Head Gasket gone for the second time!!! Only done 297 miles!!

[MarkR53S]

Hi,

Looking for a bit of advice. I have an R53 Cooper S. I had the head gasket repaired in October last year. Cause of failure - the gears on the supercharger that drive the water pump had worn away. So at the same time i had that part of the supercharger rebuilt by GTT Tuning. Total cost for all work was in the region of £2K. I have only done just under 300 miles on the car and its blown again. This happened back in March this year but i have now only got round to doing something about it.

My first question - Should i be going straight back to the garage that did the repair and asking for my money back or do i not have a leg to stand on based on the length of time that has passed since the repair? I have all receipts showing mileage when fixed and date etc.

I'm not naming the garage just yet as i want to give them a chance to comment but how should i play this?

Thanks for all your help.

Mark

[Dobboy]

Why have you waited from March to just now?

Why do you think it's gone again?


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[MarkR53S]

Family commitment and a very stressful job meant i basically shut the garage door on it! That said that's the position i'm in.

I'm not sure why it has gone but what i can tell you is the coolant tank is currently filled with black oil (no coolant to be seen). Oil was also dripping quite heavily from beneath the engine after it happened and was all up the rear of the car as if it had come out the exhaust pipe.

Ive got a couple of modifications on the car such as air tech intercooler, 17% reduced pulley, GTT induction kit so the car had a bit more to cope with but irrespective of that i don't understand why it should fail so quickly again. Maybe its a seperate issue liked a cracked head and maybe its just bad luck but i would be less suspicious if this had happened maybe 20,000 miles later.

[Ss82]

Iv read afew posts on mini torque n they slate gtt maybe they are as crap as they say on there

[Dobboy]

Sounds bad. What's the mileage on it?
Any warning lights on?
Did the temp gauge shoot up before the catastrophe?

Think you should take it back, but maybe be more chance of them doing something if you had done it quicker.



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[badwolf340]

Usually when water and oil mix it goes a creamy manonaisey colour ,have you noticed high pressure when releasing the expansion tank filler cap ? Have you lost coolant or noticed high temps and no hot heat through the heater ?
The fact that you have done so little mileage means that you have got to get to the bottom of the cause of this and then work out who (if anyone) is to blame and then how to fix it ,having more than one garage involved means it will always be hard to sort out

[MarkR53S]

Usually when water and oil mix it goes a creamy manonaisey colour ,have you noticed high pressure when releasing the expansion tank filler cap ? Have you lost coolant or noticed high temps and no hot heat through the heater ?
The fact that you have done so little mileage means that you have got to get to the bottom of the cause of this and then work out who (if anyone) is to blame and then how to fix it ,having more than one garage involved means it will always be hard to sort out

This is very different to the last time. Yes I got the creamy substance in the coolant expansion tank. This time the expansion tank has boiled over with black oil. Literally the coolant isn't there!!

[badwolf340]

Best way to determine which part of the head gasket has gone is to have a sniff test carried out

[goodingm]

I would still be taking it back to garage that did the repairs, though would have made more sense to do it at the time.

[Eddie]

Sounds like a head failure. Or piston rings etc not supercharger related so there for not the garage who fitted the m45 fault. This is a separate fault within your engine

[MarkR53S]

Well the car is now back with the garage who did the initial repair. They have been kind enough to say that they will look at it free of charge. Worst case scenario is that this is a completely separate fault and i'm then going to strip the car for parts. So if you are in the market for fairly new parts including:

Airtech intercooler
17% pulley, belt and NGK plugs
GTT air cold air induction kit
GTT reroute exhaust pipe
GTT reconditioned supercharger
etc, etc

May be my next step! :-(

[Dobboy]

No way, worse case you could buy a different bare engine and swap over all your bits, couple of weekends work if you haven't done it before, but you'll be very satisfied and it will be worth it when you turn the key and it fires up!


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[MarkR53S]

So it was another head gasket failure but the garage understand that it shouldn't have gone again like that. They have been absolutely fantastic and treated me very well. They are fixing it free of charge!!

That said the car gets traded in shortly and i have removed the Airtec Intercooler and it is now up on the for sale section after approval from moderator.

Bye bye R53 :-(