Looking for advice on what to do next ...

Garage did engine work, replacing valves, cams and timing chain at 119'000 miles which was carried out a while ago, in November 2022 by the previous owner

Car is now on 128'000 and I had coolant leaking near the front of the engine.

 

I had a mobile mechanic come to check things over as I was worried this could be the water pump, after inspecting they found the leak coming from a different connection, water pump is fine but they noticed parts around the intake manifold that had loose bolts or no fittings at all. They asked about work carried out on the car and I immediately thought about the engine job. I took some photos.

In them you can see one missing bolt, one loose bolt, and a wiring connection hanging loose. They weren't able to fix the leak but said it was to do with the lose connections.

I've since been adding water to the coolant every few miles to keep the coolant topped up as I've had to drive around as a matter of necessity, which the mechanics said would be fine for now to just replace with water. Added some coolant leak stopper stuff and it's helped massively.

 

I'd like the garage who did the engine work to take the car back to sort these bits out ideally, but I'm sure it won't be as simple as that.

Wonder if it's worth the hassle as I could probably sort these things out myself as I have some mechanical experience and the tools, but I'm worried I might end up opening up a can of worms and need a garage anwyay.

 

Thanks for any help guys

 

 

The last image shows a horizontally slotted plastic part just to the left of the thing you're holding; probably where that assembly is designed to be held?

 

The screws that are loose and missing appear to be items 18 and 17 here, but as it appears to be only a belt cover, I'm not 100% sure this will solve your leak, unless the belt runs wet?

 

 

7 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

The last image shows a horizontally slotted plastic part just to the left of the thing you're holding; probably where that assembly is designed to be held?

 

The screws that are loose and missing appear to be items 18 and 17 here, but as it appears to be only a belt cover, I'm not 100% sure this will solve your leak, unless the belt runs wet?

 

 

Thanks. By the way, where can I find these diagrams?

Yeah that doesn't seem to be correlated to the leak at all, I'm going to email the mechanics that looked at the car to ask them to explain what they thought the problem was so I have it in writing and so I have a better idea in case I take it on myself.

 

To be honest I didn't get a very clear answer about where exactly the leak was coming from, just that it was under the manifold, and was quite tricky to see as they had to remove the air intake pipe and look from underneath to see it properly IIRC.

 

5 minutes ago, mediumheat said:

where can I find these diagrams

Various sites have ETKA-originated stuff, like this one Skoda Parts catalog - ETKA Online, Skoda EUROPA, original Catalog Skoda EUROPA (7zap.com)

LLL parts' one tends to be more up to date. LLLParts

 

Do it yourself and avoid all the hassle and bad feeling on both sides. Your water leak may be unconnected to the work done or not as a result of negligence as you do not know where it is coming from.

 

Loose bolts, missing fasteners, connectors not reconnected are what I expect from any work done by a garage, I know that it shouldn't be that way but it usually is.

 

Not that I am any less immune so I recognise that mechanics are only human and have to cope with many more disturbances than I do, we have more incentive to be studious working on our own vehicles.

Edited 19 July, 20232 yr by J.R.

Thanks, will probably give it a go then.

I'm hoping I can figure it out but might aswell ask on here in case anyone is able to help with the leak?

D

According to the mechanics the leak was coming from somwhere behind the intake manifold.

 

When the leak was at its worst I noticed little stream of water deep by the fuel line/injector

 

(Sorry image is sideways!)