Cylinder head gasket is kaput.

Hagar

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this...mods please feel free to act.

I think the cylinder head gasket is gone on my 97 Citroen ZX 1.4 (125,000m).
It's drinking water and there is oil appearing in the rad when I top it up.
I know somebody is going to say its not worth doing on a car that old but I have no choice I have to get it fixed. I can't afford a new car just now.

Can anybody recommend a decent garage or mechanic in the Athlone/Roscommon area that won't rip me off?

Thanks

lomb

if its a good car it is worth doing as all cars need work every 60 or 80 k miles.
in this country no one ever has any of it done. this is a country where very few cars have any service history. sure i bought a 92 405 7 years ago and the brake fluid was as black as night. and it had just had a so called major service. what a joke. b very careful buying a used motor in this country.

the reality is, to do the headgasket which only costs 20euros, u have to take the head off which means taking the timing belt off. also the timing belt is connected to the water pump. its standard practice and cheap to replace this while u have the belt off DEFINATELY get this done as this may be whats causiing the water loss even though the head gasket may be damaged slightly. that is what was causing water loss on the 405. also even if it isnt causing the loss it will fail very very very soon. my mums new golf went at 50k miles.

so u need water pump, timing belt, tensioner, the cams off, and head gasket. id say 220 euros-250euros labour, the gasket is 20, timing belt kits are dear at about 110 and water pump is 50 euros. expect to pay around 450 euros. the best bet is buy all the parts and ring them up and tell them what u want.
oh and really u need a skilled garage otherwise it will never work as the head may or may not be physically warped. ring a citroen dealer and ask them the cost of this id say thats ur best bet to begin.

lomb

u can buy the parts in german swedish french in dublin on the cheap. do a google search for their online parts shop. prices are in stg +vat. the water pump is 19£ so 30euro. good prices.

BrianD3

It does sound like the HG is gone, but there's no guarantee until you get it looked at. Does the car overheat or run poorly? Do you see any evidence of coolant leaking out. If it's the HG and coolant is getting into the cylinders then you probably won't see any leaks but the car will drink coolant. Traces of oil in the coolant is common in a lot of high mileage cars and does not necessarily mean that the HG is blown but if its more tnan just traces then it probably is HG alright.

Assuming it's HG and not something more serious like a cracked block the work is worth doing if you like the car. Changing a HG on a 1.4 Citroen is not such a huge deal, any competent garage should be able to do it for a few hundred euros. Also as lomb says, you're as well off getting the water pump and timing belt/tensioner done at the same time assuming that they haven't been changed in the last 30k or so and assuming that you're going to hold onto the car for a while after the work is done.

And just going OT for a minute

lomb wrote:

i bought a 92 405 7 years ago and the brake fluid was as black as night. and it had just had a so called major service. what a joke

Well there's an awful lot of debate about brake fluid and whether to change it or not. Personally I think that fluid shouldn't be changed on a modern road car unless there has been major work done on the braking system eg change of master cylinder or brake lines. Brake fluid (even Dot 3 and 4 stuff) does not absorb a significant quantity of moisture after the first few months driving from new, and brake fluid is supposed to darken over time. There has been some debate about dissolved copper in brake fluid contributing to brake system problems but no hard evidence AFAIK. And changing brake fluid unnecessarily can cause more harm than good as there's always a risk of contamination during change. All you need is one tiny bit of grit to get in and that could damage a seal resulting in more work being needed.

BrianD3

Hagar

Thanks for the replies guys.
I have a "quote" for 400 to 500 "depending on what needs replacing" so that doesn't seem to far off the mark. The point about the water pump is well taken. I'll get him to attend to that at the same time.

The irony of this is I'm emigrating to France at the end of this month and I bought a Citroen because I reckoned that a French car would be cheaper to maintain in France. This repair would probably be a quarter cheaper over there but good old Rip Off Ireland is taking a last bite of my arse just as I get out.

lomb

thing is sounds like alot but funny thing is every car needs water pump/timing belt / tensioners done every 60 k miles at cost of 350 euro. so it will only be a little more for the labour on the gasket.

this is my point about being careful about buying used cars in this country. very little proper service work is done on them anxd much less now due to the drop in values of used cars.

in anycase if ur car is losing coolant rapidly i doubt it the HG. prob the water pump. the HG may have a very slight leak though.

dont count on france being cheaper. they really are total rip off merchants there i have numerous and shocking experiances of this. good luck on the move anyway and watch out for sharks in france there really are lots of them.