MGF - oil temp warning - pre gasket failure ?

Thinking "F"ers could use an oil temp warning light or buzzer.

Or water temp warning - which would give the earliest warning of impending conversion of car to junk?

I would guess water heats up faster if there's a problem.

Well I'd certainly feel more comfortable with one - I believe the temp rise before HGF happens very fast - and you just know it'll happen when you've not checked the dials for a while.

Does anyone know of such a bolt-on for the MGF?

Cheers

Charley

PS MGF 4 years - no probs except 1 repeater coming loose. Shortened gear lever, installed K&N filter kit (more air to engine compartment).

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Nothing I'm aware of though all you'd need is a temp sensor with a circuit set to activate a warning buzzer if the temp reached a certain level.

And yes I do think it's a good idea. That said I scan all of my gauges every few seconds so I hope I'd see it rising. I know some people who only ever look at the rev counter! They check the speedo only if they see the pointed headed happy helpers or a speed camera, they check the fuel gauge once a week and hardly ever look at the temp gauges.

Reply to
Nick Mason

Perhaps I was lucky. My MGF head gasket failure happened early one freezing morning just before Christmas. Fifteen miles into my journey a sudden drop in air temperature from the previously warm heater drew my attention to the gauges. All seemed normal. I twiddled the heater controls to maximum but still only got cold air. I checked the gauges again and spotted the oil temperature climbing very rapidly. I was on the hard shoulder in a matter of seconds. An hour later the nice man from the RAC pointed out the mayonnaise on the dipstick and sent for the recovery vehicle!

It would seem that after sudden HGF the engine temperature can rise extremely rapidly and although I'm not of the opinion that all those dials are for show, I can't see me ever getting into the habit of checking them every 60 seconds when bombing down the motorway. Give me a flashing red light and a siren to alert me of impending disaster please!

Of course, when I say I was lucky I mean it only cost me £800 to get the gasket replaced including (I was told) a routine head skim - relatively cheap compared to a new engine I suppose. I guess I should thank the cold weather that I noticed PDQ!

Five minutes Googling indicates that HGF on MGFs is not uncommon. Mine is a little over three years old, I've had it from new, it has only

32800 miles on the clock, has not been thrashed and has been routinely serviced by approved agents. The last service was only 1800 miles before the HGF.

Much as I love my MGF (I'm not a hairdresser, I'm having a mid-life crisis) I feel somewhat miffed at having to shell out £800 for a HGF repair on a relatively low mileage vehicle.

If this is so common have MG-Rover admitted to any known problems? Have there been any recalls? Someone mentioned to me that there was a report on BBC "Watchdog" and a group action being organised by some legal company. Does anyone have any information about such things?

Bottom line - any chance of me getting someone else to pay the bill?

TIA

Steve

Reply to
Steve T.

..

Steve,

I assume you used the third link getting up and found my site while

*googeling* for "HGF on MGF" :) mgfcar.de

Anyway, it's worth trying to give the MGR helpline a call, or better write a letter of complaint *friendly and factual* to MGR. May be you get something partial back of the repair costs.

I think there could hve been two causes for the going gasket.

  1. front fan not cutting in due to broken fuse or poor connection of the ECU temperature sensor (brown coloured one)
  2. problem with a leaking inlet manifold gasket. (MGF 120bhp made before 98 )
  3. split coolant hose or corroded coolant pipe.(The heater went cold and you would have seen steam if you had looked back in that moment)

However, I read this thread already days ago and though about answering regarding the precaution with gauges. I'm with you, just forget the MGF gauges. You can use in summertime to "control" the speed on German Motorways though. (Get the foot from accelerator if the oil temp needle reaches 'vertical' location.)

In your case the cold heater _was_ the indicator !! Coolant had gone already and you had no water flow through the heater. If had the chance in that situation, may be nothing but water loss would have happened.

I think the next time you will know, but that's no comfort for you!

You've my sympathy. I hope you get it fixed and get back on the road soon.

Regards Dieter MGF 1.8i 120bhp with 85k km on the clock, no HGF and counting ;)

Reply to
Dieter K.

Dieter,

I'm glad you posted a follow-up to my message - I was beginning to feel a bit lonely! Thanks for the sympathy - it makes me feel just a little better. I got the repairs done within a week so I wasn't stranded for too long.

I'm sure the engine sounds different now though - even my daughter said so. Difficult to explain exactly how really - any thoughts about that? Could it just be that skimming and refitting the head and readjusting everything changed the sound?

As you said, the fact that my heater suddenly went cold was the earliest indication that something was wrong. I'll never know for sure of course but I suspect the CHG had already failed at that point. There was no sign of water/steam from anywhere. It was a freezing cold day and any steam would have been very noticeable. I think all the water went into the engine - the oil on the dipstick was certainly very frothy.

I'll follow your suggestion and send a letter to MGR - it will at least be interesting to discover what they have to say. I'll let you know the outcome (via this n/g).

I just did a bit more Googling and found that (in the UK) a legal company called Irwin Mitchell are organising a group action against MGR because of HGF on K-Series engines. See here:

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I would be very interested to hear if anyone knows more about this or has "signed up" for it. I don't know very much about the law regarding such matters but I believe that manufacturers can't just absolve themselves of all responsibility the moment their warrantee has expired. Isn't there something about goods needing to be fit for the purpose they were sold for? Presumably a car engine is intended to be reliable for more than 30,000 miles.

Any experts on the law like to comment?

Steve T.

Reply to
Steve T.

Hello, I'm just suffering on a HGF on my MGF, build 97, 65000km.. it is in repair in the moment. Talking to the technician, he told me that during last summer (we had extremly high temperatures here in germany at the lake of constance area) they had almost no HGF failures. But since temperature are around freezing point there count is up to 6 HGF's (but there are not too may MGF's on the road during wintertime)... Does anybody has an explanation for this phenomenon?? Heinz K.

Steve T. schrieb in Nachricht ...

Reply to
Heinz Kimmel

Heinz,

A chap called Mike Barnes maintains a website - a "Hall Of Shame" - where you can record details of your HGF and view (graphically) the statistics too.

You'll find the site here:

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I'm not a statistician so I wouldn't like to comment as to the significance of the results but you may find it interesting to take a look. Record your details too - I suppose the more people who do this the more useful the statistics become.

Steve T.

Reply to
Steve T.

Hiya,

not posted to this ng for a while but comments about the engine sounding different after a HGF sparked my interest, the last MGF we had, a 98 model had a HGF & as it was a secondhander we bought from Carcrap we managed to get them to fix it (then we got them to swap it, for our 2000 baby which is another long & very involved tale!) However, when we did get the first car back (although actually getting a straight answer about what had happened to the car was another thing entirely) we noticed that the engine sounded different. It seemed to 'Whirr' whereas before it has just growled. My fella just put it down to the thought that it should have sounded like that in the first place, but like you I wonder if anyone else has experienced the same?

PS anyone any thoughts on the gearbox? Ours is going back to the dealer again next week to be looked at. Since the snapped linkage was replaced a couple of months back the box has been entirely unresponsive.

Cheers,

Sally

Reply to
Sally Crowley

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