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running cold - head gasket ??


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so today i took my vr6 into the garage to get a diagnostic as my fuel economy was terrible. I got a call later and he said that the thermostat had been removed probably by the previous owner, and that the fuel economy was bad as the engine never warms up the choke is effectively on all the time. (or something along those lines). He then said that the cause was the head gasket.

on long journeys the temperature does drop down, but in traffic the temp guage goes up to about 90 and doesn't overheat quickly, the fan kicks in every now and then. i dont have any smoke, the oil seems normal, water is a little orange but not milky. I have no loss of power, although recently it has misfired but under inspectioni found that it was tracking on one of the leads. I'm a novice but all the usual symptoms of a head gasket failure like over heating etc. dont seem to be the case. Been quoted £450 so it aint cheap, is it the head gasket help!?!?!

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doesn't sound like the HG to me.

if you remove "head gasket had gone, as the" from your opening paragraph it makes just as much sense.

G12 antifreeze is pink so can easily give an orangey apperance once a little old.

my suggestion would be to simply replace the thermostat and go from there.

90 isn't overheating it's a good operating temp.

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I didn't mean it like that. I thought the garage was blameing the poor fuel comsumption on the head gasket.

You say both the oil and water seem fine. Are you loosing/using much of either?

Is the garage 'just local', a vw specialist or VW themselves?

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yup the thermostat (or lack of) always makes the engine run cooler. It also means everything takes longer to heat up and so yes a car is not operating efficiently if it is not in the correct temperature zone. Bad economy is usally fdown to crap plugs and Lambda failing or even dirty throttle body/MAF... Assuming you are not a full throttle everywhere in which case the economy is probably not bad... :P

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Im confused, that sounds like absolute bs to me. Have you put in a thermostat yet?

The engine is mapped so that on cold temperatures it runs a lot richer which is why your fuel mileage would be so bad.

Put a thermostat in the engine will always stay at the correct temperature and problem solved.

What has head gasket got to do with anything? Sounds like he is trying to rip you off to me.

I also have bad fuel mileage at the moment as my thermostat has gone. My engine only ever will get to temperature if i stay in slow traffic for about half an hour. Going to order a new thermostat today and replace it in next few days.

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If you go into VW and ask to buy just a thermostat they tend to sell you the whole housing aswell, but don't supply the o-rings for the sensors. When I replaced my thermostat I am not sure how I ever managed to retain coolant as the cracks in the housing were terrible. I would replace the housing aswell personally.

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Just to update i managed to find one in stock cost me £9.50 including the o ring and re used the gasket to engine block.

There is 87 deg , 80 deg and you can get a low 70 deg one depending if you want your engine to run cooler.

Engine goes up and stays at right temperature now.

I was lucky that my housing had no cracks in it at all.

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