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Coolant change

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Garage did coolant change and now have issue

Hi Looking for advise, I had a small leak in the coolant system on my Rivage and I was always topping the water up which wasn't a big issue.As I hadnt had the time to look for the leak and flush the system etc. I decided to go to a local garage who specialised in VW's.They charged £18 to check for leak £2 for jubalee clip and £45 to change the coolant great, done in a day picked car up and drove home 2minutes away.on Friday had to go on a 60mile trip no problem as I often do this in my Rivage first I noticed that the heater only blow out cool air after awhile I noticed the temperature gauge wasn't working either. anyway I carried on and just before junction 7 of the M4 I noticed lots of white smoke from behind and noise coming from the engine like crackling on the radio also the car wouldn't accelerate but it stayed at 40mph. when I stopped at the lights it gave up so I pushed it off the road to where I could park, the smoke wasn't coming from the rear but from the engine there was no coolant left in the car and it took an age to cool down.I rang the garage and explained what happend and they said it must have been an air block and that once I gett water from a service station to call them and they would go through the process of topping the car up so I could get it back to them.I eventualy got water rang them and proceded to top the expansion bottle with water but it was coming straight out from the bottom they arranged a pickup truck to get me back. they tried to start the car but it wouldn't start I left it with them does anyone know what may have lead to this would it have been that the garage didn't do the coolant correctly and caused the issue or could it have been something ells and just coincidence?.appreciate any advise/comments.

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As said in the other thread. 

That's sounds like a head gasket failure to me. 

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Thanks so that could have gone any time?
Cheers,

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Well I can't definitively say it is the head gasket. But it sounds awful familiar to my mk2. 

Mine was fine, then all of a sudden down the 25, white smoke out the back, down on power, then completely dead after stopping. It had consumed the entire 4 odd litres of coolant in about 20 seconds. :lol: 

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Was it expensive to repair?
Cheers,

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When you say you topped it up but it was coming out of the bottom, could you see where?

It could just be a bust hose that dumped your coolant onto your exhaust causing steam clouds. 

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Best case, fix expansion tank/leak and re fill with coolant, job done.
Worse case, head gasket blown or even worse case warped head with the heat or sized engine (new engine/rebuild time) expensive and time consuming to fix, your garage should foot the bill as they did the work and did not properly check the car was right to drive.
If you ever see white smoke, hot temperature gauge or smell burning. STOP THE ENIGINE straight away.

Best to wait for the garage to call and tell what they have found.

1988 Mk1 Golf GTi Cabriolet 1.8cc DX, K-jet. Daily drive. 317,000 miles and counting
1978 Mk1 Scirocco GLS 1.6cc FR, Webber carb. Weekend toy.

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Shops can use a pressurized cap and apply 14-18psi on the cooling system… You will usually find the leaks.

Every plastic part can leak, that includes the heater valve. and the plastic butt-to-butt connection on the lower heater hose, and on 90ish cabriolets the water outlet flanges from HADES.




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They all start with GOOD Grounds.

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JD1 Any update mate, hoping for the best result of course? 🤔

I just feel it's a bit to much of a coincidence that this happened on your first proper drive with the car bearing in mind the engine was only run for a few minutes when you were on your way back home from the garage!

What are the odds? 🤔
On dropping all it's water on its first run after a coolent change has been done correctly?

Answers on a postcard please…..

Sent from my Smartphone 📱

Sent by a smartphone and not a smartperson!

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The fact that your temp guage wasn't working shows there was no coolant circulation due to either no coolant or a massive air lock.

The heater selector needs to be on hot when topping up coolant so it goes into the heater matrix as well. If it'd been on cold when they topped up and then you opened it on your longer drive then the air would be stopping circulation.

If the head is gone then it's not too bad. Lots of stuff to undo, then take off the head and get it checked. The wifes went recently and the local Engine shop charged me £250 for a skim, new gasket sets, new stretch bolts and changing out the valve springs and guides etc.

That being said the garage should certainly be doing the labour for free!

Hope it's an esy fix and no damage.

Ian

Cornish Host.
1980 VW Derby
Clive the Cabby
Ujum the Invisible
Mynx the  Tintop

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Thanks for all the comments/advise I haven't heard from the Garage yet! someone said to wait for them to contact me! how long do I give them? and if it was just the hose etc. i'm sure they would have fixed it by now.
Cheers,

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I would give them a call to find out if they have looked at the car yet?

1988 Mk1 Golf GTi Cabriolet 1.8cc DX, K-jet. Daily drive. 317,000 miles and counting
1978 Mk1 Scirocco GLS 1.6cc FR, Webber carb. Weekend toy.

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JD1 said

Thanks for all the comments/advise I haven't heard from the Garage yet! someone said to wait for them to contact me! how long do I give them? and if it was just the hose etc. i'm sure they would have fixed it by now.
Cheers,

So firstly I'm not sure how long they had the car back in workshop time?

So I'd say that since some when last week.
I would now give them a call, be calm and polite but ask the question, how is my car? 🤔

Then say nothing more and wait for some sort of reply! 😉

Sent by a smartphone and not a smartperson!

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Mike

There's me building mine 28 years ago, almost finished!        
  
001.JPG       
                                 
Be proud of your VW Golf Mk1, it's very special!

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Yeah, What he said ^

Don't add the words 'you useless bunch of monkeys, call yourselves vw experts? My bum you are!' just yet.

Ian

Cornish Host.
1980 VW Derby
Clive the Cabby
Ujum the Invisible
Mynx the  Tintop

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I have kept it all polite so far! called to see how they were getting on, they can't get it started but that they have been very busy and he would call me later today.
I will update once I've heard from them.
Believe me I'm F—–g P—-d off but keeping very cool at the moment!.
Cheers,

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I would say they didn't do the coolant change correctly!
they didn't bleed the system or left a clip off a pipe if it was good before they got there hands on it you are well within your rights to ask for a full engine rebuild or whatever it take to put right
have you heard out else

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Hi Just heard from the garage, they said the head will have to come off to assess the damage. I said there was nothing wrong with the engine and they were the last to check and replace the coolant it's down to them. They obviously disagree and said that I could get a second opinion, I told them to remove the head so that it can be assessed, I will probably get them to do the work agree to pay parts not labour,  if they refuse take them to court. I cant see any other way around it at the moment.

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Eeeek, sorry to hear that dude.

I don't want to be that guy, but head gaskets can let go like this without much warning. As I said up there ^^ my mk2 8v gave up without warning, coolant change or not, when they go, they go!

May as well try your luck with them tho… Court will cost more than the work, in the grand scheme I'm sure.

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Well ifn it was me I would ask a few questions first.
What tests did they perform to say they need to remove the head gasket?

I have had the pleasure of having to replace a head gasket or two, more on my diesels than my gassers, but I have done both.

When I have had the gaskets go, it was because of a blown water outlet on my gassers or a blown hose or farging plastic expansion jug, or heater valve failure.
Which is why I started my I hate plastic parts thread in the archive section.

When I replaced the hose or outlet, re-filled and started the engine, there were a few obvious signs.  On my Diesels I would have a over pressurized cooling system that ballooned the hoses so much so that I couldn't manually compress them (too tight to squeeze), and oil would leak out on the front of the engine between the 3rd and 4th cylinder.

On my Gasser it was again a over pressure of the cooling system that spewed coolant out of the jug.

There is also a intermix condition of the oil and anti-freeze that can occur.

But wait there is more….. If you have the water jacketed oil cooler attached to your Engine (Square thing between the oil filter flange and the oil filter) with 2 coolant hoses attached, these have been known to go south on you as  well, as in either leaking oil into the coolant, or if small enough allowing oil pressure gasses to over pressurize the coolant system so that you can balloon the hoses, and or force the t-stat closed over heating the engine…. As these water jacketed coolers (more of an oil stabilizer).

Over on this side of the pond, I have seen these installed on the pre-90 Cabriolets (never on a 90-93 Cabriolet) and on Golfs that were 83-95's and later Passats, Jettas and so on.  

I opted that my Automatics while cruising down the intestates at 80mph, the oil would hit the red line on the gauges and I would have to turn off the a/c and place the heater on full hot to cool it down.  I opted to install an external oil cooler on my automatics which was more than effective to keep the oil temps under control.  I never saw the oil temp issue on my Digi-manual transmissions ever.

So while it may be a head gasket failure, I would be more suspect if the water jacketed oil cooler is installed that it is that which may be causing your issue over the
Head Gasket.  

While I too would be a little miffed, and possibly be po'ed to the max, would I want the same folks who blew it up to fix the new issues? (OHELLNO).  I would take it to another shop and get a second opinion…. at the most I would ask specifically what tests they performed to diagnose the possible bad head gasket. If they give you anything like " in our experience" it means they are guessing as to the cause and not the end cause and hoping they discover the issue on tearing it apart.

On a side note:
I had the following occur to me driving my Diesel for over 20 years.  Now after 17,000m on the odo I used the product Slick 50 in to my engine.  It isn't the same product they sell today, back then it was a 2 part product, a cleaner that you placed in your old oil and ran the engine for 30 minutes, then drain, and change the filter add 2 quarts of oil.  Shake the heck out of the 1qt of slick 50 can and open the bottom and as the engine was running you added it to the oil, (you would actually hear the engine speed up,) finish adding your oil in my case it was another quart, and allow the engine to run for 30 minutes.  

I did this then in 3, 000 m later 100 miles out of warranty I had the radiator split, fixed repaired, and ran with not head gasket failure.  Another time I had an expansion jug split the seam… I only noticed it because my heater quit working and the temp gauge started to go cold (it was about 10 degrees f as I was driving.  I filled it with water after the engine cooled, started and drove to the dealer ship to get a new jug, and fill with a/f 50-50 with no Head Damage.

Now 140K later I blew a hose, and that caused the engine to over heat and the gasket to go.  I had obvious oil leaking from the 3rd and 4th cylinders and my hoses were over pressurizing.  I pulled the head, and had it checked, there was no warpage…. So a new gasket and bolts later I was running down the road…..  This engine would blow a head gasket @ ever 6-10 months after that and I got really good at replacing it, usually about 3 hours from start to finish…. If there was an interweb back them I would have found out about the ARP stud kit which while re-useable, usually stopped the head issues I was having.

So while I have bought cars that had blown gaskets (cabriolets) it isn't that hard to change them either… but there are gotcha's like exhaust studs breaking, and the like.. but it isn't a hard job….and there are but a couple of special tools that are needed.

Like I said, should you trust this shop that possibly effed the thing?  Or was there an underlying condition that you didn't know about, so they are off the hook?

While I am not dismissing your issue with the shop, there are other hidden things which when failed to mention, can be a time bomb……

I suppose your issue is another reason that I have never used a shop to repair my cars but one time, and that was after I had a stroke, and had limited use of my right arm…..(had a in-tank fuel pump go on a Van.) but once I got use, I have never used a shop for anything other than a exhaust change…


What do Divorces, Great Coffee, and Car Electrics all have in common?

They all start with GOOD Grounds.

Where are my DIY Links?

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really you should have found out where the coolant went as if its a leak from where they have done work then it would be there responsibility but as its with them now its too easy for the garage to put it right before it can be assessed by someone else.

 it might not be the head gasket that's failed if its run with no coolant it wont work for long and tbh I wouldn't want to repair a severely overheated engine.

 if you get stuck I have a good dx engine in my garage with full history I can donate but I am in south west cornwall
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