Bought my 53 plate Octavia Elegance 4x4 1.8t 20v and it had a small water leak on the car which was losing a small amount of water, I needed to fill it up from the minimum to maximum about once every 5 or 6 days and i'm doing about 170 miles a day, it finally went spectacularly on the way to work at about 0330hrs.!! AA came out, found that there was a pipe housing of some description at the rear right of the engine had split........ Towed to garage. Garage fitted a new bit and filled with anti freeze..... job done.!!!!

Next day I drive to work (85miles) and as I pull in the low water light and buzzer came on...... not good.!!! Let it cool down and topped it up again, spoke to the garage who said it may have just been an air lock and it shouldn't give me any more dramas..... Wrong.!!! On the way home again it needed topping up twice again but the car was running fine, no smoke, no mixing of oil and water etc. Took it back to the garage who did a test on the coolant tank and they have found that it now needs a head gasket done.........

The car has never overheated or mixed the oil and water so hopefully should be quite straightforward to fix, waiting for them to get back to me with a price but has anyone got any idea what sort of money this is going to cost.???? The Mrs is going ape at this point so what are we talking worst case and best case.????

Cheers in advance

John

Edited 4 October, 201015 yr by johng990

If you still have the car, it might be worth going through this, by way of a second opinion:

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/HOW-TO-TEST-FOR-A-FAILED-HEAD-GASKET_W0QQugidZ10000000001891247

(Sorry it's all in caps!)

Then again, you should be able to see evidence of a leak if you're losing as much water as you say from outside the engine, in which case replacing the HG ought to take around 3 hours 20 minutes (so up to about 200 quid), assuming the cylinder head isn't warped.

Fingers crossed...

If you still have the car, it might be worth going through this, by way of a second opinion:

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/HOW-TO-TEST-FOR-A-FAILED-HEAD-GASKET_W0QQugidZ10000000001891247

(Sorry it's all in caps!)

Then again, you should be able to see evidence of a leak if you're losing as much water as you say from outside the engine, in which case replacing the HG ought to take around 3 hours 20 minutes (so up to about 200 quid), assuming the cylinder head isn't warped.

Fingers crossed...

Cheers mate, It's deffo the headgasket thats gone, still waiting for them to give me a price, don't know anyone that's had one done, not on this engine anyway.!!!