is it a head gaskey

shannianni

peugot 206
1.4
54 plate
hi all my wife noticed some brown gunk in the water expansion bottle, and the carpet on the footwell on the passengers side is wet.
I have checked the oil cap for sludge and nothing
I have checked the dipstick for a milky substance and the oil is fine.
there is no white smoke when I start and use the car from the exhaust.
there is no loss of power.


can someone let me know if this is the head gasket or something else,


many thanks for your time.

EdGasket

The wet carpet is unrelated; maybe rain leaking in or possibly a heater hose leak.

The brown gunk could be a head-gasket to water leak (hence not getting into the oil). usually though you will notice some rough running on startup if this is the case. If you don't get that, just monitor it for now; as it is a fairly old car it's probably not worth paying for a compression test.

You might also put some K-Seal in the radiator (NOT the expansion tank); good stuff if you have a slight cylinder to waterway leak.

mchale

Is it losing coolant?

shannianni

hi all


its losing water but not a great deal, the carpet was wet when it was dry outside so its not an external leak and we have notice a slight smell in the car for about 2 weeks now
the cars has only done 51000 miles
on start up there is no power loss or when we speed up
can I get k-seal from Halfords (uk).

shannianni

how do I put k-seal in the rad without going through the expansion tank?

bigjl

Head gasket failure on the 1.4 TU3 engine is extremely common, they sometimes fail on the from OSF which leads to a bad oil leak, which has happened to my Berlingo with the same engine.

On a 54 plate it has either had the cambelt done two years ago or is two years overdue

If cambelt has not been done you have the opportunity to do both

Water in footwell could be a leak or the heater matrix

You need to figure out if it's coolant or rainwater.

The TU3 is an easy engine to do the head gasket on, as you car has not overheated you could not get the head skimmed if you wanted to save some money but if you are keeping for the long term that could be false economy.

Depends if you want to keep it for another few years or are looking to sell soon

K Seal could be answer if you are selling soon.

bigjl

shannianni wrote: »

how do I put k-seal in the rad without going through the expansion tank?

Usually by pulling off the top hose

Some older cars still have a radiator cap, not sure about yours though.

shannianni

if the heater matrix was leaking would you get the slimy gunk in the water bottle and the horrid smell?

bigjl

shannianni wrote: »

if the heater matrix was leaking would you get the slimy gunk in the water bottle and the horrid smell?

Only if somebody has used some kind of sealing additive to fix a leaky heater matrix

Musty smell is no uncommon with leaky heater matrix.

Never done a heater matrix on a Pug 206 but they are usually fairly involved to replace.

If it's a recent purchase then this issue could be fairly old. I would probably sell after putting some more sealing additive in it.

Pug 206's are plentiful unless they are a very rare spec.

arcon5

Put k seal on the expansion tank if your gonna use it, rather than fannying about unnecessarily.

But there are risks with it if you just happen to be unlucky! So depends what your car is worth.

Or just put a new tank on and sell it on

EdGasket

arcon5 wrote: »

Put k seal on the expansion tank if your gonna use it, rather than fannying about unnecessarily.

If you want to use it effectively, let some water out of the system and introduce the entire K-Seal directly into the top hose. then reconnect top hose and run the engine to circulate the full amount. That has a chance of sealing a leak. If you use the header tank, only a little is sucked in after each heating/cooling cycle and will probably be too little to have any effect.