Coolant issue - urgent help please

Coolant issue - urgent help please

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Baryonyx

17,990 posts

158 months

Sunday 26th June 2016
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I hope you can get this sorted without too much issue OP. I know your pain, I bought a Triumph Daytona about this time last year in Scarborough that overheated and dumped it's coolant 20 miles from home! Turned out a stone was stuck in the fan and it had blown it's fuse (and it only overheated when I slowed down in traffic near Newcastle). Simple for the dealer to fix but it really fked me off and had me worried about all sorts. Cooling issues are a right pain!

MDMA .

8,849 posts

100 months

Sunday 26th June 2016
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Might be a problem getting the original garage to fix now he has sold up. Not what you want to hear, but Prosport may not have been a good choice to start with frown

Hope you get it fixed soon. Maybe give them a chance first, or see what other BS excuses he comes up with.

CAMS, Autotechnica, to name a couple in the north west, would be worth a quick call.

tonyb1968

1,156 posts

145 months

Monday 27th June 2016
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SpydieNut said:
i think you guys are right - unfortunately. The coolant that's sprayed inside the engine bay has an oily residue and also the oil level, which was at max when i checked it yesterday, is below minimum now frown

it's only 2 months and 2k miles since my rebuild - i've sent the chap a message a few hours ago, but had no reply yet. i get the feeling he's going to be difficult. the original rebuild took 9 months and you've never heard a list of excuses like it - he couldn't get parts, then the car wouldn't fire after he put the engine back in a second time - so time looking into that. other cars come in that were 'urgent', deaths in the family needing weekends to Ireland, annual leave, sickness etc etc. not sure why no-oneelse at the garage could work on my car??

i couldn't push things along at all - it was beyond frustrating. the fact he was 30 miles away and i was going through a divorce didn't help - only the fact he gave me a courtesy car made it slightly bearable. then afterwards he tried to charge me £400 extra for the car (never agreed before) as i'd exceeded the annual mileage of 9k (i did 12k in 9 months) which he apparently didn't know about first.

he was recommended, but has now sold that garage, although i believe is still working. but i'd really rather not take it back to him again.
Replying from the other thread wink

Actually Pete has had a few deaths in the family recently frown he lost his brother followed very shortly afterwards by his mother and at the moment he is off work due to illness.
Parts... Pete has to go through IM, they are a total nightmare to get parts off, there was an RB320 in there, 9 months for the suspension part due to IM having 0 in stock and needing to go to Bilstein and having one made up specially.

Used him for years with my scoobs, no problems but the 2.5 is a nightmare engine, the sort of crap that goes wrong with it....

Anyway, hope you get it sorted soon smile

tonyb1968

1,156 posts

145 months

Monday 27th June 2016
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MDMA . said:
Might be a problem getting the original garage to fix now he has sold up. Not what you want to hear, but Prosport may not have been a good choice to start with frown

Hope you get it fixed soon. Maybe give them a chance first, or see what other BS excuses he comes up with.

CAMS, Autotechnica, to name a couple in the north west, would be worth a quick call.
Prosport was probably THE best garage in the north west, unfortunately Pete has been ill recently and he has rented out his unit now, still one of the best Subaru mechanics I know smile (he was working on these cars in the early to mid 80's when it was a farmers special wink )

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 27th June 2016
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you can buy exhaust leak tester kits, not 100% accurate but worth a shot.

MDMA .

8,849 posts

100 months

Monday 27th June 2016
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tonyb1968 said:
Prosport was probably THE best garage in the north west, unfortunately Pete has been ill recently and he has rented out his unit now, still one of the best Subaru mechanics I know smile (he was working on these cars in the early to mid 80's when it was a farmers special wink )
WAS, being the past tense smile resting on 20 year old laurels. current results show this. until confirmed, hope for the best and hope you get it sorted. 9 months for an engine rebuild is just taking the piss. hindsight and all, may have been best to pull your car away from there sooner.

SpydieNut

Original Poster:

5,794 posts

222 months

Tuesday 28th June 2016
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MDMA . said:
tonyb1968 said:
Prosport was probably THE best garage in the north west, unfortunately Pete has been ill recently and he has rented out his unit now, still one of the best Subaru mechanics I know smile (he was working on these cars in the early to mid 80's when it was a farmers special wink )
WAS, being the past tense smile resting on 20 year old laurels. current results show this. until confirmed, hope for the best and hope you get it sorted. 9 months for an engine rebuild is just taking the piss. hindsight and all, may have been best to pull your car away from there sooner.
well it was very frustrating, but when he has the car with the engine out, in bits, it's hard to take it back unfortunately. then it developed another fault after they put the engine in again (just wouldn't fire) so they spent lots of time looking into that - trying to source a new ECU in case they'd fried mine when jump starting it. then the ECU codes were wrong and so more weeks went by trying to get the right code from Subaru. in the end it was a pin out of place on a replacement camshaft that had thrown the timing out.

he's replied to say he's back from Ireland tomorrow and will give me a call, but he's never heard of a headgasket going after using uprated gaskets (RCM) and head studs (ARP). but really, given how difficult it was to progress work when he had it before (and how long it took overall) and the fact it's gone so soon after being done, never mind the fact he's sold/rented his business, means i'm loathe to let him have it back again. it's my only car and i need it asap and he's very unlikely to have a courtesy car this time - *and* he's a good 45 min drive away.

so i've contacted CAMS in Blackburn and asked them to bring it in and sort it out.

SpydieNut

Original Poster:

5,794 posts

222 months

Sunday 17th July 2016
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MDMA . said:
tonyb1968 said:
Prosport was probably THE best garage in the north west, unfortunately Pete has been ill recently and he has rented out his unit now, still one of the best Subaru mechanics I know smile (he was working on these cars in the early to mid 80's when it was a farmers special wink )
WAS, being the past tense smile resting on 20 year old laurels. current results show this. until confirmed, hope for the best and hope you get it sorted. 9 months for an engine rebuild is just taking the piss. hindsight and all, may have been best to pull your car away from there sooner.
Well it seems that's right on the money unfortunately mad

CAMS performance has stripped it down and the reason the head gasket went is that the studs weren't put in right. They were all different heights apparently (photos taken during dismantling) and the chap said he initially thought that 3 of them hadn't been tightened properly, as they felt like they had already been loosened. Sadly it's worse than that. When they took the studs out two of them brought the threads out of the block with them. So seems they were cross threaded and stripped. So now I need new half blocks - and how much labour to rebuild it, never mind another gasket set, new studs etc etc.

There were also various clips loose and the hose for the turbo was half folded into the pipe itself, instead of sitting nicely around the outside of it. The phrase Brian used to describe the work that had been done on my car was 'abysmal'.

Given that Pete has now sold his Subaru specialist workshop in Stockport, means I don't hold out much hope for redress. I suppose at the least heads aren't cracked or warped, but still, after spending £6k for Pete to rebuild the engine with forged internals means I really don't have funds for this.

st!! I loved that car when it was running, as it's just an awesome package. But I can't keep doing this. So I'm selling it and the only thing to decide it whether to just sell it as is, or fix and sell. I'll get priced for fixing it tomorrow as well as an idea of what it's worth as is, then I can decide.

Pete told me early on, when I mentioned I'd been referred to him, that you're only as good as your last car. That's certainly true!!

hora

37,000 posts

210 months

Sunday 17th July 2016
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The place that used to be near the council tip? Charged me a fortune for a sensor swap. All done in a backstreet garage setup. I felt like someone was making a mint out of customers..

In future I'd recommend the Subaru bloke in Hebden Bridge. He builds and races his Subaru in road/rally.