*sigh*
The never ending saga continues with this car!
We paid nearly £400 to get it through the MOT just two weeks ago and now it turns out the head gasket has gone :o(
Needless to say, we're a tad short on funds at the moment so do you reckon it would be OK to run it for a little while longer as it is?
Cheers
|
Depends how bad the leak is. I had a head gasket go on my Polo about a year ago. Apart from using about half a pint of water a week and being a bit rough for about 15 secs when started from cold (damp was seeping into No 1 cylinder), it ran perfectly.
Dead easy to replace on the Polo. Best to replace the cambelt at the same time and if your Golf has the 1.3 engine make sure a new seal is fitted on the water pump. Once these pumps are disturbed to tension the cambelt, they usually leak slightly in my experience.
|
the guy at the garage said that it's not a bad leak, it's just oozing out, but there's oil all over the drive shaft.
he said that as long as we kept topping up the oil it should be OK for a bit - he never mentioned water though....
will we need to keep an eye on that as well? (know nothing about cars by the way!)
|
If it's the cylinder head gasket gone, then the oil leakage is quite serious by the sound of it. I have a feeling that it is the rocker cover gasket that has gone, a common problem on many older VW engines. If it is the latter, then no it's not serious provided you keep topping the oil up. Make sure it doesn't contaminate the alternator though...
Did the garage definitely say 'Head Gasket'?
|
yeah they did :o(
quoted about £300 to fix as well....
|
In which case you have my sympathies.
But to go back to your original question about whether you can continue driving it for a while, it's just impossible to say without knowing how bad the leak is. You could get by for another six months, who knows? Usually you will start to get certain symptoms when it gets quite bad, overheating, loss of performance, rough running.
Also if you do mainly short local journeys then it should remain useable for a while yet. I would be reluctant to take it on a long motorway slog though.
|
cheers mate :o)
It's mainly used for my other half to get to work in which involves about 15 mins each way on a motorway and for me pottering about in at the weekends.
I've been advised by a bloke in my work to check the oil to see if it's gone "milky"
If it can just last another couple of months then we'll be happy enough
|
I would be tempted to de-pressurise the coolant, and slacken then re-torque the head bolts one at a time. You may be able to cure the leak for minimal cost.
Number_Cruncher
|
If the Golf has a 1.3 engine, then I would almost bet my life the gasket has corroded through between No 1 and 2 cylinders. It's some time since I worked on a VW but I seem to remember that some engines had 'Use Once' stretch bolts, so if you slacken them, you will have to replace them. Maybe wrong though, as I say it's been a good few years.
Headstar, do you live near Bath? If so I could have a quick look at it for you.
|
|
|
