Hey,

Last year in november my head gasket blew completly on my Punto, now iv had it repaired but the guy at the garage said it was only good for a year tops. I have slight dilema as to what to do, does anyone know what my potential options are, moneys no object, my punto is my pride and joy and iv spent too much cash already to scrap it. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,

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Blinddriver said:

Hey,

Last year in november my head gasket blew completly on my Punto, now iv had it repaired but the guy at the garage said it was only good for a year tops. I have slight dilema as to what to do, does anyone know what my potential options are, moneys no object, my punto is my pride and joy and iv spent too much cash already to scrap it. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,

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Click to expand...

Money no option?

Scrap it, get £2000 off the government to go towards the cost of a brand new car :worship:

Buy another mk1 and transfer your mods or whatever to that one
simples

why? has it gone again? if not drive it until it goes, chances are it will be ok, he has said that probz to just cover he cant warrant it, due to damage to head/block.

If your Punto is so special to you (like mine is to me) then I would advise keeping it. The garage say it will only be good for a year, which seems odd. Did they have the cylinder head surface refinished before replacing the gasket?

If they did do everything that should have been done in a quality head gasket swap, it should last a lot longer. The only reason I can see them saying that is that the head suffered damage. If this is the case, get a replacement head from a breaker and have that skimmed. Better yet, send your old head to GSR, and buy one of their ported and skimmed heads and enjoy the power gain!

MikeSalt said:

If they did do everything that should have been done in a quality head gasket swap, it should last a lot longer. The only reason I can see them saying that is that the head suffered damage. If this is the case, get a replacement head from a breaker and have that skimmed.

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I would agree 100%

HG's will last a long, long time if looked after properly.

Just a tip for next time, make sure that your coolant level is topped up and has the right concentration of ethylene glycol to water. Many HG problems can be traced back to negligence in maintaining the cooling system.

Engine coolant used to be called anti-freeze, but that implied it was only required for winter so they changed the name. It is required all year round because it prevents corrosion inside the engine. This corrosion can act on the metal surrounding a HG, causing failure. Similarly, corrosion can lead to solid material being deposited in the coolant system. This can cause localised blockages, therefore hot-spots, which cause cylinder head warping, therefore gasket failure.

And don't take it above 3k until the car is warm!

richie.guy said:

And don't take it above 3k until the car is warm!

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I think that's what caused my first since I was pretty hot about coolant monitoring. The again, at close to 100,000 miles, it was proabably just its time to go.

Yup, if you rag it from cold its not gonna be any good for it!

Was your head skimmed when they did the HG? As already said, if you look after it and dont race it until its warmed up then you should be fine.

Have you looked into why it went in the first place?

Cheers for the response guys! I really appreciate it

Basically, my car got pretty ****ed up, right on ma 18th birthday! It was constantly over heating all the time I found that the fool before me had crashed it and the bit of the bumper that i saw missing was actually embedded in my radiator. This caused problems and therefore, the whole front of the car (so radiator, coolant stuff and thermostat )had to be replaced, then the HG went :bang: The guy sed dat wots apnin was it was so badly corroded that it was now joined with my water pipes and therefore running on petrol:water and boiling the whole thing up. So he tok the HG apart and put a putty like stuff round the HG and sealed it, he also skimmed it too. I guessed he would have said that to cover himself but i just want to make sure that if it does go, i got my ass covered by a back up, cos i dont wanna be carless.

Should have had it fixed correctly i.e. welded or bought a new head if that's the case...

Did fink of dat but my mate sed dat its easier to transplant a new engine?? cos wiv a new HG u av to over tighten and under tighten the bolts to set them in??

With the new engine you don't know what it's history is and it may need the HG done anyway...

True
so u finknew ones best bet??
Wots the gsr wassit?? the HG skimming and replacement??

Yeh GSR, whats that??

That is a performance head to improve performance. However, the heads are about £300, and the required remap will be £250.

Ok, well cheers for your help bud, i appreciate it ill let you know how i get on

Cheers