Technical Head Gasket Problem

[steveg]

I have just put my Mk1 Fiat Punto 60S into the garage with a head gasket failure. The symtoms where only firing on 3 cylinders when started for the first 5 minutes, intermittant loss of heat through the blowers and intermittant overheating. The car only has 40k on the clock and is serviced regularly and it mainly does motorway runs. Does anyone know what has caused the problem and how best to avoid the problem.

The car has been pretty good upto know, only requiring a new single point unit and a new exhaust (rear section).

Cheers
Steve

 

[dave]

welcome to the forum

could have been caused by someone not filling the cooling system properly, or driving around with a nackered thermostate for a while.

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[steveg]

Thanks for the reply, but I am pretty sure that the coolant was okay as the temp gauge was pretty much in the same place since day one and I never had a problem with the car running hot or cold until yesterday so that would rule out the thermostat.

The only thing I can think of is that I have been running the car between Glasgow and Edinburgh daily for the past 12 months where as before it was only used on the school run

Comments please ?