Why?

therealnerd2

therealnerd2

therealnerd2

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Joined
25 Oct 2002
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Location
Cambridge,York,Bristol
So I take my 2001 Focus 1.8 to it's MOT on the very first day it can be done - £300 later after two new front tyres, a new rear brake caliper and some bits and bobs, it's got 13 months of MOT. I'm pretty happy with that.

Two days later, the head gasket fails.

ARRGGGGGG. Why me??

Minimum £400 bill expected.

Thoughts on if I should keep it?
 
I would. You've just done lots of work on the car and by the time this is done you know everything has been repaired and that its unlikely to throw any more bills at you. The question you need to ask yourself, is selling you car in its current state, plus the £400 you would have from not having to fix the head gasket, net you enough money to get something better that wouldnt have its own set of problems? I imagine the answer is no.

Seems odd that the head gasket would fail so soon after the MOT though. Were there no warning signs?
 
BinnsY said:
I would. You've just done lots of work on the car and by the time this is done you know everything has been repaired and that its unlikely to throw any more bills at you. The question you need to ask yourself, is selling you car in its current state, plus the £400 you would have from not having to fix the head gasket, net you enough money to get something better that wouldnt have its own set of problems? I imagine the answer is no.
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I suspect you're right if it gets fixed right up for £400. They haven't got the head off yet to take a look, and if the cost starts to rise...

BinnsY said:
Seems odd that the head gasket would fail so soon after the MOT though. Were there no warning signs?
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The MOT doesn't check anything about the engine. There were signs in hindsight though. It has been low on power for the last few months, which the MOTing garage put down to a blocked cat, but the latest garage recon is probably purely down to the lack of compression. It also had consumed a fair bit of oil in the last couple of months.
 
Head gaskets don't tend to just randomly fail for no reason. Usually something causes it to fail. Whats your cooling system like? A faulty cooling system is I would imagine the primary cause of head gasket failure.
 
[TW]Fox;22360013 said:
Head gaskets don't tend to just randomly fail for no reason. Usually something causes it to fail. Whats your cooling system like? A faulty cooling system is I would imagine the primary cause of head gasket failure.
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Rover K series ?
 
You might find that you need a new water pump or something as well. I ended up having a new head gasket, head skimmed, cambelt and water pump because the water pump gave up at around 50k miles.
 
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