Rover KV6 'uses' a lot of water

[Church of Noise]

Tonight, my father had to pour more than 2 litres of water in the engine of his Rover 75, a 2.0 KV6. It isn't the first time he's had to this either.
There are no obvious leaks anywhere, and I've check the oil cap and the dipstick but there aren't any signs of 'mayo' so I suppose it isn't a case of HGF (which the 4 cilinder versions seems rather prone to).
Do these engines tend to 'use' a lot of water or is there something wrong here?

[stevieturbo]

Church of Noise said:

there aren't any signs of 'mayo' so I suppose it isn't a case of HGF (which the 4 cilinder versions seems rather prone to).

In no way whatsoever does that mean the head gasket hasnt failed.

If the water isnt leaking externally.....then it is leaking internally.

[steve_d]

Pull the plugs and see if one of them has a steam cleaned apearance.

Steve

[stigproducts]

I had a mystery dissapearance of water on a car once. There was a pin hole leak where water was spraying out under pressure on to the manifold/block and evaporating. It only happened under pressure I think so it wouldnt drip when stationary and cold. Check out all the hoses, especially with the engine running and carefully look for leaks.

Also, I once diagnoised an inlet manifold gasket failure on a v engine by sticking cotton buds through the park plug holes with a pair of longn osed pliers- one came out blue! That might be worth a try

[jack&mle]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad new, my VVC had the same symptoms and my 214 SI before that.
The replacement of the head gasket solve the problem in both cases

Jack

[rlk500]

Friendly AA man who recovered us a while back, after we asked him what he attend to most often, he repied "any Rover with a K Series, if it hasn't done the head gasket yet it's only a matter of time...."

[that daddy]

dont get me started on the the K series,yes they have headgasket faults,although all the ones i have repaired have never suffered the same failure but i mod the cooling system & thermostat and only fit genuine modded parts steel dowls etc,and i have done more of these gaskets than i care to remember,but i am particular with how hot the engine as got before taking them on and only one had piston failure due to the idiot driving to the next junction on the motorway with no coolant(he did not tell me this from the start)result one scrapped K SERIES,get a pressure test & dye test done inexpensive and 95% accurate way of diagnoising gasket failure or worse.