Hello all,i am new to the forum and apologies for my first post being a question,i've had my mk2 punto 1.2 (02) for 6 months with no problems but suddenly I seem to be having to top up the coolant on an almost daily basis,i've had a look for any obvious head gasket leaks and it seems ok,although the engine does seem to get hot pretty quickly ,a 10 min drive from cold has the rad fan working,i'm also getting a gurgling noise on starting the car,and I've noticed my heater will only blow cold air although the blower itself is OK,there are no obvious external coolant leaks and apart from all this the car runs fine although a little lumpy at idle...
Can someone point me In the right direction to start sorting these issues,any advice will be great...thanks.
Phil.

Hi and WELCOME TO THE FORUM!! :wave:

If you are losing that much coolant, and there are no visible leaks that you can see, then unfortunately it points to head gasket failure.

The gurgling noise will be air in the heater matrix. You COULD try bleeding the cooling system carefully and re filling, but unfortunately unless you can find the source of the coolant loss elsewhere (ie not the head gasket) then it will soon re appear. The air in the heater matrix will also be the same reason that the heaters are not blowing hot air.

Your best bet is to find someone who can do a sniff test or a compression test for you. This will confirm if it is definitely your head gasket or not.

A failed head gasket would also be the cause of the lumpy idle.

Hope that helps,
Alan

Compression test first. I don't like sniff tests -- or you can pick up a compression tester from eBay for 15 quid or so posted.

If the compressions are even, the HG has survived.

If the compressions are not even, the HG is fubar.

Whichever is the case, you've still got to find the cause of the water leak/reason HG failed.

Most likely sources of a difficult to find water leak are water pump, water rail, water rail O ring (where the water rail enters the back of the water pump housing). You'll often only see these with the engine up to temperature and running and by crawling under the car.

Thanks for the advice chaps,the leak must be fairly heavy because i'm topping up at least a litre every couple of days,there are no signs of a heavy water leak under the car,although with the warm weather it would soon disappear,and I cant see any dripping whilst its running,so it does look like it could be the HG,would I be able to continue running it as is and topping it up until I can get it booked into a garage ,I really need it to get to work ...would it do any long term harm? and does anyone know what sort of cost I should be expecting for a garage to fit a new gasket?

As a matter of interest when should the dashboard temperature lamp come on,as theres no temp gauge on this model,it hasn't come on yet and its been getting pretty warm!,I've got a comp tester in my garage somewhere......

Thanks .

Easy way to check is run the engine with the cap off from the coolant tank. let the car run for couple of min and look for bubbles coming through. rev the engine abit and if you see any bubbles at all then yeah HG will be gone.

Lookin at around £300 for basic from a garage

Or around £100 for parts. Replace water pump. cambelt and tensioner while you're at it.

And if it is the HG, you've still got to find the reason it went!

Thermostat, radiator fan?

It's very rare for them just to go.