Head Gasket Failure?

[neil.b]

Anyone who has had theirs fail, what was the extent of the damage and cost of repair?

Looking at a second-hand S2 so want to understand what the financial implication of the HG going could be (as the car is still on the original).

Cheers.

[gfun]

HGF is very rare on an S2 touches a large lump of wood.

[garydvo]

At 87,246 miles my S1 failed on the 3rd of March. Just got her back.

The cost was over £1000 inc VAT, but most of the oil went into the water and it took a lot of cleaning out plus due to the failure I had to have the head was skimmed.

The repair used the updated CH gasket with metal dowels (originally plastic) designed for the K series. S2's may already use these. My S1 is a 99.

In some instances when the head does not need to be skimmed and the oil and water are not too badly contaminated the bill can be around £400 + VAT.

Last year I took out Parts and Labour breakdown insurance with the AA for £100. A pre req is to be an AA member.

The insurance covered the HGF in this instance. Take a look at wwww.theaa.co.uk .

Hope this helps.


>> Edited by garydvo on Saturday 12th March 14:02

[arno]

Headgasket went on my S2 at about 62000 miles.

It's not very common on S2's (135R's excluded, but they had a porous head issue) and mine did go in a less common way.

Unlike many HGF's where the combustion chamber seal is broken and the coolant system gets loaded with exhaust gasses, mine broke a seal between the high pressure oil feed to the head and the water jacket, resulting in lots of brown foamy oil in the expansion tank.

Head gasket was replaced (with all related gaskets), new long bolts, carbon deposits cleaned from the head and my oil/water cooler checked out (as the only other possibility for the leak) for a total of about 700 quid incl. VAT.

Not too bad, but I hope to get a Honda transplant somewhere next year though..

Bye, Arno.