The Student Room Group

missing coolant, K-series

My dad baught the car in october from a friend's worker who works at his garage. Begining of the month i had my gearbox reconditioned. Today i checked the coolant and there was only 1-2 cm left in the tanks. The past week i have been only doing short journeys to school and back, etc. The engine sounds fine, i think, and the dipstick has no "mayo" and the coolant look the same as when i baught it. It is a greenish colour and there is no oily layer on top or any "mayo" on it. When the engine heats up, it goes to the same level, ie half way up so its horizontal. I havent noticed any oil leaks under the car at home, or when i park it at school.

Could this be early signs of headgasket failure? or a leak in the coolant system? Its a Rover 214 SI s-reg.

thanks

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I read this just yesterday on another forum:

The K series engines suffer from head gasket problems, but this can be avoided if the coolant is maintained properly and the engine is allowed to warm up. It's the Freeloaders with lots of short journeys that really suffer and the problem is (as far as I understand) related to put a lot of load onto a cold engine so it then gets hot quickly. The cooling system design doesn't help, some people move the thermostat.


http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=1906444

I think if you just fill it up, it should be OK - doesn't sound like you've found any other symptoms of head gasket failure?
Reply 2
My uncles 25 1.4K needed a new PSA gearbox and of course it suffered from head gasket failure at 60k.

However if the gasket had gone the oil would mayo and there would be a lot of crap coming out of the back.

Is the electric fan working? There is a cheap thermistor which detects the engine temperature if it gets hot the fan kicks in, if this dosn't work the fan won't kick in and it will cause it to drink water or in my dads case overheat.

If it is that I am affraid you're looking at a hefty £30 repair bill including labour :biggrin:
Reply 3
hm....does the fan only come on when the engine is stationary for a while?? after i topped the coolant with water, i left it running for about 15 minutes and didnt notice it turn on....
Reply 4
samie
hm....does the fan only come on when the engine is stationary for a while?? after i topped the coolant with water, i left it running for about 15 minutes and didnt notice it turn on....


It comes on when the engine starts getting hot, try reving the engine a bit and the fan should kick in, I am no expert on K series engines but they are modern designs so I am pretty sure the fan should be electronicaly controlled rather than the crude system of having a fan belt.
Reply 5
ill try that.....i dont trust the person my dad got the car from, becuse i think he baught the in august 05(when i was registered to him) and we baught it in oct 05. my geuss is he baught it and fixed the car up because he drives a civic. there where loads of speaker cables in the boot unwired, the glovebox light is not connecterd to the power supply and there loads of other odd things for a "well maintained car" as he described it. and the damn thing needs new wiper motors. :mad:
Reply 6
AT82
However if the gasket had gone the oil would mayo and there would be a lot of crap coming out of the back.


Not necessarily water in the oil (mayo) is catastrophic failure.

When you start the engine from cold does it misfire until it gets warm,or does it hessitate before it starts?

How much water is it losing over how many miles? If you haven't checked it yet, this would be my first reccomended action.

Also keep an eye on your oil level, what you are looking for is to see if the oil level is rising.

Tighten all the clips on the hoses to double check none are leaking, and have a look round to see if you can see if you can see any leaks particular in the water pump area. Leaks are normally characteristic of the white residue they leave behind when dried out.

The only other thing to mention is as much as the K series is a stonkingly good engine it likes to be looked after, in particular it likes to have its coolant changed at the reccomend intervals. It also has a very small coolant capacity, so if a leak does develop make sure you keep an eye on it.


And last but not least the fan will only come on if you are over 3/4 of the way up the temperature gauge.
Reply 7
What milleage is it? Have you done an HPI check? An HPI check can be quite revealing but it is expensive.

Also have you got a service history and previous MOTs? Study them all you may be surprised what you discover.

I looked at Corsa with my mate once and when I was looking through the previous MOTs I had discovered there was 30,000 miles not acounted for, i.e it was clocked.
Reply 8
My uncle says that about K series too even after his K 1.4 failed he replaced and then bought a 1.6 MG K series brand new when Rover went bump. With my uncles car the engine block cracked so I assume it was caused by incorrect coolant.

Wasn't it somthing to with the use of plastic pegs to secure the head gasket?
Reply 9
um....i just noticed it today. the oil level looks ok, the only starnge thing is the loss of coolant, and recently it dosent start straight away like it used to. its done 64,000 miles

it had a MOT done a week b4 my dad baught it, and havent got any previous copies. we have no service history!! Well, my dad made him sign a contract saying it 12 month warranty.

when i was told about the car and who he wsa gettin it from, i knew he would get conned, as usual...My bro's car was bought 2nd hand from a reputable dealer, had full service history, MOT, etc and runs fine!!! and when he get my car he get a dodgy piece of s**t which falls apart!!
Reply 10
im off 2 school now as i got a lesson. will be back in an hour.....
Reply 11
As a rule never ever buy a car without history, how do you know it has done 60k? You don't and you have no well of finding out.

With second hand cars service history is crucial unless you're confident the engine is fine.

A common trick used is to give a duffer a 12 month MOT to make it sound like there is nothing wrong with the car but reality a car could have many faults and still pass the MOT.

The fact it dosn't start properly and it is loosing coolant dosn't sound too good though.
Reply 12
well, my dad knew the person and "trusted him!!" if he was going to buy it from sum1 he didnt know he would have checked for all that stuff, and i would have.

the moral of the story is "dont trust even people you know" lol
Reply 13
When buying cars assume everybody is a bent crook and all cars are dodgy then just try and find evidence that they are not :biggrin:
Reply 14
samie
um....i just noticed it today. the oil level looks ok, the only starnge thing is the loss of coolant, and recently it dosent start straight away like it used to.


Could be head gasket leak between coolant channel and one of the cylinders. It doesnt always fail between and oil channel and coolant channel so you wont always get the mayo. The fact it doesnt start immediately could be due to the coolant residue fouling up the plugs. If you take them out and compare them any coolant leak should be obvious as a light coloured deposit on one of the plugs. Also if you start it from cold with the coolant tank lid off, if there is a leak between a cylinder and the cooling system it will more than likely give you bubble of exhaust gasses coming into the expansion tank.

Another fairly common fault on the K series is leaky inlet manifold gaskets. The coolant runs through the manifold to help vapourise the fuel, you can just about make out the channels moulded into the manifold. The leak usually shows up as a crystalline deposit on the back of the engine, but is sometimes difficult to see because of the bulkhead being in the way.

Im currently going through a similar thing with my aunties car (2001 rover 25) which is slowly losing coolant but has no external leaks/mayo. Top it up and monitor the level to see how much it drops. Watch the temps too and check it isnt overheating etc. Good luck!
Reply 15
You know there could be bugger all wrong with this engine and you just need to fill the coolant up?!

Fill the coolant up, run the car for a week and see if the coolant has gone down at all then come back is my advice. No point worrying about HG problems yet, it doesn't sound like that at all, tbh i would say it just sounds either like normal evaporation or a leak in a pipe somewhere.

Graham
Reply 16
it lost some coolant over night i think.....i filled it to max yesterday and now it is at miniumum. i dunno, i will park it flat over night and put sum cardboard under to see if it leaks. the engine does not over heat.

if a head gasket goes, is performance affected, etc? out of intrest. the only odd thing is the loss of coolant. the car started fine this morning, and just now.
Reply 17
There could be a leaking hose then, you should hardly ever need to top of the water, perhaps once or a month or somthing depending on your milleage.

Is there any water on the floor? If it is leaking you need to know where the leak is because it if leaks onto the ECU or any other crucual elctrical components you may have a problem.

If it is under warranty though surely you can just take it back?
Yeah I would guess leaky hose or radiator - try and find out if you're losing water to ground. My last car had a damaged radiator - had to keep topping it up (several litres at a time mind) but it only overheated once to such an extent that the light came on. New radiator and water pump fixed it and it was perfect after that - not a Rover though. :biggrin:
Reply 19
samie

if a head gasket goes, is performance affected, etc? out of intrest. the only odd thing is the loss of coolant. the car started fine this morning, and just now.


If you see oil mixing with water and it starts to overheat DO NOT DRIVE THE CAR ANY FURTHER, as you will risk doing irrepairable damage to the engine.

A trick for overheating too for cooling a car down quicker is to put the interior fan on red hot full blast.

If it is leaking water over night it is a) leaking down the cylinders or b) got a leaky hose.

Have you checked the hoses like I said yet? Or if it is leaking that much overnight can you see a wet patch on the floor?