How long should a head gaskett last?

rokerroar

Hi,
I'm totally fed up and hoping someone could give me a bit of advice.
My Citroen Xsara car is not yet four years old and the head gaskett has blown for the second time. The first was at 37,000 miles under warranty now 18 months later it's gone again at 67,000. I've been told it will cost almost £600 for the repair by a Citroen dealer - unfortunately they have already stripped it down so I can't get it done elsewhere and they say because it has gone twice it needs to go to a specialist to be checked out. I can't get any sense out of them over whether it should have lasted any longer. Does anyone know if this is reasonable. I can't afford the pay that much and I'd like to fight it if I have any kind of a case.

steveo3002

with luck they last the life of the car ...100k miles or more easily

with my vw's ive had a few go at 120-140k

sounds like you've been unlucky...maybe the garage didnt skim it when they did the first job

saintjanet

Sounds like the head itself needs skimming,if this is not done the gasket will not seal properly.

manda1205

Also if the garage is putting a copy gasket on ie from unipart, they will blow again pretty quick, always defo worth paying to have an orginal put on. My dad sis this with my fiat blew twice in a week with unipart ones so put an original fiat on and never went again. Also if the head needs skimming can cost quite a bit. Worth asking what sort of gasket they're putting on before they skim the head as they may just do it anyway.

Mr_Grumpy_7

In my opinion, and I'm not a qualified car mechanic or automotive engineer but, a head gasket should not fail during the normal life of the car. Where a head gasket does fail it is due to one of the following reasons:

Overheating, causing the cylinder head and/or block to distort.
Faulty design of the gasket.
Faulty design of either or both the cylinder head and block.

If you search the internet, you will find blown head gaskets only affect certain cars. This would suggest the most likely cause is poor design. It certainly is not a case of wear and tear as gaskets do not where out. They fail, due to either poor design or as a result of a failure of some sort.

With engines being made of aluminium, the design of gaskets, especially the head gasket is much more critical. In the days of cast iron heads and blocks it was rare for a head gasket to blow. Today, the car industry has convinced Joe Public that a head gasket will wear like any other component and that replacing them is part of normal maintenance. This is complete bo****ks! It just bad design, much the same as the great cam belt con.

The cam belt is another example of bad design where a "rubber band" can fail and litterally destroy the engine. What bright engineer thought that one up???

So in a word, head gaskets do not wear, they fail, largely due to poor design.

Rant over!!!

movieman

The cam belt is another example of bad design where a "rubber band" can fail and litterally destroy the engine. What bright engineer thought that one up???

One way or another you have to connect the cams to the crankshaft, and no matter how you do it, that can fail: chains weren't 100% risk-free, and even gears wear down over time. It's before my time, but wasn't one of the reasons why belts replaced chains because the chains of that era required regular lubrication to operate properly? And didn't chains replace gears because worn gears had to be replaced after a few years?

If you want a really exciting cambelt design, look at the Lancia Gamma... flat four with two cambelts, one of which was also used to run the power steering, so if it was over-stressed the belt would snap, and the other half of the engine would continue running for a while to totally trash the half that was no longer operating in sync. Gotta love those Italian engineers.

Mr_Grumpy_7

movieman wrote:

One way or another you have to connect the cams to the crankshaft, and no matter how you do it, that can fail: chains weren't 100% risk-free, and even gears wear down over time. It's before my time, but wasn't one of the reasons why belts replaced chains because the chains of that era required regular lubrication to operate properly? And didn't chains replace gears because worn gears had to be replaced after a few years?

Yes, chains do break, but they tend to give some warning, usually a horrible rattling noise that will go on for hundreds if not thousands of miles. For this reason chains do not have a service life, where as belts do. Having a cam belt is the cheap option, but when having it break causes so much damage, it is certainly not the best option.

vaio

One the other hand I’ve just finished sorting out an engine wreaking snapped cam chain on an ’02 70k Vectra, no warning rattle and, looking on the web, a fairly common event

david29dpo

belts are used because they are cheaper. a lot of the more up-market cars are going back to chains and gloating about it. says it all really.

KrisPringle

my audi is still on its 2 origanal gaskets after 160k. Dont know about the citroens but the Rover K series engine is renowned for blowing head gaskets. As said above, its about engine design, or maybe the fact your engine was built on a friday afternoon.

vaio

KrisPringle wrote:

my audi is still on its 2 origanal gaskets after 160k......but the Rover K series engine is renowned for blowing head gaskets........

Same here, my last three cars have been audis and they did 220k, 165k and 175k with no problems. Back in the '70s i had an imp which did head gaskets every month (or so it seemed)