1992 VW Jetta GL
1.8L SOHC
3 speed automatic
136k miles

My girlfriend's car has been having a string of bad luck.
A few months ago we took it in for a coolant leak, only to find
the radiator is plugged. See previous string of bad water pumps and cracked thermostat sensor housings.
Found out the temp sensor wasn't detecting the engine over heating (nor the gauge) and no water
was flowing to the radiator. Bad. They replaced a lot of cooling system parts,
new timing belt, oil change, new PVC valve & hose, new valve cover gasket (top end cleaned up), tune up. Ran like a top.
They mentioned the valves needed adjustment, but this type needed shims and was beyond
their capacity to tune.

The temp gauge on this car almost never goes above 0, which is weird. Recently it sat in the exhaust repair shop running for about 30min
and when I drove it away it was quite hot (1/4 temp gauge) but cooled down quickly.

Car developed a miss at stop to acceleration after about a month.
A little fuel system cleaner and that went away.

Now it has a rough idle but runs at higher rpms quite fine.
Has a random 'cough' that shakes the car at idle. And when she pulled in today,
squeaking at idle (belts are new).

Yesterday I put new wipers on, then decided to check the oil.

Noticed a bit of coolant on the block below cyls 3 & 4. But not coming from the hoses
or hot water out plumbing. Coolant fill bottle reading about 2" low.

Uh oh, LOW oil. Removed the oil filler cap.

WHITE GOO.

appears to be a mixture of oil and coolant (can see green liquids). Like green mayonase.
No wonder the valves are sounding bad.

Drained the (low) oil pan, looked good, no water, no white goo.
Just a tiny bit of white goo on the oil dip stick.

My guess is it's a blown head gasket. A compression test should show which cylinder is bad.
I ran the test a few times on each.

#1 190 200 205 ( belt side )
#2 180 185 195
#3 195 200
#4 190 190 (transaxle side)

Wow no real good indication of a bad cylinder. Chiltons said 189 was the compression spec for this engine. But I haven't found
any other good list of compression specs for this motor, so maybe they're wrong? So....why am I reading higher?
Previous mechanic mentioned carbon buildup. Would that cause high compression?

Does this indicate it's not the head gasket but a cracked water jacket - perhaps a cracked block - from the overheating
earlier?

Is it worth pulling the heads or should I take this car to the scrapper?
She's convinced a new/used car will stop the $500/every 2 months repair bills that have been happening.
How much is a new engine?
How much is a head job?

I'll be calling mechanics tomorrow but wanted some advice before I get fleeced.

The car gets 21-23mpg and is around town only (commuter).

Thanks for any advice,
-Zetan

 

It sounds like a cracked head which would not be worth the cost of a rebuild considering it's a 92.

 

a little white goo is normal condensation happens on all motors
but the green is antifreeze you might want to get a shop to do a hc check on the head gasket