You know your headng for a crap week when:

1) The head gasket blows on your car . Quote to fix from the local garage £200 - £250 ! Cost of parts to fix it yourself - £75 -£80 ( including a head skim ). DIY it is then.

2) Whilst still having to use both cars even though one isn't working properly (due to un-avoidable work commitments) the head gasket on your second car blows 7 days later !

Wifey was driving both times - but i didn't blame her - ( much ).
I know in the big scheme of things my problems are very mior but it's still bloody annoying....

 

Does she know about the other 3 gears then..???

 

I have a stupid cousin who paid £2500 to get his head gasket repaired on his escort which was two years old at the time. I nearly died of a heart attack when I realised how much he paid for it.

He has a habbit of wrecking cars though, he is too heavy handed he dosn't have a car now becuase he realised how ginksed he is. Lets hope he never boys a K series Rover, he will be paying £2k to have the head gasket replaced every year.

My mate crashed is car into my grandmas drive gate posts yesterday, his wheel arch is now nothing but rust. On top of that some body has just told me that the speakers I have installed in his car are possible fire a hazard.

 

wot cars are they, sid?

 

One is a 1.2 8v Punto the other is a 1.4 Astra. The Punto definately has a blown C-H-G the Astra looks like it was a false alarm due to a criminal lack of maintenance, . Basically it had hardly any water in it and the Oil level was very low also. The car didn't like this and threw a wobbler which gave almost exactly the same symptoms as when the Puntos Gasket went. ie Temp guage in the red, erratic revs, heater blowing cold air, etc.

The Punto is reasonably tidy and fairly recent, well maintained motor so I'm a bit pissed off that the heads gone, however the guy at the machine shop where i'm getting it skimmed says it seems to be a common problem ??.

The Astra is a shitty old disposable 'dog car' that I use to go to work in and take my Mutt down the Forrest/Beach at least once a day, if the head had gone on that I'd probably scrap it and get another bucket from the local auction with 12 months ticket on it, the dog don't mind what he's getting driven in just as long as he gets his walk

All jolly good fun

 

I've read that its a common problem with Puntos but that was more on the old 1.1 8 Valve FIRE unit as it was basicialy a Fiat Uno engine with a fuel injection system bolted onto it.

This 1.2 unit is probably a FIRE eingine as well though in which case it is a common problem.

 

interesting, happened to my blasted brava, too, great car apart from that. really like it

 

The problem might be perhaps the gearboxes, they tend to be set quite close at the lower gear ranges, this is why Punto's can be a very sporty drive even in the most basic form. I suppose this puts a lot of preasure on the engine beucase of the higher revs which puts preasure on the head gasket becuase of the heat and cuases them to crack.

Just typed in "fiat head gasket problem" how strange that most the results I got back were abourt K series Rovers. I always expected the head gasket to blow on my dads Punto but he it was written off before this could happen.

This is taken from honestjohn.co.uk

Its nice to see Fiats build quality has improved

 

mines' extremely torquey,
it was due to thermostat sticking.

if these are known faults and design flaws, owners are paying 100s, fiat should fix them free regardless of warrantee

 

LCD,
My last car was a Brava, a 1.6 , unfortunately my wife spun it on a bend she'd driven round at least a million times last year and wrote it off, It was my second Brava and this is my second Punto.

I bought the Brava when it was 6 months old and with 3,400 miles on the clock ( at less than half RRP ). I know they are not the most desirable cars on the roads but i really like Fiats, I've had 4 now and will but more, they all seem to have nice free revving engines and are good enough for my needs.

I got the car Dealer serviced at first but then switched to my local Halfords/AA service centre, they had a really good ex-Fiat trained mechanic who always did a very thorough job, ( i know be cause i always checked everythig afterwards ).

Anyway on its first MOT test the Guy told me that the car was making too much noise from the Cam belt area, the car only had 35K on the clock and the Cam belt wasn't even scheduled to be looked at until 72K , let alone changed !

Even though I hadn't had the car to a Fiat dealers for more than 2 years and had taken it to other garages for its annual service Fiat agreed to replace the cambelt tensioner pulleys FOC , although I had to pay for the new belt as they said the old one was still in good shape- £32, no worries

This process did take a little time and some effort from me on the letter writing front but as always - if you don't ask , you don't get ! The 1.4 Brava/o engines where very prone to timing belt problems.

A couple of good freindly Fiat websites here:

http://welcome.to/TheBravoForum

http://www.fiatforum.com/index.php?

 

Sounds like the zetec escort, they have a tendancy to snap and the pulleys tend to shatter. When my dad got our car I convinced him to pay £160 to get the belt and pulleys changed or it will be £1000 for a new engine. Since then I know personaly of two peoples's 1.6Zetec Escorts who had snapped cam belts. One cost £700 to repair, not sure about the other one.

If I ever buy a car worth more than £1000 the cam belt is the first job I will get done regardless of service history.

 

I bought my car two years ago and 26500 miles fewer on the clock, and I've not changed the cambelt yet... mainly because it was done only 10k before I got the car and the interval is 54k. That, and the receipt for that service was £860... ouch....

 

Yeah thats fine if you have written evidence so you have some come back if it snaps. I was meaning a full service histroy but no evidence of a cam belt change, my dads car had 65k when he bought it and there was no evidence of the cam belt ever been changed.

Some cars are worse than others too, the cam belt snaped on my aunties Rav 4, it caused no damage whats so ever just £65 for a new belt.

Its just with 16 valves you don't want to bend them if the belt snaps. I guess at least with the older 8 valves it would cause less damage.

 

Errr...why wasn't it done under warranty for a car that new ?

Head Gasket went on my Citroen C3 at 2 years old (only 25k on the clock).....this happened over Christmas/New Year and was claimed under warranty.....very shortly afterwards, I was an ex-Citroen owner

 

Becuase some people are very stupid and believe what machanics tell them. The car was second hand, it was a 1995/1996 N and it would have only had 1 year warranty at the time. It would have been more like 3 years old anyway.

I know the job should have cost £300 at the very most.

 

crikey, I think the 1.4, mine needs the belt doing at 36k miles, mine must be approaching due, its done 27k, but a lot of cold short runs, means it should be done sooner.
that's too short an interval in a car for my liking.

 

Yep I know both my dads Punto and Escort were about 60,000. Its not exactly an easy to job to either especialy if you need to replace the pulleys.

At least cam belts are quite, my mates Fiesta has one of the old 'Kent' 1.3 engines which is driven by chain, it dosn't half rattle although I suspect the tappets are also causing this.

 

If you do a bit of searching around on the two previous website links i think there is a lot of info regarding cambelts on Brava/o engines.
Yours should be OK as it is a new vehicle. i think that the problems where on vehicles bought new a few years ago as the design/materials of the tensioner pulley was different, i think it was made from some sort of plastic that used to break up , the design has since been changed.

Looking at the new tensoner Pulley that i/m going to fit to my Punto soon ( if i can pull myself away from this idiots lantern ) it is made of metal.

From memory i always thought that 35K was about normal for a timing belt until recently, when the use of strong fibres such as kevlar made the moden belts more dependable and so the replacement interval was lengthened.

 

Apparently I was told if a cambelt goes while you are driving and you suspect it to be the cambelt, you should NOT rev the car and you should immediately turn the engine off - this can minimize the damage. A lot of people rev the engines when they go instinctively. I'll be getting the cambelt done on my Golf very soon (just bought a Mk2 Golf GTI).

 

Flip you're changing your cars as fast as your HIFI. Hope you didn't loose too much money in depecriation on your old one (or was your Skoda second hand)?

I didn't know about not switching the engine off, but reving is common sense I guess.