Advice appreciated!
Discussion
Hi - I posted this in the "Gassing Station" forum, but I was told it might be better in here, so here we go!
Hi! - I'm a newbie here, but it seem like a good place to get advice and info - so here goes! - I have a fairly rubbishy old Nissan Micra (
), which up till recently had been very reliable. A few months back, I had problems with the engine seriously overheating, and it turned out the water pump was leaking, so I had it replaced.
After that it ran fairly well, except the average operating temp. of the engine was a bit higher. This has been creeping up, and then last night on the motorway, the temp gague hit red, a horrible mettalic ticking noise came out the engine when I had my foot on the accelerator, a load of steam shot out the exhaust and the car lost all power - damn it, it looks like the head gasket has blown.
My question is - presumably the previous bout of overheating when the water pump failed has weakened the head gasket and it has now failed.
But, would this failure itself be the cause of the car slightly overheating over the last few days and then totally overheating just before it gave up? Or is it more likely that there is a secondary problem (air pockets in the coolant or something) that caused the overheating, which in turn sounded the death knell for the head gasket?
I'm just trying to work out if this is worth getting fixed, or time to scrap it and start again!
Any advice anyone can give me would be massively appreciated.
Cheers - L
Hi! - I'm a newbie here, but it seem like a good place to get advice and info - so here goes! - I have a fairly rubbishy old Nissan Micra (
), which up till recently had been very reliable. A few months back, I had problems with the engine seriously overheating, and it turned out the water pump was leaking, so I had it replaced. After that it ran fairly well, except the average operating temp. of the engine was a bit higher. This has been creeping up, and then last night on the motorway, the temp gague hit red, a horrible mettalic ticking noise came out the engine when I had my foot on the accelerator, a load of steam shot out the exhaust and the car lost all power - damn it, it looks like the head gasket has blown.
My question is - presumably the previous bout of overheating when the water pump failed has weakened the head gasket and it has now failed.
But, would this failure itself be the cause of the car slightly overheating over the last few days and then totally overheating just before it gave up? Or is it more likely that there is a secondary problem (air pockets in the coolant or something) that caused the overheating, which in turn sounded the death knell for the head gasket?
I'm just trying to work out if this is worth getting fixed, or time to scrap it and start again!
Any advice anyone can give me would be massively appreciated.
Cheers - L
Probably the "serious overheating" when you had the water pump fault set the stage for total head gasket failure later on. I think it's likely that the head is warped, and will need skimming when the head gasket is replaced.
It shouldn't cost too much to get the head skimmed. Personally, I'd defer a repair-or-scrap decision until I'd got the head off and had a look to see what state the bores were in, but then I'd be doing it myself. If you got someone else to do it it might not be worthwhile, depending on how "rubbishy" the car is
It shouldn't cost too much to get the head skimmed. Personally, I'd defer a repair-or-scrap decision until I'd got the head off and had a look to see what state the bores were in, but then I'd be doing it myself. If you got someone else to do it it might not be worthwhile, depending on how "rubbishy" the car is
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