A few weeks a go I took my car into a local garage after noticing a small pool of water under the engine bay on a couple of a occasions. I was advised that it being a Rover 75, it was likely to be the head gasket gone and that a pressure test would confirm this.
Anyway a pressure test was carried out, but there were no leaks found. After further examination the garage decided that it was the water pump at fault and replaced it along with a new timing belt.
This morning after my wife left for work in the car I noticed a damp patch on the drive. Later in the afternoon my wife called to say that the car broke down on the way home having over heated.
The breakdown guy said that there was a small amount of oil in the remaining water and vice versa and that that the headgasket had gone.
Having paid out £360 for all of the tests and replacement parts do I have any comeback with the garage for mis-diagnosing the fault,? this obviously will now be a bigger and more expensive job, should they go some way towards the extra costs involved or am I on a no hoper?
Thanks in advance for any possible advice.
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Are you sure you have not got the air con on ?
Had you previously checked for water loss in the header tank or water in the oil,don't these have a crappy o ring seal that goes somewhere and allows water to leak.Water pumps are a weak point so there is not a lot lost by changing it early.The garage will say at the time everything was hunky dory but had they had experience with these rovers the head gasget would have been the first place to look maybe the waterpump had caused the gasget to go,X and Y reg with major mechanical problems are now deemed as scrappers because the parts can fetch much more than a complete non runner.
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The headgasket will have gone due to the overheating and drop in coolant, especially if there was coolant visible from underneath the car and that itself would not have been the cause of water getting out of the cooling system and onto your drive.
It sounds as if there is a leak somewhere that the garage has missed (radiator, associated pipes, expansion bottle top, water pump again?), its got worse, dumped all of the water and took the headgasket.
It would depend on how hot the car got before being turned off as to how much damage was done, however after suffering similar failure off the back of a mis-diagnosis from a garage it is worth speaking to them and putting your case in writing. They may meet you half way and now charge for parts but very little labour. However just fixing the headgasket will not stop it going again if the route cause isnt found.
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