Gramma_Benz

Crap, so it looks like I probably have a blown head gasket.

My mechanic noticed that a little coolant was dripping under my car. He was checking all the hoses and couldn't find where it was leaking from. Then he opened up the reservoir and smelled combustion inside the reservoir. He said either I have a blown head gasket or worse case, cracked block or head.

Anyone else had theirs replaced? I saw one thread quoting about $1900.

jturkel

yikes! best of luck with repair. hope you can find a cost effective method. i've actually never heard of this happening. has the car been running ok?

Gramma_Benz

Thx Josh,

Yeah, it's been running fine. I didn't even notice the leak till I got my oil changed today.

But he's right, it's supposed to smell like anti-freeze, not combustion.

macbryanie

Bummer Gramma; its abit more (1k or so) but isn't it easier to drop in another engine. Hope it all works out easily for you to get that beast back on the road.

Supgee

Sorry to hear this happened.
I think this is the first time I've ever heard of the M113K engine blowing a head gasket..

Depends how much mechanical skill and free time you have... Replacing the head gasket COULD be fun.

Best of luck and hope your C32 is on the road asap.

Gramma_Benz

Thanks guys, my mechanic is going to give me a quote once he looks up all the numbers and parts.

ghiaguy

Keep us in the loop - my fingers are crossed!

Gramma_Benz

OK, Initial estimate assuming it's not a cracked block, $2K.

Hopefully be done at the end of next week. Ugggggghhhh

tw2

Did you get a leak down?

C3Duece

seems like a lot for one head gasket. What diagnosis did they do to justify this price? They should have a pretty high confidence level as to what the problem is or they're just throwing numbers out there.

If you're really getting coolant into the combustion chamber you'd be getting a **** load of white smoke out the tail pipe that would smell like......coolant.

cracked block/head is even less likely. I'd be asking some specific questions to these guys to justify that high quote.

Zeppelin

For less than $20 you can get coolant dye, goggles, and a black light. I would try this to see if it is coming from the head gasket or some simple hose fitting before shelling over $2k.

Gramma_Benz

Well, from what I've researched, a leak down test may work in some cases, but the PSI really doesn't come anywhere close to real operating cylinder pressures.

And he's doing both side cause since everything is off already, it doesn't take much more time to do the other side while were at it. IF the other side failed soon afterwards, I'd HATE to do it twice.

Actually, I totally trust my mechanic. He always tries to either save me $$ or give me options. I know he's never gonna screw me and consider him a friend.

Plus, there not much other ways combustion is going to get in the coolant?

But thanks for all your advice guys!

rorf

If he can see it dripping under the car then it should be easy enough to see where it is leaking from.

For interest did you use Mercedes coolant, was it changed every 3 years and how many miles on the clock?

jvakos

Gramma Benz - old thread, but looks like i have a blown head/gasket issue like yours unfortunately and am trying to figure out what to do!

my c32 had a slight cylinder 1 misfire for 4-5 weeks with a rough idle but no CEL. The CEL came on last week as the rough idle got worse and i started having some significant power loss.

took the car to my indy shop Friday last week and they did a compression test on cylinder 1 which was lower than the other cylinders which leads them to think its a blown cylinder gasket but they are not 100% sure.

was your issue a blown head gasket?? did replacing the gasket fix it and no issues since??? let me know as from reading your posts on this thread and subsequent posts it seems what ever was wrong was fixed and been good

thanks a lot