1002 3.2 S - emulsified oil in coolant - lots of it!

[Jamesp]

So what are the tricks to finding out which head it is? Coolant through the exhaust is easy, look for the clean plug, but in the oil? How does one chase that down?

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by Jamesp

So what are the tricks to finding out which head it is? Coolant through the exhaust is easy, look for the clean plug, but in the oil? How does one chase that down?

Really does not matter which head it is as the engine has to come apart, which is when you find out.

[piersman]

^^ This.

I spoke to my local specialist yesterday to see what they suggestion would be.

Two options:

1. Repair - take out engine, check what's wrong, fix and replace - £2500+ depending on if it's 'just' the head and it could be replaced with a second hand one. This would give a cost to me of about £10K in total, to have a car worth about £6K. So £4k down.

2. Scrap it. Gave me the name of a breaker who's indicated he'll give me between £2500-3000 as a scrapper for breaking. This would give me a total of cost of £4.5K for no car.

I'm weighing up the options now, not much in it, but leaning towards just fecking scrapping the pile of junk and taking the loss of £4.5K. At least that way I can do the deal now and go looking for something else rather than wait 2 months for this one to be fixed and then await the next disaster to kick in.

Such a shame, nice cars, but engines made from papier mache!

Back to my Jaaags next I reckon, never had one cost me this much to fix in almost 25 years of running them.

[mikefocke]

Based on those figures, get the car fixed for 2.5k, then you have the option of keeping it or selling it. Get what you originally bought it for and you'd be better off and down only the cost of repair.


Sorry to hear of your trouble, 12+ year old cars are always a gamble. Don't base your opinion on a sample size of one.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by piersman

...take out engine, check what's wrong, fix and replace - £2500+ depending on if it's 'just' the head and it could be replaced with a second hand one....

If it were only that simple. Or cheap.

Once you open up the engine, be prepared for the costs to skyrocket.

[piersman]

Originally Posted by thstone

If it were only that simple. Or cheap.

Once you open up the engine, be prepared for the costs to skyrocket.

Exactly. They were basing the £2500+ cost on the labour to remove and strip engine, and use a £400-500 pound second head.

But once they're in there you'd be looking to do the seal, the IMS , the water pump and any other number of things, plus assume that there's nothing 'worn' elsewhere within the engine that could do with sorting. Could end up being £3500+... easily.

What's really pissing me off is I've just fitted a glass roof conversion, spent £600 getting the aircon sorted, bought a new ignition switch, 2 AOSs, etc... So, on top of the £6500 I paid for it I've probably spent another £1500 and LOTS of my time getting it right and was looking forward to using it for the rest of the summer.

Only to then find the fecking engine is bolloxed.

I'm not happy!