Cylinder head sealer?

[audi321]

Hi all. My Audi A4 is going through water every few weeks and having had the radiator and everything checked for leaks, someone has said it could be the cylinder head gasket? Then they said I could get some sealant which goes in the water to sort this out and it's about £25.

Has anyone any experience of this and does it work?

Cheers all.

[PositronicRay]

You could try bunging some K Seal in. It may help but if you really like your car do it properly.

[imagineifyeswill]

I think what you are talking about is Steel Seal, its recently changed its name but cant recall what its now known as. As a fulltime mechanic I would class it as a backyard bodge although some internet reports swear by it working.

[paintman]

Several products out there, all claiming to do much the same thing.
K-Seal, Steel Seal, Bars Leaks amongst them.
I view them as bodges & a way to try & get a bit more life out of a cheap motor that isn't worth spending money on. I've used K-Seal & it did work, albeit on radiator leaks.
Don't forget you're pouring stuff into the cooling system with the intention of bunging something up - & there's a lot of things in the cooling system you DON'T want to bung up!

[V8RX7]

K seal can work

Steel Seal is utter st - their product ruined a rad despite following all instructions to the letter - they wriggled and wriggled - cowboys at best.

[buggalugs]

I wouldn't do it to a car I wasn't going to sell in the next 10 minutes!

[packman10_4]

Some of the Passat 2ltr TD had problems with pours heads this also would inc the Audi units ....

The only way is to remove the head and get it pressure tested....

[Convert]

I used Steel seal in a Rover 25, K series 1.4 over a year ago.

I could see the water / oil bubbling out between the head and block, and run down onto the exhaust.


Grabbed a bottle of the green gunk, not expecting much.

Follwed the instructions to the letter.

Then Drained 7 litres of chocolate milkshake out of the sump. Filled her up with a gallon of used oil from the TVR (The rover is a couple of hundred quid snotter so I didn't think it was worth throwing good money after bad.)

Topped up the coolant.

She's used maybe half a litre of water over the past year / 8000 miles.


I never thought it would work, but it did for me. Daughter is still running the car.

[S0 What]

I've used K-seal on many customers cars as a "fix to get me till payday" bodge and 7 times out of 10 they are still running it at the next MOT/year, my own lucida had the usuall cracked head coolant leak, K-seal sorted that for 5 years, in fact when i finaly scrapped it the engine was still mint and never used a drop of coolant, funnily enough i've never actually used it on a K series engine
If i get a car in with known coolant leak/head problems and i'm doing any coolant work that requires draining the coolant i allways recomend adding it even if the problem hasn't arisen yet, however it's not the answer to all issues, it will reseal a badly blown H/G for a while then it'll let go again at a later date, get it in there early enough and in the correct fashion and it does what it says on the bottle.

IME barrs leak is better in rads and external leaks, never used steel seal TBH but only cos i found K-seal works fine enough.

[S0 What]

Update
Yesterday i used steel seal on an 09 Fiat 500, the plastic pipe connection on the stat had snapped off and the owner had driven it for 5 miles/20 mins with no water, it had been so hot the oil had evaporated (there was non showing on the dip stick at all), we chemical metaled a new metal pipe into the stat housing and fixed that leak but it was still leaking from the head/block joint at the gearbox end and in desperation (and with her blessing) we tried steel seal (£38 a bottle mind) and it worked, got her back to wales and then onto Liverpool where she PX'd the car for a new 500 at a main dealers, 600 miles and not a drop of water used.

Last week (prompted by this very thread) we used some on an astra 1.7 TD that gets used on the motorway daily and was using 5 Ltrs a day for 400 miles, it wasn't an external leak it was internal and caused hydrolocking when left overnight unless you took the rad cap off as soon as you stopped the engine, a bottle of steel seal in it and 1200 miles later it's still water tight, in fact the dam owner hasn't had to come back for the head change we had planned so i may have lost a job there (but gained a free 1.7 TD head he paid for) LOL.

[audi321]

OP here - I've put a bottle of K Seal in this week. Too early to tell if it's worked yet but I'll let you know in a couple of weeks. Cheers all for your advice!

[Sardonicus]

K seal worked on 2 gusher heater matrix leaks one on a Fiat Punto and another on an old boys Austin Maestro neither came back for the same problem whilst I was still trading in London the Fiat was only supposed to be temporary so like mentioned by another poster did myself out of a job wish is easy enough on a Punto not sure I would use it for anything more serious to be honest unless the customer requested its use if a guy came in with an M3 for example I would advise against just do the job properly

[S0 What]

Update, astra blew the rad out so head and gasket now changed, steelseal lasted 1700 miles ebfore it went and TBH i'm surpised it sealed at all judging by the gap in the gasket.