Hi guys,
I need some info on my passat 2.0L SE 130bhp petrol manual 52 reg(UK).
Got the message STOP coolant service manual and the oil MIL was flashing whilst I was driving home. First thing I checked was the coolant tank, found to my horror that there was brown muck in there, level was low,instead of the nice pink fluid. I immediately figured that the head gasket had gone. It wasn't until I came on here and checked some postings about oil coolers that I was all set to buy the head gasket kit, including bolts, exhaust and inlet manifold gaskets and all the rest.
Question is: should I go ahead and install the gasket kit or is there some way of determining if the oil cooler is at fault, if it is the latter then it would save a lot of time and money to fix, both of which I can ill afford!

I would greatly appreciate any advice you guys have cus I love my car and hate it when its broke!

Cheers!

 

Hi swedish,
i,ve 90K on the clock, question is the oil cooler allowing the oil to enter the water system (maybe a broken oil cooler) or is the head gasket gone? Do you know how to check the oil cooler to see if its broke without hours of dismantling?

Thanks

 

i have replaced tons of oil coolers forthis problem
you need to flush the coolant out a few times to get it all out

 

the stock oil cooler is on the oil fiter housing and is cooled by antifreeze running through it
it is a very poor setup

 

Thanks for the info Swedish,
I tried to get the head off today, found the head bolts are in deep, narrowrecesses and tried to obtain a tool to remove them from halfords and the local engineering store-to no avail. Put it back together and flushed as much muck out of the coolant as possible and used a coolant flush liquid too. Ran car to normal operating temp, revved it some noticed water trickling out of exhaust, so we have coolant in the combustion chambers and oil in the coolant, im off work just getting over the flu, dont feel like crouching over the car for hours on end, dont have £500 to give the vw dealership to fix my car instead of me-im fed up, to put it lightly!!
The oil cooler/oil filter are situated where it is very difficult to reach, let alone remove with tools so I cant just take them off to inspect without removing the whole of the inlet manifold and bits surrounding it which would probably take 5-6 hours.
Anyway, if I have 2 more days off work on the sick to try and fix it Ive still gotta source the torx 55 (long) bit which by the way is
about 0.5mm to big to fit the head bolts (I have some new bolts and a short torx 55 bitthat I compared, torx 50 is miles too sloppy), is there a torx bit inbetween 55 and 50 ?

Anyway, enough ravings - cheers!

 

its not a torx its a bit diffrent i have heard it called a flextorx i had to get one from a tool truck (snapon) try finding one that way

 

Hi all

well I finally gave up and asked my local garage mechanic to sort it out for £230, I supply the parts £200, he said that they always send the head away for pressure testing and skimming if necessary, taking it tomorrow, get it back thursday. I,m fed up though 'cus I always try to do jobs on the car myself and take great pride in doing the job right and not worrying about what if the mechanic didn't do a good job, etc. I expect there may be a few of us on this site who think the same. Anyhow, I just hope my feelings are unfounded. Remember the vw stealership wanted £500, plus parts!

I will let you all know how it turned out, many thanks to all who contributed to this thread - you guys are great!

Cheers

 

Hi all, head gasket update. Got my car back one week later (after pestering them), took it to work (35 miles) and on the way home-disaster, the message on the dash said: STOP check coolant, temp mil flashing red.I thought oh no not again (actual words were a lot stronger, cussng the garage etc). Anyhow got the car home, watching the temp gauge all the way. Let it cool a bit and checked the coolant tank-empty. So I filled it up and checked it 2 hours later-still full. So, ok I'll drive it to work the next day, probably air lock or just settling. Next day drove to the end of the road and STOP check coolant came up again, so I'll watch the temp gauge and go to work, what the hell I,m up now! Phoned the garage from work and told them I,m bringing it back, leaving work early, upset an all! They checked it out, found the water pump was leaking, whydidn't they notice that before? Amatuers, said it wasn't their fault even though I said it was, me fuming, never gonna let anybody else fix my car again. Took the poor sick car home, phoned VW for a spare water pump, £35, picked it up today (thurs), gonna fit it myself on saturday-easy, gonna nurse my ride better myself this weekend, moral of this story- if you want the job done right - FIX IT YOURSELF and save money!!

Nuff said!!