Polo Overheating- portuguese garage wants 2K euro´s?

[Scho]

Hi People,

Staying with my GF´s parents out in portugal at the mo, yesterday the temp warning came on on their 1.0 MK4 polo.

Stopped the car, and found the following.

-Water boiling and forcing itself out of the reservoir.

-the rad fan wasn´t working.

-No oil at all on stick.

Filled it up with water and limped home. about 10 mins.

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What would you expect would need replacing now then?

we got a price this morning and the guy was wanting to replace the whole cooling system as well as the headgasket, fan, motor etc. two thousand fecking euro´s!

Thanks,

Rick.

[bertelli_1]

The inoperative fan will either be a faulty switch or fan motor. The overheating may have lead to HG failure, warped head etc. My guess on the low oil is it hasn't been checked in ages. The garage need to get the fan working first & then check for further damage, I suspect they are going for the 'belt & braces' approach & tbh they are probably correct. 2k euro could well be reasonable depending on what exactly they are doing.

[fatjon]

May sound expensive but afraid that a severe overheat often takes the headgasket and then a headskim is usually needed, plus whatever caused the original fault, probably the fan. I think in the UK I would expect to see a bill of around £350 to change a headgasket plus £50 for a skim. The fan should be in the £100 region for an original VW item I would have thought. Then add in a days labour on top plus oil and filter and all in all it's a little bit on the steep side but not massively so.

They should sort out the fan first though, you could be lucky and find that once the fan works and it has oil and water there is nothing wrong with it and you have saved at least €1500.

[Scho]

thanks chaps,

Thing is, the guy said he´s working on 10Euro´s an hour, head gaskets a days work = 80EU´s labour ish. even if it takes two days, 1840 euro´s souns like an awefull lot of parts!

I guess we´ll get the fan operational and see where we are. I did drive it last night, when the heat had died down a bit and the temp was fine with heaters on full. also, didn´t use any water.

Am i right in thinking i can get the fan/cooling system operating properly and it´s holding water ti won´t need a gasket?

thanks again for the help,

Rick.

[fatjon]

spot on, if you sort the fan and top up the fluids and it is not using water you have probably had a lucky escape. If he is charging €10/hour then to put no too finer point on it at €2000 he is taking the piss. I was basing it on UK main dealer rates of £50 to £75 /hour.

[Belly954]

Hello some of the smaller vw engines with plastic thermostat housings fail internally the plastic within the housing breaks causing the thermostat to remain closed causing overheating worth having a look at,easy to remove housing and inspect.You can buy the whole housing or just the parts to repair

[Scho]

took the thermostat out today, it was utterly shagged.

put everything together witout it and it´s running nice and cool again now. fan cuting in where needed. not using water.

just took it for a good old ´italian tune up´ around some local mountain roads to celebrate

got to get myself a little toy for here, just amazing roads.

2000 euro´s...shove it up your arse!

thanks for your help chaps.

scho.