Head gasket 20k miles?
Discussion
Dear PHers I wonder if anybody can help me. Around 2 years ago I bought a 20k mile 2013 VW polo from a major used car dealer. Since then I have only used it sparingly as a station car and done around 3k miles.
Unfortunately when driving today I had acrid steam coming out of the engine. I pulled over immediately and saw one side of the engine covered with a mix of oil and coolant. The coolant reservoir was still full, but there was oily water dripping under the car.
Obviously this suggests a cylinder head gasket failure to me and the RAC man concurred. I have had the car recovered to a local Indy and they will get back to me with their findings.
My question is: should it be a head gasket failure, do I have any recourse to the seller or VW themselves? Clearly a head gasket going after 20k miles and 5 years these days should be impossible without a serious manufacturing defect? What are vw likely to say if I take it to them?
What else could it be? The engine seemed to be running ok... no temp warning lights came on...
Unfortunately when driving today I had acrid steam coming out of the engine. I pulled over immediately and saw one side of the engine covered with a mix of oil and coolant. The coolant reservoir was still full, but there was oily water dripping under the car.
Obviously this suggests a cylinder head gasket failure to me and the RAC man concurred. I have had the car recovered to a local Indy and they will get back to me with their findings.
My question is: should it be a head gasket failure, do I have any recourse to the seller or VW themselves? Clearly a head gasket going after 20k miles and 5 years these days should be impossible without a serious manufacturing defect? What are vw likely to say if I take it to them?
What else could it be? The engine seemed to be running ok... no temp warning lights came on...
vsonix said:
I would think that the Sale of Goods act might cover you in this circumstance as does it not say that to be 'fit for purpose' you should be able to expect six years' life out of something?
No, it doesn't. The Consumer Rights Act says that you can claim up to six years after purchase, but after six months you have to prove that the fault was present at the time of sale. Two years ago. If it was, then why's it been just fine for all that time?Any potential legal recourse would be against the dealer it was bought from - there's certainly no recourse to VW, since there's never been any contract between the OP and VW UK.
frenmor said:
I know short journeys are bad for cars but surely not had enough to cook an engine in 3k miles?
23k miles, not 3k.vsonix said:
short journeys are bad for cars but not THAT bad. Plus as a Polo presumably it's meant as a town car more than a long distance cruiser anyway!
Yeah, short journeys won’t cause a cylinder gasket to fail. Another fault has probably led to this: corrosion or a failed cooling fan leading to overheating, to name but two options. My mother in law’s Polo is 16 years old, has 30 odd thousand on the clock and has pretty much never left the town. It still runs beautifully, although it is regularly serviced.
Super Slo Mo said:
eah, short journeys won’t cause a cylinder gasket to fail. Another fault has probably led to this: corrosion or a failed cooling fan leading to overheating, to name but two options.
My mother in law’s Polo is 16 years old, has 30 odd thousand on the clock and has pretty much never left the town. It still runs beautifully, although it is regularly serviced.
i mentioned this as i have a friend whose girlfriend used to drive a couple of miles per day. the car rarely got up to operating temperature. i mistakenly thought this could be a similar issue.My mother in law’s Polo is 16 years old, has 30 odd thousand on the clock and has pretty much never left the town. It still runs beautifully, although it is regularly serviced.
mr slomo , what is that under the tarp?
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