1996 4 door Mazda 323 GLX : Head gasket and tappets issue.

Bin it and buy another.

Erk! Well that's a bit depressing! I just paid =A3700 for it and I don't feel like binning it just yet. Any other suggestions?

SteveH wrote:

Yeah, try have a knowledgable engine mechanic look at your engines prior to buying cars in future... Seriously. I take someone who happens to be a friend, but even if you could pay someone, it'd save you time. Or learn yourself, takes a few hours to read up and learn, a few car auction visits may also aid in seeing the s**te some people buy that will die within an hour!

DIY is the only real way forwards here. For a first job, it's quite ambitious, but if you've got the patience you should be able to do it.

Do you actually need to replace the head gasket?

cheers, clive

DIY. Probably less than £150 for the parts, and if the tappets were OK before the gasket went, there's no reason for them to need replacing or adjusting. Also the head might not need skimming, and why was a new cambelt not included in the quote? If the head has to come off, you might just as well replace the belt.

I've just replaced a blown head gasket on a 1.8 Mitsubishi Galant. It didn't need skimming. The head was flat within 3 thou over it's length and diagonals. Well within the permitted tolerance. Mike.

All the advice seems to be pointing towards doing the job myself which indicates that the quote for the job would be about right.

I've been doing some checking on Autotrader and E-bay for vehicles of the same type (but in a good condition) and with a few exceptions they seem to sell for about a grand and a half. I had been told that a head gasket job at a garage would cost about =A3400. I thought with the =A3700 purchase of the car and the =A3400 head gasket fix, I'd be =A3300 better off.

Is it just the case that cars are throw-away items, as soon as the gasket is gone, it's pretty much useless? That doesn't really make much sense to me, can someone explain it? Or is this too much of a noobish question?

Cheers al for the advice!

Tee

I've been doing some checking on Autotrader and E-bay for vehicles of the same type (but in a good condition) and with a few exceptions they seem to sell for about a grand and a half. I had been told that a head gasket job at a garage would cost about £400. I thought with the £700 purchase of the car and the £400 head gasket fix, I'd be £300 better off.

Is it just the case that cars are throw-away items, as soon as the gasket is gone, it's pretty much useless? That doesn't really make much sense to me, can someone explain it? Or is this too much of a noobish question?

It does seem to be that way. Good s/h cars are relatively cheap, but in many respects they are also getting more complicated, so repairs take longer, and are more expensive. With garages charging anything between £30 and £100 an hour, plus around £100 for a top gasket set, it can be uneconomic to have an older car professionally repaired, as it doesn't take long to run up a sizeable bill, but if you can do most repairs yourself, running an older car does make a lot of sense. Mike.

What happened to your quoting Mike?

Anyway, yes running older cars makes a lot of sense. I've been doing it for years, and consequently had cars that were much nicer (to me - power, gadgets, etc.) than I could possibly have afforded otherwise. It's 'Bangernomics', and it works. It's getting better as well. My 56,000 mile

For some reason OE didn't add them when I clicked 'Reply Group'. I did notice but thaught anyone following the thread would know who wrote what.:-)

Someone some years ago remarked that we live in an 'effluent society'. So many things are disposed of, simply because they are old, or not the latest model. This seems especially true with cars. So much so, that there are almost more s/h cars around than there are buyers for them. Good pickings for those like us who are quite happy to drive older good quality up/market cars, with most of the gadgets that we couldn't afford if we wanted to buy new. Mike.