MGF and head gasket failure?

Gezzard · 12 Jul 2007 at 03:45

Morning all, my old dear's just gone and bought an MGF on a 2001 X plate, 22000 miles on the clock, full service history, she picks it up this weekend.

Now a few people have put the frighteners up her by sucking air between their teeth and saying "eww, rover k series engine, it's gonna have a HGF". now as far as I'm aware the k series engine is in quite a few rovers (25s, 45s) the only difference in the mgf is that it's mid mounted, surely not every rover's going to blow up?

Basically, should she be concerned? are these people ill informed, it really is a nice little car, but now she's having second thoughts.

West · 12 Jul 2007 at 03:58

Correct me if im wrong but didnt they perfect that problem in the early century (sounds well lol)

Nor · 12 Jul 2007 at 04:29

The HGF failure thing is overplayed. I wouldn't worry too much about it. If it does go, which isn't that likely, you're talking about a couple of hundred quid to fix it.

Rwac · 12 Jul 2007 at 06:42

Nor said:
The HGF failure thing is overplayed. I wouldn't worry too much about it. If it does go, which isn't that likely, you're talking about a couple of hundred quid to fix it.

Couple of hundred quid if you get the parts and do it yourself maybe.

Minimum £300 if you get a lone-man to do it, all the way up to £800+ by an MGR dealer.

Aslong as it's had a nice life so far, and it's not driven at all hard until warm in its future life - it should be fine

[TW]Fox · 12 Jul 2007 at 08:32

It's not overplayed at all, it's a massive issue and it happens to the vast majority of K Series engines often multiple times throughout their lives.

volospian · 12 Jul 2007 at 08:51

Try and find a copy of the latest edition of Practical Performance Mag (With a Mk2 300bhp R32 Golf on the front) as it has a quick write up on the Rover K Series HGF issues and how they can be sorted. Then decide if you want to worry about it or not. My mate has an MGF and he's had no problems with it, another mate had the Landy K series (a Freelander?) and had no issues, however, there does seem to be a lot of people out there who do have issues with it.

This is taken from the MGOC site and may or may not add to that published by PPC as I haven't had time to read it all yet, but I'll include a few choice quotes about the rate of failure below:

MGFs made during the first three years production have had a dreadful rate of failures, easing noticeably from 1999, and then improving further in 2001 for the last few months of MGF production. Overall I can account for direct communication and conversations with over 1000 MGF owners whose cars have suffered head gasket failure (HGF), most of these pre 1999 T registration in the UK cars. Total production of the MGF was 77,269 cars

The TF arrived in January 2002 and ran until April 2005 ... During this production period 39,249 examples were made and to date (August 2006) I have recorded just 44 failures through the same method of communications and conversations.

eidolon · 12 Jul 2007 at 08:58

[TW]Fox said:
It's not overplayed at all, it's a massive issue and it happens to the vast majority of K Series engines often multiple times throughout their lives.

Unfortunately you're right.

Loads of MGF and Elise owners might tell you different but the reality is that the K series *will* have HGF at some point during its life. You can delay this by staying under 3000rpm until the engine is warm, maybe get a remote thermostat etc. but it's basically a design flaw and it will happen at some point.

All cars have their own particular issues and HGF is around £500 to fix so just allow for that and don't worry too much about it. (although the previous owner of my car paid over £1300 fixing the HGF on my MGF)

Dogbreath · 12 Jul 2007 at 09:14

[TW]Fox said:
It's not overplayed at all, it's a massive issue and it happens to the vast majority of K Series engines often multiple times throughout their lives.

It's only a massive issue because of FUD like this :rolleyes:

HGF certainly affects the K series more that most engines, but to say the vast majority suffer from it is silly. As you have noted before several times, how many people are going to jump on a forum and "Hey, my head gasket hasn't blown!"?

If an engine suffers multiple failures, then that is purely down to the quality of the rebuild when the gasket was first replaced. The problem being that many garages are/were ignorant of the requirements for liner height etc. and just threw the engine together. This usualy works ok on old school cast iron engines, but not on the K series if you want it to last.

Unfortunately the MGF and the Freelander are more prone to failure than the rest of the Rover range, The MGF due to the long coolant path, and the Freelander due to it's weight and common useage for short runs to school etc. where the engine doen't have time to warm up before being loaded.

The issue can be greatly reduce/eliminated by retrofitting the PVT thermostat that was introduced around 2003. This is not a simple replacement of the original thermostat, as it is physical located in a different part of the coolant circuit.

NathanE · 12 Jul 2007 at 09:14

The VVC variants are much better as they don't have plastic dowels keeping the head aligned. IIRC they have alloy dowels which obviously don't distort or shift as easily.

Keep the fluids topped up on a regular basis too. A K needs a bit more TLC than most engines - but other than that it is a legendary engine. Just about every British sports car manufacturer has used it at some point.

Read and learn: http://www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/thecar/engine/kingk.html

[TW]Fox · 12 Jul 2007 at 09:17

Dogbreath said:
It's only a massive issue because of FUD like this

HGF certainly affects the K series more that most engines, but to say the vast majority suffer from it is silly. As you have noted before several times, how many people are going to jump on a forum and "Hey, my head gasket hasn't blown!"?.

True but literally everyone I know who has a K Series powered Rover *has* suffered HGF. My girlfriends car, which her parents owned from new, has suffered it twice. It's still not done 100k yet!

saitrix · 12 Jul 2007 at 09:44

[TW]Fox said:
True but literally everyone I know who has a K Series powered Rover *has* suffered HGF. My girlfriends car, which her parents owned from new, has suffered it twice. It's still not done 100k yet!

This was mostly down to Rover cutting corners. With the combination of using a recomended reinforced head gasket, alloy dowels and skimming the head to get the correct gap you will then have an engine that won't suffer from HGF's.

If Rover had done all this properly from factory then the whole problem with HGF's could not be around. Shame really as it is a good engine.

eidolon · 12 Jul 2007 at 09:52

I'm actually trying to think of how many K series owners that I know, whose car *hasn't* had HGF and I'm struggling.

Through Elise and MGF ownership I personally know quite a lot of K series owners and I've just tried to work out how many of them haven't had HGF, so far I can think of just 1 person and his Elise has only 3000 miles on the clock. In addition to this I also know a couple of Metro owners, Freelander owners and they've all had HGF too, Freelander was 3yrs and 1 month old when it happened, Metro has had it happen twice now and is currently off the road.

I'm sure there are some K series owners that are lucky, but in my experience HGF is real, and very likely to happen.

Dolph · 12 Jul 2007 at 10:16

I had HGF on my K-series rover... however it might not be a good example due to the engine mods. Car was never the same afterwards either

So I palmed it off to a garage in exchange for the civic

Dogbreath · 12 Jul 2007 at 10:41

I know of at least two Rovers with well over 100k on them on original gaskets. If they are going to go, they seem to fail most often around the 50k-60k miles mark IME.

Third Opinion · 12 Jul 2007 at 10:48

My wife says they end up replaceing a lot of K-series engines because the liners or something commonly go after a HGF. Their bank manager is on his second replacement engine after owning his MGF 4 years. My sisters MG TF has had a HGF after just 22,000 miles. The coolant system needs to be carefully bled which isn't often done and is probably the most common reason for failures.

Read about them here http://www.shame.4mg.com/

The other problem is the camshaft sprocket can drop off causing an awful mess of the engine.

The thing is they are cheap to buy for a two seater so I suppose you get what you pay for.

Dave M · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:04

Keep it at low revs until the engine is good and warm (not just the water, the oil takes longer to get hot).

Watch water temperature like a hawk, know what it should be - if it starts acting abormally get it checked at a garage.

Check the oil cap for crap frequently (weekly at least)

When it does go, you should know it very early, so no lasting damage will be done, get it repaired by somebody who knows what they're doing (try a members club for recommendations) and you should be fine.

Some cars do require extra work on the part of the owner to keep them in good condition, mine eats oil and yours eats head gaskets - if your not keen on constantly checking things look elsewhere.

penski · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:43

I've got to agree with Dogbreath here; HGF is the symptom rather than the problem.

I would also go as far to say that any K-Series that suffers 'multiple' instances of HGF just hasn't been repaired properly.

*n

[TW]Fox · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:44

'Here at Rover we can state there is no problem with the head gaskets on the K Series'

NathanE · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:50

djbenjo · 12 Jul 2007 at 12:10

penski said:
I've got to agree with Dogbreath here; HGF is the symptom rather than the problem.

I would also go as far to say that any K-Series that suffers 'multiple' instances of HGF just hasn't been repaired properly.

*n

I agree with both of your points completely.