I just thought I'd share this gem with all you fellow Skodanians. After a recent catastrophic head gasket failure on our 12 years old Fabby MPi I decided to replace the engine with one that had less miles. All was fine apart from the amount of oil/water creamy scum in the hoses etc. which I needed to get rid of before I refilled the anti-freeze. After searching the interweb for products which would do this I stumble upon a site which suggested hosing out the cooling system then refilling with a cup of Persil Non Bio dumped in the header tank, driving round as normal for about a week, repeating the exercise, then refilling with water/anti-freeze!!

I was initially sceptical until I spoke to a local guy who has been repairing Freelanders with K series engines (notorious for HGF) for years who said "Oh yeah we use it all the time, much better than anything else, in fact Land Rover themselves recommend it".

So I decided to give it a try and...........it works a treat I don't think my cooling system has ever been so clean. I did change my header tank for a new one( £11.40 GSF) though because although most of the oil had come out I think it had gone cloudy through age & was getting hard to see the level.

So there you go if your cooling system is full of crud from head gasket failure, you know what to do.

Incidentally only use Non Bio as you don't get loads of soap suds (not good)

isnt there salt in these liquids?

isnt there salt in these liquids?

I'd think so as a cheap way to reduce sudding, but maybe flushing a lot after this would wash out enough of the salt to be "okay" - AND, after a Freelander head gasket problem, the garage/owner would normally "sell it on"!!! (cruel comment - sorry!). I suppose the bottom line is the original problem has been got rid off - usual product fixer approach.

I used to work for Philips at the factory making TVs. After trying loads of chemicals to put into the screen cleaning solution they found that persil was the best.