GfK's Holiday Disappointment

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Socoder -> Off Topic -> GfK's Holiday Disappointment
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Fri, 12 Aug 2016, 01:32
GfK	holiday to southwest ruined. thanks, car. :/
Fri, 12 Aug 2016, 01:32
Jayenkai	Awww
Fri, 12 Aug 2016, 11:10
Dabz	Crapola!!! I would suggest a train, but then, you really need to be the boss of a train company, have your own spaceship and live on an island to be able to afford a frigging train ticket nowadays! Dabz -=-=- Intel Core i5 6400 2.7GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB), 8Gig DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 64bit
Fri, 12 Aug 2016, 14:22
rockford	Car trouble sucks. Car trouble when you need it for a holiday fucking sucks.
Fri, 12 Aug 2016, 14:41
GfK	It started overheating about 50 miles in, on day 1. We'd stopped at Rutland Water and it was bastard hot. So at first we put it down to that, but it carried on intermittently. Eventually got to base camp in Gloucester. Took it to a garage the next morning and they had a look around, couldn't find anything wrong. Thought maybe an airlock in the system that might have now cleared itself. Didn't go very far that day and it seemed OK. Next day we went to Stonehenge, then to visit family in Trowbridge - coolant temp got a bit warm on a couple of occasions but it generally went OK. So the next day we thought we'd stick with plan A and head down to the Dorset/Devon coast. The car had different ideas. We got as far as Stroud and all was not well. Coolant temp gauge was on the top peg so we thought we best find a garage - couldn't find anywhere that'd even look at it that day, until about 3:30pm when we found somebody who said he'd book it in for the next day, thinking the thermostat was up the wall. Next day he changed the thermostat, cost me £80. Didn't get ten fucking miles down the road and it was at it again, so pulled over into a lay-by and checked the expansion tank. Unscrewed the top, and got sprayed with boiling hot coolant. The fucking clown hadn't bled the system right and left a massive airlock in it, causing the coolant to back up into the expansion tank and overflow. I only keep a few basic tools in the car, and the water pump bleed valve needs a massive flat screwdriver for leverage, so I couldn't bleed it there and then. You'd mostly just run the car hot til the thermostat opens, then any airlocks will go round and back out the expansion tank, but on Mondeos you need to bleed the pump as well. At this point I said "bollocks to this, let's call it a day". We weren't supposed to be home til Sunday night but by yesterday I'd had enough of it. Missus drove 160 miles home with me navigating old-skool with a map, so's we could keep to the slower back-roads. Six bloody hours (including a couple of pit-stops). Car is currently with my "trusted" garage locally, and they've yet to figure out what's wrong. They're taking the water pump out for a closer look tomorrow - seems to be the main suspect. Main purpose was going to the Jurassic coast as my daughter is dinosaur/archaeology/history mad. I got her a Nintendo 3DS XL and Lego Jurassic World as compensation. I think we're good.
Fri, 12 Aug 2016, 22:17
Dabz	I got her a Nintendo 3DS XL and Lego Jurassic World as compensation. I think we're good. Will you be my dad too please! hehehe Dabz -=-=- Intel Core i5 6400 2.7GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB), 8Gig DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 64bit
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 01:53
rockford	I'd have been thrilled with the 3DS as compensation too Hopefully you'll get the problem sorted once and for all soon.
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 02:17
steve_ancell	From what I see above it sounds like the water pump itself is fucked.
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 02:26
steve_ancell	A dodgy head gasket can also cause that same problem. Had both head gasket and water pump problems on a few cars but have always been able to avoid garages and do it myself.
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 02:57
rockford	I've had two head gaskets fail. Overheating wasn't the biggest problem - you could see shitloads of smoke coming out the back. Any garage would have been able to identify that within nano-seconds. Looking at the water shows that it's mixing with oil too, turning to brown liquid sludge - another easy tell.
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 03:22
Jayenkai	I've never owned a car, but the "head gasket is blown" thing rings a bell Hope you can get it all sorted. Either that or it buses and trains from now on! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 07:32
GfK	They've already checked the head gasket - no problems there. They have a little gadget that sits on top of the expansion tank - it has blue liquid in it which changes colour if there are exhaust gases present (which there won't be, if the head gasket is OK). Thermostat's been changed, so it's really just down to either water pump, airlock in system (which I doubt), or radiator blockage (which I doubt). I changed the radiator and bled the system myself over two years ago, and everything's been fine up til a few weeks ago. If I'd left air in the system I'd have had problems with it long ago. Process of elimination - water pump. Won't find out til Monday now but I'm expecting the rough end of about £200.
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 09:11
steve_ancell	On one of my cars the vanes inside the pump were so calcified they were almost cake shaped rather than propeller shaped, when in that state there isn't much perpendicular surface left to force the water around the system.
Sat, 13 Aug 2016, 11:18
GfK	Yeah i think that's what they're expecting to find with mine. Car is 11 years old and it looks like the original pump, to me.
Mon, 15 Aug 2016, 07:29
GfK	Turns out the pump is fine. Thermostat is fine. Coolant is fine. Radiator is fine. Everything is fine. Fucker is still overheating tho.
Mon, 15 Aug 2016, 07:38
Jayenkai	That doesn't sound fine!!
Mon, 15 Aug 2016, 08:46
steve_ancell	Did they check the Kenlo switch?, the one that turns the radiator fan on and off.
Mon, 15 Aug 2016, 09:15
GfK	Didn't know it was called that but yeah, the radiator fan is definitely working.
Mon, 15 Aug 2016, 09:27
steve_ancell	That's a typo, it's actually Kenlowe. I always get that word wrong, even though I've known it for years.
Mon, 15 Aug 2016, 13:26
GfK	Just going to run it for a few days/weeks now and see how it goes. If it's still being an awkward bitch I'll change the temperature sensor, and bleed the cooling system. If that doesn't work I'ma push it to the end of the drive and light the bastard on fire.
Tue, 16 Aug 2016, 10:56
GfK	Well, garage said they couldn't get the car to overheat - we got it back this morning, £96 worse off and still not fixed. I ran it on the drive for six minutes at 3000RPM. The coolant boiled (literally, it boiled). Had it hooked up to the laptop and cylinder head temperature was reading 145°C. The cars "safety doohickey" kicked in and limited the RPM, and there was steam pouring from under the bonnet. So how a qualified mechanic/garage can NOT manage to find that, when I can do it with basic equipment and have the car on it's knees screaming for mercy in under ten minutes, is fucking mind-boggling. Enough is enough - we're hunting for new cars. Found a nice Civic Type S that we can just about stretch to, so taking a mechanic mate to give that a going over tomorrow. After that, this fucker is somebody else's problem.
Tue, 16 Aug 2016, 14:06
steve_ancell	Is the car petrol, if so it can cause overheating if it is running lean due to dodgy injectors or fuel starvation via any other cause.
Tue, 16 Aug 2016, 14:09
GfK	Nope, diesel.
Tue, 16 Aug 2016, 14:17
steve_ancell	In the case of any engine, petrol or Diesel, a blockage in the journals that allow the coolant to circulate around the head can be blocked and still allow pump flow to circulate the rest of the engine, this would cause the head to overheat. This has happened to me once before and I discovered it when I took the head off to give it and the valves a de-coking, the journals were full of crud so I used an old brake cable to clean them out. The car was fine afterwards. The car was a 1988 Vauxhall Astra MK2 petrol but the therory would be the same for a modern engine.
Tue, 16 Aug 2016, 14:21
steve_ancell	When I say journals I mean those holes that surround the top of the cylinders, some port coolant and some port oil. The inlet manifold also has coolant journals that can become blocked and cause all manner of problems.
Wed, 17 Aug 2016, 11:35
GfK	Had a test drive of the Civic today. Bit smaller than the Mondy but wanted to downsize a little anyway. Cracked foglight lens, cracked tail light lens, and that's about it. Deposit paid, picking it up Monday. \|edit\| Oh, the tyres were a little worn. Only have about 6-12 months of "meat" left on them. By sheer luck, the tyres are exactly the same size as the Mondeo, and we only put four new Firestones on that a couple of months ago, so we're having all the tyres swapped over.
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