Hey guys,

 

This is an X Reg Fabia 1.4 MPI 8v (AQW) just over 80,000 miles

 

My car started throwing up the flashing red bleeping coolant light and then my coolant level's started oscillating wildly without any input from me (from 2 inches below min to over max) and clearly been coming out of the overflow after fast runs. There was also very high pressure in the header tank even when completely cold, and a sniff test at a buddy's garage concluded it was the head gasket

 

I'm at the point where the head is nearly off, and I'm just slightly concerned that I don't know what caused the gasket to go. As far as I can see, it's the original gasket (it's an X reg) and didn't get what I've read elsewhere is an uprated one? In the last 7,000 miles that I've had the car, it's never overheated. For the first thousand miles it was actually running quite cold due to an exploded thermostat that was stuck open all the time, but since then it's got up to mid point on the gauge quickly and never gone over it. Could it just be the age/design of the gasket? I did a coolant change about 2,000 miles ago (with new fresh G13) so that I could clean out my heater matrix as it wasn't giving out any heat at all.

 

The head will be off tomorrow and going to be skimmed, I have a brand new genuine Skoda gasket to go on. Just hoping there's nothing else that could be behind the scenes that could cause this again. With it all going back together it's also getting a brand new header tank and full thermostat housing/thermostat, and a full coolant flush and refill again with fresh G13

 

Thanks for any thoughts on this :-)

Edited 21 November, 201411 yr by Nipedley

Could be the plastic casing of the coolant temperature sensor. That is reasonably common to go and send bits of plastic around the system. At least that's what our dealer told me and it was the only thing we could find that was wrong with ours.

When doing it all back up, the torque settings on the head bolts is apparently not enough. So I'm told.

The uprated head gasket should have 'Temac' stamped in the corner that goes nearest the NS headlight.

We've put a new head gasket & cylinder head in ours, flushed coolant system, cleaned or changed header tank (twice), changed sensor housing, flushed system, etc. and are still losing coolant.

I wish you the best of luck and hope it does resolve your issues.

Thanks for your reply, yeah the new gasket I have has TEMAC printed on it but not so on the original one. Fingers crossed it was just that, and a full flush of the coolant system will hopefully get rid of any potential extra debris. Before this, the car has never used a drop of coolant or a drop of oil, so I hope to get it back to that state.

 

Typical it would go just as I really need it as the cold and wet weather comes in (my only alternative for work transport has been my motorcycles, which while doing a commendable job isn't much fun in the cold & wet now that I'm not 18 anymore) and since I don't have a garage, am reliant on the weather gods to bless me with a dry day so that I can actually take things apart and put them back together again. What fun!