overheated car advice

honey06

my car is a M reg Primera estate (automatic) and has run like clockwork and been faultless till driving home this evening. I was stuck in a traffic jam for ages. it started to idle at much higher revs and clunked into gear from neutral.... i thought something was amiss but didnt know what, then a few mins later there was smoke coming from the bonnet.
breakdown recovery came and said the engine had overheated and blown the radiator hose and probably the head gasket too
:sad:
anybody have an idea how much this will cost to put right? :rolleyes:
is it likely there will be other things damaged/ causing the problem?
my car has been so reliable up to now, I don't know whether it will be worth getting it repaired??
TIA

anewman

*Could* be new car time I am guessing.

At the very best, new hose, replace thermostat, and top up coolant which won't cost very much. You should be able to do these little jobs yourself with not too much difficulty. It would then be a case of watching the temp gauge (I am guessing you missed that going into the red just before steam came out).

If other things have gone, that's when it would start to get pricey. If the water pump is knackered (which could have caused all the problems) this would cost quite a bit to replace.*If* the headgasket has to be replaced, expect a cost of around £300. Most of the cost is labour unfortunately as it's a long job. The cylinder head will probably need to be skimmed as well.It is quite possible there is more damage than this. A compression test will reveal whether the head gasket has gone though. At the very worst, you would need a good working scrap engine.

honey06

ouch!!

i had a horrible feeling that might the case. I'm sadly a technophobe with cars.
breakdown recovery will take it to my garage tomorrow, so they can have a look but it doesnt sound promising
how much would a scrap engine possibly be???

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Don't panic yet. The engine may well be fine. Replace the cheap bits first, and go from there.

goldspanners

there is agood chance the engine will be fine,ive saw plenty of older nissan engines work at constantly high temperatures and when they eventually overheat and burst a hose all you do is change the hose,remove or change the thermostat (we removed them as there was no need for them where these engines worked) clean out radiator core and flush the cooling system and on they went for another few thousand hours. the head gasket usually blew after about 10,000 hours,your engine wont have done anywhere near this kind of work, so you might be lucky.

honey06

thanks everyone, will find out this morning when my garage looks at it.
the breakdown guy seemed fairly sure the head gasket had gone, but fingers crossed my poor jallopy will be ok

honey06

I had to wait until yesterday for my garage to sort the car, thanks again for the advice, you were all right :beer: :j :j
apparently the clip on the hose was completely corroded and they think that's why it failed when I was stuck in traffic.
as you suggested, it hasn't meant a huge repair bill. they checked it thoroughly and I have have my car back in one piece!! phew!!