Head Gasket Problem?

Zion

My VW Polo refuses to start properly this morning (after turning the ignition the engine tried to start then stall like it doesn't have enough power), did that about twice and on the third time I hit on the gas and engine rev up and it runs fine then. After work and the car has been idle for over 8 hours I open the oil cap and found what I don't want to see which is "mayo", "milkshake", "guck", whatever we like to call around it. I was going to think about going to bring it to garage to deal with it but really don't want to spend the money until it is absolute needed.

After some searching I've found suggestions from post http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054878992 but I'm not sure what exactly I should do before I should bring the car to a mechanic.

At the moment I've checked my car has normal oil level and it looks fine on the dipstick "i.e. no sign of water or white gum". The car runs fine and sound quiet enough like normal when I was driving home from work today. The coolant level doesn't seems to have dropped and the temperature of the engine is in the normal middle position.

The car was only serviced in December with timing belt changed and it's at 63K miles at the moment. I do only drive normally 3 miles to work and 3 miles home a day (is that short enough journey?).

My final question/concern really is should I keep driving the car around and will it make the engine worse and become more damage or should I bring it to fix immediately? I really don't want to be ripped off by some mechanic with very little knowledge I have with cars.

Thanks in advanced for any suggestions/advices.

AMurphy

3 miles each way is much too short, it's probably not getting heated up very well and fouling just about every internal part with soot and water vapor.
teh gunk you see on the cap is most likely water that has gotten by the pistons into the oil and not through a gasket.

Take it for a 20mile fast spin every week, to get some of that debris out of there. You'll probably find your exhaust completely rusted out next.

Zion

Thanks AMurphy, this morning the car is doing the same again that it stalled on first few tries. Drove 3 miles to work again and was in traffic a little so it took a little over 20mins. When I was in the car park I left the car running and found there's still steam and water coming out from the exhaust.

I'll try to give it a spin tonight if I have a chance. I'm watching closely on the oil dipstick and the coolant level, is there any other place I have to keep an eye on?

BrianD3

Don't worry about the steam + water from the exhaust, it's normal. Also the "guck" is due to the short journeys. As long as the car does not drink coolant, the gasket should be fine.

However it sounds like the car is getting a hard life for the small mileage covered. As AMurphy says, your exhaust won't last long with that kind of driving. Also the poor starting is probably due to the fact that your battery is not getting a chance to recharge fully with such short journeys at slow speed. A new battery would probably improve things (how old is the one in it at the moment) Also with that kind of driving you should be changing your oil more frequently than the recommend mileage interval. if that were my car i'd probably change it every 3k miles or less.

Rovi

What they all said.

The sort of driving you're doing is about as tough on your car as it's possible to be, short of deliberate setting out to do damage.
Shorten up the oil change interval, and give it a decent spin on the open road as often as possible.

Zion

Thanks for the advices everyone. I gave the car a spin last night on the M50 for about 20 miles but this morning it is still doing the same as the last two morning.

The battery was new enough as it was replaced I think less than two years ago. In fact I thought I was lucky enough that there's enough power in the battery to start the car in the morning as the car kept stalling on first few tries.

Is there any other potential problem that is causing this? The coil and distributor was replaced last October.

robo1

Just out of interest how much does it cost roughly to replace a head gasket. There always seems to be cars in the buyandsell which are advertised as being perfect apart from needing their head gasket replaced.

AMurphy

For a normal 4cyl, Golf/Corolla type vehicle, I'd expect about $400.

AMurphy

Zion wrote:

.....Drove 3 miles to work again and was in traffic a little so it took a little over 20mins. When I was in the car park I left the car running and found there's still steam and water coming out from the exhaust.

...... is there any other place I have to keep an eye on?

The steam from the exhaust is because your exh system and pipe is still not warmed up and condensing the water produced in combustion. Some of this same water is most likely getting in the oil.
It is also collecting in the bottom of your silencer box, particularly the rear most ones.
if these boxes do not already have a bleed hole, you could make one, 2~3mm diamater on the lowest point of the rear of the box. Nest to the seams, where the metal is strongest.
Don't do this to the CAT.

If you have a blown head gasket, you can get sudden "boiling" over after you slow down after a hot spin. this results from bubbles of very hot gas getting by the gasket into the water cavity, expanding and pushing the water out of the system... this in turn causes further heating of the area of the bubble... adding to the disaster.
So watch for boiling when you pull of onto city streets after a nice hot burn on the highway.

Zion

The car has been driven over 100 miles since the problem started last Tuesday but this morning (so are the previous morning) the car is still not able to start on the first or second try on cold start. Don't know is there any other issue with the car apart from there was water in the engine as the white guck are gone from the oil cap.

The car starts perfectly on warm/hot start and runs perfectly (at least I don't feel any power loss as when one of the spark plug was gone last year) and the engine sounds normal when driving or on idle.

If I bring the car to a garage for a check up will it cost much?

Rovi

This is sounding more and more like a fuelling problem.
Do you have to 'warm it up on the starter?' i.e..- keep spinning it over until it eventually catches and lurches to life, running roughly for a bit until everything gets its act together.

Any Polo gurus out there? Does the car have a carburettor or fuel injection?
I'll assume it's got fuel injection, so I'd suspect there's some sort of 'cold start' valve or solenoid acting up.
If it's carburetted (unlikely), I'd be looking at the choke.

SouperComputer

its an injection car anyway.

When it fails to start, is there a light on the dash the shape of a car visible?

Zion

SouperComputer wrote:

its an injection car anyway.

When it fails to start, is there a light on the dash the shape of a car visible?

There's no car shape like light on the dash when starting the engine. Don't even know is there one at all as I've never seem one myself

This morning it took me five attempts to start the car and I could feel it is killing the battery. Guess I really have to bring it to the garage but does anyone know which part is causing all this trouble?

SouperComputer

just wondering if it was the immobiliser kicking in. Happens somtimes with my passat with a crappy key that I have.

Rovi

Zion wrote:

There's no car shape like light on the dash when starting the engine. Don't even know is there one at all as I've never seem one myself

This morning it took me five attempts to start the car and I could feel it is killing the battery. Guess I really have to bring it to the garage but does anyone know which part is causing all this trouble?

This is all guesswork and speculation.
Really, unless you can see something broken, missing, dis-connected, etc somewhere, you're going to have to bite the bullet and take it to someone with a diagnostic computer to plug into the car and read any fault codes.
If you're totally allergic to going to a main dealer, many independent garages have the technology to do this these days.

How much would a check up cost?
Anything from free while calling the mechanic a big bollix and drinking his coffee (if you know him well enough ), to full workshop rates for a mechanic/hour plus a surcharge for the use of the equipment, which could amount to anything.
Sorry I can't be more specific.

Zion

Rovi wrote:

This is all guesswork and speculation.
Really, unless you can see something broken, missing, dis-connected, etc somewhere, you're going to have to bite the bullet and take it to someone with a diagnostic computer to plug into the car and read any fault codes.
If you're totally allergic to going to a main dealer, many independent garages have the technology to do this these days.

How much would a check up cost?
Anything from free while calling the mechanic a big bollix and drinking his coffee (if you know him well enough ), to full workshop rates for a mechanic/hour plus a surcharge for the use of the equipment, which could amount to anything.
Sorry I can't be more specific.

Really appreciated for all the advices everyone. I'll bring the car for a check up next week and post what exactly is wrong with it!

SouperComputer

also if you are so inclined: http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/index.html

Kavs

Had the same problem your describing with my Polo '98 1.0l
about a year ago and it was the stat ,very cheap to replace like €40 or €50
also got the plug leads and plugs replaced and it was running like new again,
A few months later the water pump gave out(90k) but again cheap enough to repair(only advantage of driving this car!!) just make sure if it happens to you not to continue driving as you could warp the head and do some serious damage! you should ask the mechanic to consider changing that pump if you bring it in as might save some hassle later.
hope this helps..

Zion

Kavs wrote:

Had the same problem your describing with my Polo '98 1.0l
about a year ago and it was the stat ,very cheap to replace like €40 or €50
also got the plug leads and plugs replaced and it was running like new again,
A few months later the water pump gave out(90k) but again cheap enough to repair(only advantage of driving this car!!) just make sure if it happens to you not to continue driving as you could warp the head and do some serious damage! you should ask the mechanic to consider changing that pump if you bring it in as might save some hassle later.
hope this helps..

Cheers for that Kavs, my Polo is also a '98 1L ! Does the €50 includes labour cost? Where did you get it fix in Galway?

greglo23

for some strange reason the plug leads on vw , skoda and seat engines seem to give a lot of trouble which can cause the problems which you list above. i would change the leads, plugs (replace with NGK's) and the fuel filter (which reduces injection pressures and puts a strain on the fuel pump ) and see if this improves matters. as a result of the poor leads the catalytic converters fail prematurely on these vehicles on a regular basis.

Kavs

ahh my cousin owns a garage in Claregalway(Cathal Keane),, so got a good price...I should'nt think it will cost u much more than me though as parts for polos are cheap,What I paid did include labour but that was just for the stat.

Labour will be the expensive part, Should'nt take more than an hour or two for a good mechanic to change out these parts.labour can be anything from €40 to €60 /hour.
Gluck with it!

subfreq

This is just the post i was looking for.

I had a water pump replaced in my 00 Polo and all the symptoms described in this thread started to creep in after that.

At first i was getting less power than expected in 2nd and 3rd gear which would suddenly kick in. Now it doesn't really start properly when it's a cold start in the morning and generally just drives like a pig.

Did anyone have any joy or a successful solution? I want to avoid have to replace the fuel sensors and expensive parts if I can try something else first.

Darragh29

Zion wrote:

The car was only serviced in December with timing belt changed and it's at 63K miles at the moment. I do only drive normally 3 miles to work and 3 miles home a day (is that short enough journey?).

Did the mechanic who did the timing belt last December also change the water pump??? You will need to check your invoice or service history to find this out.

Andrewf20

Clearly theres a leak of coolant into the oil. Get a garage to do a compression test on all cylinders to confirm its the head gasket, and to pressurize the water system if necessary to see how bad the leak is. They should be about to watch the rate of pressure decay over time. Worse case is a split block, but very unlikely. I got mine done a few weeks ago for around 100 yoyos on a 6 cylinder car.

MercMad

There's a bit of confusion here guys.........the original thread was started in 2006, and resurected yesterday by Subfreq, who has a similar issue, and Andrew I assum you spent €100 getting the system pressure tested as opposed to getting the head gasket done !

At Subfreq, I would suggest replacing plugs, distributor cap & rotor and possibly plug leads. Should all be less than €100, widely available from motor Factors. If you go to a dealer they will charge you that to diagnose and possibly same again for the parts.

Are you a DIY'er at all ?

subfreq

Cheers MercMad

I bumped this thread last night after doing a search as it had all the detail from the same issue I am currently suffering. I want to avoid just sending it to a garage to be probed if there was anything i could do myself.

Yes I am a pretty motivated but only medium level capable DIYer.

I will source those parts and have a go. Should they all be available from Halfords or is it a specialist i should hit up?

MercMad

Where are you based roughly ?

Andrewf20

MercMad wrote:

Andrew I assume you spent €100 getting the system pressure tested as opposed to getting the head gasket done !

U bet!

subfreq wrote:

Should they all be available from Halfords or is it a specialist i should hit up?

If in the Dublin region, try Otto in Finglas & Tallaght or GSF near the Nangor road who are reasonably priced for parts.

subfreq

Based in Dun Laoghaire area.

I just have a fear that it could be the air flow mass meter or cat converter and want to avoid having to sink a grand into a car that is effectively only worth 5 at a push.

Andrewf20

My cat died last year. The loss in power was more noticeable when it got hot, so it drove fairly fine from a cold start up, but after 5 mintues when the cat got hot, the car felt really down on power. My exhaust was also smokier than normal & there was a rattling from the cats internals.