Astra catastrophic loss of coolant

How long was the gauge in the red and the warning lamp on? How long is the drive home and at what speed?

You *may* be okay. The coolant will have been pumped out probably within 30 seconds when the stub broke!

Tim..

[...]

Something like this?

Poor design?

Seizure or death rattle. If it was running, it hasn't seized; if it wasn't so noisy that it made your OH want to turn it off, it may well be OK.

Yep. Google or ask here if there are any problems or special methods with your particular engine (which you haven't mentioned yet) WRT avoiding air locks.

Chris

[...]

Just found this (for a Corsa, but still relevant):

HTH

Chris

Anything more than minor overheat is likely to bring on head gasket failure, maybe immediate, maybe a year or two away. Really catastrophic over heat takes the piston oil control rings or even compression rings first, followed by major internal failure such as crankshaft shells.

The only thing you can do is get the bit from a dealer (just describe it), fit it plus the right coolant and cross your fingers, no-one can accurately tell you what, if any, damage has occurred.

[...]

Mr Google suggests that any dealer will know what the part is; it would seem that failure of the plastic stubs is a known fault, and they are now metal.

I've seen some reference to there being two sizes, so the OP needs to measure diameters or take the old bits with him.

Chris

There is no temperature gauge on this Astra (56 plate). F-I-L has an

08 Astra and that doesn't have a gauge either. A long time ago we asked Vauxhall about this and they said many customers had complained about not having a gauge, so whether that has been re-introduced or will be introduced in newer model, I don't know.

I wonder how many drivers with a gauge actually look at it (like they do with their mirrors!) Or whether many drivers would know what was a good or bad level on the gauge?

Vauxhall did say that all models have a red light that comes on when the engine is too hot. I can't remember the temperature now: 90C? However, the driver tells me there was no red light.

Problem is that she drove to a few places that morning, sow e don't know when the pipe broke.

Let's hope it broke as she pulled onto the drive.

Thanks. Stephen.

Thank you. By coincidence I found this with google this morning. As you said in your earlier reply, perhaps it is a design fault. That page says that the plastic part is now replaced by a metal one. Perhaps this is because too many plastic ones were snapping and they decided a metal one would be more robust?

I hadn't realised it was for a corsa; do they have the same engine? The pictures look just like the engine in the Astra.

I bought the replacement part from the dealer today. I didn't realise I needed an O-ring (this was before I found that web page) so I may have to go back tomorrow (I don't have a collection of O-rings in my garage; perhaps I should buy some next time Aldi have an assortment box on sale?)

I couldn't find my LH drill bits and then the thunder storm came, so I will have to finish off tomorrow and use a RH bit if I can't find my other ones.

How do I stop any bits falling into the pump? Run a vacuum next to the drill, like at the dentist?! Do I need to worry about plastic swarf falling in?

I don't have an M8 thread cutter, so I'm wondering whether I will need to buy one of those or whether the original threads will be ok?

Thanks again, Stephen.

Sorry I replied to your other posts before reading this. You are right, it seems to be a known fault and they are now metal, presumably to prevent this.

I didn't know about the sizes. I gave the dealer the reg. and it looks about the same as what is left of the old one.

I don't like the sound of the "may be a year or two away". In a way, I'd rather any failure was immediately apparent, rather than find myself break down in the middle of nowhere many months from now, when all this is forgotten. But that's life I guess!

Thanks, Stephen.

Thanks,. Will refill with coolant and listen to what noise the engine makes and report back next week.

The overheating can warp the head, that reduces the head gasket clamping. Then it takes time.

I had 3 hoses burst over 5 years on a 200SX, the head gasket failed a year and 5000 miles after the last one.

Stick some K-seal in it if you think it may have an issue. Then you may never notice.

If a modern (>1988) SI engine management system detects the engine is overheating it will go very rich. Not much use to you but the Northstar engine was supposed to be able to cross a desert without any coolant. Diesels just run cold anyway.

Almost invariably head gasket failure has been preceded by coolant loss leading to overheat, questioning the owner always seems to bring up something along the lines of the water pump went, the rad sprang a leak or similar, somewhen in the past. However, in your case it may be that the coolant loss was just at the end of the road coming home. Twice on my own cars they have got home and had a leak spring outside the house! Once a top hose exploded after a long fast run home, after I switched off. The other was when my wife was turning round after driving home, standing at my gate I saw the water suddenly start pouring out from what turned out to be a rotten radiator (leaves trapped between main rad and air con rad, so invisible on normal inspection)

Interesting, especially as we have 3 model names off that list (Astra, Corsa and Meriva) but luckily only one (the Meriva) is within the model age range (04) but as it's a 1.6 so I don't think is affected by this issue? (The 1.2 Corsa is an 01 and the 1.4 Astra a 92!). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

I (knowingly) drove my old Rover 218SD (Pug lump) home twice over 20 miles with no coolant and it did another 50 k miles (before the rust and old age got the better of it and I scrapped it for 60 quid more than I paid for it 7 years earlier).

Luckily they were easy trips and I was able to moderate the load to keep the temperature under control but as you say, it wasn't easy to get that engine warm at the best of times! ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[..]

Do VX not have an engine protection strategy similar to Ford?

For the last 10 or 15 years (model dependent), Ford engines stop firing alternate cylinders at the first stage of over temperature detection. The cylinders in each cycle that are not firing are cooled by virtue of the air passing through. A warning light illuminates to advise the driver.

If temperature continues to rise, a second light flashes, and after a delay to allow safe stopping, the engine is shut down.

I would have thought all main-stream manufacturers would have implemented something similar by now as it's only done in software.

Chris

I often wonder why I drive Fords, now I know.

I shall look up North star on wikipedia.

The repair went well. I managed to drill out the plastic connector using normal RH drill bits and without needing to recut the threads. That web site was a big help.

The O-ring that I thought I needed turned out to be a metal washer, so I would have had those at home if I had known and probably could have bought a box of them for the price of a single one from the dealer!

The hardest part was disconnecting the radiator hoses to give the engine and radiator a flush before refilling. Particularly the bottom radiator hose where there wasn't much room to get to the spring clamp. I also had a bit of a battle trying to remove the air duct from over the radiator to get to the top hose.

Since then I have noticed the coolant level is slightly below the cold mark each morning and I have been topping up.

I cannot see any leaks. Is this anything to be concerned about? The garage said the coolant looked slightly low when it went in a couple of months ago (before all this happened) but they too had a good look around and could not see anything wet.

Thanks, Stephen.

[...]

How many drivers ever look at the temperature gauge? I'm willing to bet it's less than 1%.

Modern engines operate safely over a wide temperature range. When electric fans became standard, dealers were getting lots of calls from drivers who were worried that their engines were overheating because the gauge had passed the 'normal' position when in traffic before the fan started. They didn't understand that was perfectly OK.

To avoid all those false alarms, the gauge systems were modified. In fact, they are just tri-state indicators now, and not temperature gauges at all. IOW, if the temperature is within operational limits, the needle stays dead centre, even though the actual temperature may be varying by quite large amounts. The whole system could be replaced by three leds, and would provide just as much (or as little!) information.

Most engines now have a cylinder head temperature sensor; the operation of this will be unaffected by the lack of coolant.

Systems need to be designed for the average driver, who today is bloody clueless.

The only sensible approach is to reduce power output in some way as an over temperature situation develops, flashing a dash light at the same time, followed by forcing the engine to stop if no action is taken. Anything less will largely be ignored or abused.

Chris

[...]

Leave it two mornings without topping up, and see if it continues to fall. It might be that it's 'natural' level is a bit below the mark.

The other possibility is that there is a small airlock that is slowly dispersing, in which case there will eventually be no drop in level.

Chris