Thoughts anyone?
Discussion
I've just had some bad news on the T350 (early 03 model 11,600 miles)
Basically - had steam vent from expansion after one short m-way journey. No overheating temp signs etc. Was able to get car to dealer within a few miles without temp issues. This is 4 weeks after 12K service and 1 week after cooling pressure test and refit of pressure cap.
Diagnosis - water pressure issue - head warped by 8thou. Solution? New head (plus cam, followers, valves etc) from factory etc (basically top half of engine).
Cost? Over £6K.
Am a bit frustrated - i've had no sensor warnings at all in 6 mths of ownership. Big service has just happened and cooling system checked out recently. I was topping up expansion module fairly regularly, that was put down on the coolant check to be a couple of loose clips.
No warranty!! Are there any other options I can pursue without going full dealer cost route?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Basically - had steam vent from expansion after one short m-way journey. No overheating temp signs etc. Was able to get car to dealer within a few miles without temp issues. This is 4 weeks after 12K service and 1 week after cooling pressure test and refit of pressure cap.
Diagnosis - water pressure issue - head warped by 8thou. Solution? New head (plus cam, followers, valves etc) from factory etc (basically top half of engine).
Cost? Over £6K.
Am a bit frustrated - i've had no sensor warnings at all in 6 mths of ownership. Big service has just happened and cooling system checked out recently. I was topping up expansion module fairly regularly, that was put down on the coolant check to be a couple of loose clips.
No warranty!! Are there any other options I can pursue without going full dealer cost route?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Last year I had a problem where after calling into a motorway service area for a break, as I was moving around the car park looking for a space I noticed steam coming out of the front on the Tamora - no warnings, but on closer inspection the coolant temp had increased to around 103 degrees.
Turned out the engine temperature sensor electrical terminal had corroded and the fans had not kicked in. The mechanic at Henley Heritage (great people!) said that water runs down the cable onto the terminal, hence corroding it, so he put a shrink-wrap sleeve over the new sensor to prevent it happening again.
Does this help?
Julian
Turned out the engine temperature sensor electrical terminal had corroded and the fans had not kicked in. The mechanic at Henley Heritage (great people!) said that water runs down the cable onto the terminal, hence corroding it, so he put a shrink-wrap sleeve over the new sensor to prevent it happening again.
Does this help?
Julian
What crap news-really sorry to hear it.
Sensors are a cause of concern ,I have been through several iol sender units,but I have not heard of a big bill resulting from a failure before.
TVR have had problems with batches of bad units-do a search and you will find lots of comments
Worth checking what was done on the service-if the sensor descided to fail just after the service you are probably on your own.If however the sensor has been replaced with a sender from a bad batch or worked on and not replaced properly then you might have a slim case to make that it was incompetence that caused your engines problem.
Unfortunately it will be an argument,you have to be able to prove incompetence.
Sensors are a cause of concern ,I have been through several iol sender units,but I have not heard of a big bill resulting from a failure before.
TVR have had problems with batches of bad units-do a search and you will find lots of comments
Worth checking what was done on the service-if the sensor descided to fail just after the service you are probably on your own.If however the sensor has been replaced with a sender from a bad batch or worked on and not replaced properly then you might have a slim case to make that it was incompetence that caused your engines problem.
Unfortunately it will be an argument,you have to be able to prove incompetence.
sideways mostly said:
What crap news-really sorry to hear it.
Sensors are a cause of concern ,I have been through several iol sender units,but I have not heard of a big bill resulting from a failure before.
TVR have had problems with batches of bad units-do a search and you will find lots of comments
The "known" problem relates to the oil sensor which is not significant in your case. It seems very unfortunate that a fault with the cooling circuit (i.e. fans not coming in) should have caused such a catastrophic failure. On this kind of car, corroded connections and the like are fairly common which is why the fan operation is always checked as part of a service. I'm a bit perplexed as to why a relatively simple overheat problem requires such a massive repair, to include a camshaft (and can the head not be skimmed rather than replaced?).
Thanks for your responses.
To give a little more info - yes it did have the coolant mod (additional expansion tank fitted). My oil pressure sensor also recently gave a false reading - it was way too high, this started about 3 weeks ago. But I took this straight to a dealer who checked it out and confirmed a faulty sensor.
Is there any way this may have not been the case? I can't imagine that this would have been a contributing factor.
From what has been explained to me (verbally only at this stage) my conclusions are that this must have been a problem (overheating) that had been festering for some time, but I never had a temperature reading over 98. Even with the pressure cap eventually venting, the temperature never rose into the 100s, let alone any sensor warnings given.
The initial diagnostic by the dealer indicates that the head is too warped to be skimmed and that a replacement supplied by the factory comes with all the other parts. It was also presented to me that although the car is an early 2003 model, it still had the "older" engine parts (which have allegedly caused other issues)
I am having the engine/car shipped up to TVR Power for further analysis.
To give a little more info - yes it did have the coolant mod (additional expansion tank fitted). My oil pressure sensor also recently gave a false reading - it was way too high, this started about 3 weeks ago. But I took this straight to a dealer who checked it out and confirmed a faulty sensor.
Is there any way this may have not been the case? I can't imagine that this would have been a contributing factor.
From what has been explained to me (verbally only at this stage) my conclusions are that this must have been a problem (overheating) that had been festering for some time, but I never had a temperature reading over 98. Even with the pressure cap eventually venting, the temperature never rose into the 100s, let alone any sensor warnings given.
The initial diagnostic by the dealer indicates that the head is too warped to be skimmed and that a replacement supplied by the factory comes with all the other parts. It was also presented to me that although the car is an early 2003 model, it still had the "older" engine parts (which have allegedly caused other issues)
I am having the engine/car shipped up to TVR Power for further analysis.
maddog-uk said:
I am sorry to hear this! keep us uptodate with latest news. Can someone show me a picture of the connector that needs waterproofing as I fancy doing that myself!
If you remove the black plastic air intake assembly (on the offside side of the engine), from memory there is an obvious sensor in the engine block pointing around 45 degrees downwards with a cable connected to the top. This is the one to protect!
I hope that's clear and that my memory hasn't gone!
Julian
Gassing Station | Tamora, T350 & Sagaris | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff