things to replace the HG...

Sounds like it might not be worth fixing if your car is only worth £500, but that said if you rely on your car and don't have money for a new one, maybe it is worthwhile....

I wouldn't drive it before its fixed if you plan to keep it in the long run!

M

[asp746]

yes it's a rover 214

[thescouselander]

It will probaly cost a few hundred pounds to get this fixed so it will probably be best to scrap it and get a different car.

[MORPH3US]

It will probaly cost a few hundred pounds to get this fixed so it will probably be best to scrap it and get a different car.

As I said, thats fine and dandy if the OP has £5000 stashed for a new car, but if they don't then maybe they are better getting the head gasket fixed.... unless they can live without a car that is!

[Nile]

Hello asp746

I'll move your thread to the 'Motoring & Public Transport' board.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=1009335#post1009335)) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email abuse@moneysavingexpert.com (abuse@moneysavingexpert.com).

Regards

Nile

[iolanthe07]

Rovers, apart from the 75 and the ones with Honda drive trains, are notorious for blowing head gaskets. Apparently the radiator is only just large enough, so any loss of water has quick and catastrophic results. If you do have to replace the car best to look for something Japanese.

[plane_boy2000]

Not just Rovers - this engine is the K series - craking engine, but has a few inherent design issues. Its the same engine that used in the old freelander, old lotus elise, most of the rover line up, plus a few others that I cant recall.

If the head gasket has gone then it may be time to scrap it as the cost will be high to fix, however if the car has been reliable to date then it may be worth fixing if you are keeping it for a while.

[anewman]

If you feel up to it have a gander at a haynes manual and see whats involved in replacing the HG for your car. For my car it involves removing the air filter box and all connecting bits, a cover from the top of the engine, some rod things, more connecting pipes etc then undoing about 16 bolts which are likely to be very tight. Then lifting off the top of the engine which is likely to be heavy. And then obviously remembering where everything goes and putting it back together.

You could give it a go anyway as chances are the HG itself will cost relatively little and if you manage to do it yourself it's a plus, and if it goes to the scrap yard and it was off there anyway you're only down a HG (that you could probably flog on as unused on ebay) and some tools which may come in useful later anyway.

[iluvmylexus]

Rovers, apart from the 75 .The 75 also uses the K series engine.
this engine is notorious for blowing head gaskets, especially in the heavier cars it is fitted to (including the 75 and Freelander).
because of the value of your car it may well be worth scrapping it rather than repairing.
we had a merc 190 E with a blown head gasket that we drove for 3 months until it went completely, it was never used for anything more than local/shoping trips until the day it finally went bang.

[iolanthe07]

The 75 also uses the K series engine.

Really? My local dealer told me it was fitted with a BMW engine, when I was looking to buy one.

[MrsTine]

I'd not try and drive it personally... but... I drove my old mini (1978) for months with it and it carried on running... In my defence then 3 mechanics and I all looked at it and couldn't spot the crack in the head gasket as none of the usual symptoms where there... no water in the exhaust and the oil looked fine... Drank water like you wouldn't believe! Was finally found when in desperation I asked them to take the engine apart and there was a lovelly crack in the head once it got taken off and cleaned up. It had us baffled for months!
Yeah it's possible to drive it, but you could be damaging the engine further. As it's a rover my personal view is to scrap it as I hate them :) But I can appreciate that might not be practical...

[payless]

Don't drive it, it will cause more damage

I paid £350 for new Head Gasket inc skimming ?? , from a local ( not generally cheap) garage on my old Rover 400. I'm not sure but wonder if you can get away with not skimming , it might but cheap.

Take into account if you are aware of other problems , as spending money on it for something esle to go would be a waste ( ie my gearbox went a few months later!)

[HenryWeston]

The k series is well known for head gasket failure, I have seen one with the head taken off and its easy to see why they go, the head gasket only just sits on 1.5mm of the outer edge of the cylinder liner.

[flybynight]

i did the Hg on my rover 820 about 3 times, if you are gonna scrap it anyway, have abash. the gasket set itself for em is about £15.my ford escort used to do a HG roughly every 2500 miles, but i had it that well sorted ( kept the bits of cornflake box marked up wwith holes gfor slotting the parts through) it was a 3 hr job on a sat afternoon.

[MrsTine]

Depends on whether you're looking at replacing the gasket only or if the head has cracked between the cylinders. if it has then you're looking at a new head... and it might cost you to get it skimmed just to find out that you have to buy a new head...

[anewman]

Depends on whether you're looking at replacing the gasket only or if the head has cracked between the cylinders. if it has then you're looking at a new head... and it might cost you to get it skimmed just to find out that you have to buy a new head...

I know new heads for my car are avalable on ebay for £100, maybe scrap yard cheaper. I guess transplanting all the bits would be the difficult part.

[plane_boy2000]

The 75 also uses the K series engine.

Really? My local dealer told me it was fitted with a BMW engine, when I was looking to buy one.

The Diesel engines in the 75 were BMW units, but all the petrol models were K series Rover units.

The K series was only ever planned to power a small car range, but as time went on they kept pushing it further and further. It has inherent problems with the water flow anyway, but expecting to much of teh engine resulted in the high number of failures.

[sillyvixen]

i had a head gasket blow in my car last year, i was working 90 miles away from home at the time and had to get back home that evening, i parked in a car park and as i returned with my pay and display ticket to be met with a river of hot oily liquid flowing from my car. a local dealership came and saw my car and towed it to the workshop as it was undrivable. the cost of repairs was 800 pounds. I choose to pay that as although that was about my cars worth (k reg astra) i would be hard pressed to replace my car to one of the same spec and low mileage for that price (and could find myself in the same situation a few months down the line if i did. i caught a train home and could not get back to collect the car for 2 weeks.

my problem was caused by the thermostat rusting over as i had been unable to drive for 2 months following surgery and the car had remained stationary. i had topped up the water that morning (along with other checks). apparently while moving it kept its temp with the air going through the engine, on stopping in a freezing carpark it cooled rapidly and just went.

has been fine since work was done.

[sam1970]

the same problem happened to me yesterday..the recovery guy said that the HG has gone and replacing it will cost around £350....the car is rover 214 (R reg.) so probably it is worth £600-£800 if drivable so i dont know is it worth repairing? the scrabyard will pay me £50 to take it away!!! is it better to replace the whole engine with a second hand engine? and how much will that cost??? dammn rover :mad: no wonder they closed down

[maninthestreet]

If the head gasket blew, it's possible the cylinder head has warped, and is either scrap or would need machining to correct. If the car is worth only £500, it is probably not economical to repair. From your comments about mistaking the screen wash tank for the cooling system expansion tank, I would enroll in a course on basic car maintenance to avoid making mistakes like this with the car you buy to replace this one.

[HenryWeston]

Rover should of stayed with the old A series engines!

[cowbutt]

From your comments about mistaking the screen wash tank for the cooling system expansion tank, I would enroll in a course on basic car maintenance to avoid making mistakes like this with the car you buy to replace this one.

I agree; all cars have weaknesses and need to be competently maintained. Cars with Rover K-series engines just happen to be a bit more vulnerable to blowing the head gasket if you don't keep the coolant topped up and the radiator in good condition, so you need to prioritise those checks if you own a car that uses this engine. I've had a 1993 Rover 214 since 1999, and whilst it had a bit of mayo in the header tank and is showing its age now, it's given a good 8 years service, and I'm looking to replace it with a similar vehicle. Certainly, it's been far more pleasant to drive, reliable and had lower running costs than my earlier 1979 Ford Escort estate and 1987 Ford Orion!

[MrsTine]

I honestly think everyone should spend the money on a basic car maintenance course... I've spent a long time under the hood of cars, mainly old landrovers, and for a girl I know a fair bit about engines. But the amount of people I have come across who genuinely don't even know the basics of how their cars work shock me. You can't truely appreciate the need for changing sparkplugs (or glow plugs if you have a diesel) and HT leads etc unless you know how an engine works. Even if only to avoid being ripped off at a garage it's worth educating yourself :)

[anewman]

I honestly think everyone should spend the money on a basic car maintenance course...

:T agree. And you can't go far wrong by starting out looking for a haynes manual for your car. It tells you what things need doing, so even if you can't be bothered doing them yourself you can tell a garage to sort it. It gives a spanner rating out of 5 to let you know how difficult the job should be.

A headgasket for my car costs £5.99 so if I get silly quotes like £200+ if/when mine goes I'll be getting the socket sets out and trying to sort it myself. If I can do it myself then it will only have cost £5.99. If I can't it goes on the scrap anyway.

I wonder what proportion of car owners just buy cars and run them into the ground without a single service or oil change, and then wonder why things have gone wrong!?!