Head Gasket replacement on Vectra 2.5 V6

Not into cars at all as you'll probably find out! I have a 1998 R reg Vectra 2.5 V6 Estate. It has done 107,000 miles.

Driving home on Thursday night I had a bit of difficulty starting, but got it started fine. My Coolant Level warning came on as I was beginning my journey, about 20 minutes in to a 40 minute journey. I thought I could top this up when I got home.

I then drove at 70mph for 11 miles before my engine totally quit on me. The temperature was well over 100 degrees and there was steam coming from the engine. I ended up blocking the outside lane of the A38 for an hour in rush hour! I had lost all my coolant and I was unable to start even when the engine was cool. When I topped up the coolant it had gone within an hour.

I got a tow home and we have found the top hose from the radiator to the coolant system (left hand side) was split. My father in law replaced this for £12 (genuine Vaux part). There is no water in the oil. We filled up the coolant, let the air out and topped up again - the engine turns over but doesn't actually start (it feels like it's about to but it doesn't). The cooling system was pressurised full of gas after just turning over a cold engine.

He thinks this is the head gasket that's gone, and I'm resorting to the fact we'll have to get it done. Does anyone know how much roughly it would cost, and the chances that it would have done any further damage to the engine? I'm going to have to get it towed to the garage but am not paying main dealer prices for it. We have another car to use for now, so it isn't a rush job.

If you've had it that hot that it stopped, a head gasket is the least of your worries. It would be much cheaper to source an entire replacement engine.

Tim.

Not into cars at all as you'll probably find out! I have a 1998 R reg Vectra 2.5 V6 Estate. It has done 107,000 miles.

Driving home on Thursday night I had a bit of difficulty starting, but got it started fine. My Coolant Level warning came on as I was beginning my journey, about 20 minutes in to a 40 minute journey. I thought I could top this up when I got home.

I then drove at 70mph for 11 miles before my engine totally quit on me. The temperature was well over 100 degrees and there was steam coming from the engine. I ended up blocking the outside lane of the A38 for an hour in rush hour! I had lost all my coolant and I was unable to start even when the engine was cool. When I topped up the coolant it had gone within an hour.

I got a tow home and we have found the top hose from the radiator to the coolant system (left hand side) was split. My father in law replaced this for £12 (genuine Vaux part). There is no water in the oil. We filled up the coolant, let the air out and topped up again - the engine turns over but doesn't actually start (it feels like it's about to but it doesn't). The cooling system was pressurised full of gas after just turning over a cold engine.

He thinks this is the head gasket that's gone, and I'm resorting to the fact we'll have to get it done. Does anyone know how much roughly it would cost, and the chances that it would have done any further damage to the engine? I'm going to have to get it towed to the garage but am not paying main dealer prices for it. We have another car to use for now, so it isn't a rush job.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

-=-=-=-

Well, first thing to learn here is to *always* stop when there's a warning light indicating some problem with the cooling system, because if you ignore it and carry on as normal, you're likely to kill lots of things... just as Tim says...

Hi

It's not a warning light that came on, it's the system computer's "Coolant Level" display. This is like the washer fluid level warning, it comes on when it's about a quarter full to let you know it needs doing. It usually comes on every few months, and normally you have a few days to top it up.

Cheers Noel

Or not as the case may be.

So what you're trying to say, is that you only check your levels when the computer tells you?

Or more accurately, not even when it tells you.

Slightly off subject---I had a faulty thermostat with similar results (warped head etc)---but it would be very easy to detect that the thermostat has failed! Just a sensor at the cooling side, match temperatures etc. It would also be very easy for a bypass on/off valve to be built in and triggered when this happens along with warning lights (failed thermostat--please replace).

Warning lights these days ought to be getting toward a notification that a redundant system is in operation. As I previously posted you should see messages such as 'primary timing belt failed, please replace immediately' These things must occasionally happen to in-warranty cars and cost the manufacturer

No. It never comes on... unless you are loosing coolant. In that case you want to fix it before it gets bad and dumps all of the coolant for you. When there's no coolant it won't read the temperature properly since there won't be any coolant around the sensor. In the case of the V6 it's in a bridge between the two heads so for that to read over 100 degrees the heads themselves must be well over that.

No one's going to be able to give you an estimate because they won't know what damage has been done. My brothers Carisma doesn't have a coolant level sensor and he had a hose blow off. The first he knew about it his engine had lost power and he immediately stopped. He needed a new head gasket and the valve seats had come out so they had to be done. It came to about 800 quid. His is only a 4 cylinder with only one head and it was done at a local garage, not a main dealer.

The starting problem may be something else entirely since you had it before loosing coolant. The cam sensor is probably favourite on these if you don't have access to the fault codes. If it was already failing getting it extra hot probably wouldn't have helped a lot.

You might find it cheaper to replace the engine.

It really is quite simple to tell if the thermostat has failed. The temparture gauge goes up, and/or the warning light comes on.

Yet more unnecessary systems. Would you be willing to pay twice as much for something full of back-up systems, just incase something goes wrong with the proper system? But then again, alot of car drivers now don't understand the concept of basic mechanics, and how to spot when somethings going wrong. I'm guessing you ignored the fact your temp gauge was showing the engine as being hotter than normal, and just kept driving until something major went wrong.

I doubt there's anything wrong with the sensors. Sounds much more like he's well and truly toasted the engine. Given the fact he drove it til it stopped, I'd hazard a guess it's suffered from heat seizure, and is now suffering from a severe lack of compression. A replacemnet engine will most likely be the cheapest option.

Are you having a laugh? If not, then I think you've found the reason why you have a lump of scrap metal under your bonnet.

Er, well. On the one hand, we have your opinion. Which is rather disproven by the existance of your rather broken engine. On the other, there is the opinion of people who ARE (unlike you) "into cars", which is backed up by the existance of your rather broken engine.

Care to change your mind?

For something like a timing belt, where sudden catastrophic failure is a possibility, yes.

For something like a thermostat? No.

Thank you for one of the few sensible replies in the thread. I have am booking it into a garage tomorrow, a couple of garages have said its very unlikely to be anything more than a head gasket failure, as the engine management will have cut the engine out before any damage occurred. They seem to think in the region of =A3900-=A31000 which is fine, it's much less than the car's worth so I'm willing to pay it.

For those quick to pass judgement, my car has never had a problem, and knowing nothing about cars (all I know is that the radiator stops the car overheating), all I know is what's happened in the past. All I knew is that when the Coolant Level comes on I top it up within a couple of days and it's fine. It's an 8 year old car so is bound to be using some coolant ever few months.

The engine rarely got hotter than about half way, and has always run very well.

Remember we're not all motor mechanics or whatever, most of us just know that you press > On 6 Aug 2006 01:10:30 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: >

Most cars don't use any at all, no matter how old.

Stopping when the red lights come on is what the car manual tells you to do.

& you might want to ring round , you'll shave a fair bit off that price with some shopping if all you've done is blow the gasket.

No it's not. That's about what a 8 year old vectra v6 is worth, maybe be even slightly more than it's worth. If it's overheated enough for the engine to stop it's likely done more damage.

James

But normally do you drive this sort of mileage..? Prevention is better than cure, so there would be a reason why the warning keeps on coming up... did you investigate this?

I appreciate that this is a bit unsympathetic, but if it uses sufficient coolant such that the warning kicks in every few months, something needs fettling...

If you use any coolant something needs fettling. In theory it's a sealed system that shouldn't leak anywhere. I appreciate it's not always that perfect but going from max to min in a few months means something's broken.

John

Mines 9 years old and doesn't use coolant, ok it's an Omega but it's pretty much the same engine.

It's also bad to just top it up with water, you need to use the correct water/antifreeze mix. It does a lot more than just stop it freezing. It stops the insides rusting and the plastics/rubbers from perishing. For instance in the Omega if you have aircon a fairly common leak is the heater bypass valve especially when the coolant hasn't got the correct levels of antifreeze in. The water often finds it's way to the DIS pack so because the leak hasn't been dealt with you now need a new DIS pack as well as fixing the leak.