Why does a head gasket go bad

If you catch it early enough, a faulty head gasket can be repaired without a full replacement, which will not only save you time and money, but could also mean the difference between you not having to buy a new car. At the first sign of any problems, always get your car checked over by a professional mechanic who will be able to diagnose the issue and come up with a good solution.

The actual head gasket itself is quite affordable. Where costs really start to add up is in the labour. Because the head gasket is seated at the centre of your engine, the work needed to disassemble and reassemble the engine alone can take up to and over 10 hours — so you can see why a head gasket replacement would be so pricey. In some cases, you might be able to repair a head gasket. Our sister brand, Holts, produces a professional cooling system leak repair called Wondarweld , which is designed to seal cracks in the head gasket, cylinder heads and engine blocks, for a permanent repair.

These are very important areas to keep sealed and apart from each other as the combination of unwanted coolant entering a cylinder or the oil supply is a recipe for disaster.

A head gasket therefore is generally designed to never fail or need replacing, with the long bolts of the engine block squeezing it in place to a desired tolerance. Depending on where the head gasket fails, different levels of damage can occur. If, as I experienced, your head gasket goes at a point that once separated cylinder and coolant, you can end up with a quickly overheating engine followed by steam pouring out of the exhaust and eventually a loud bang as your engine gives up the ghost.

Temperature gauges will also sit slightly higher than standard as liquid is lost from the cooling system. Although the gasket itself is inexpensive, the labour involved in dismantling the engine to replace it can be vast. Skimming is the milling of the cylinder head on a milling machine to take a very thin layer of material off the top of the head to ensure complete flatness; any small gaps will only ever lead to future failures.

One cause of head gasket failure is pre-ignition. These spikes in pressure can put strain across the head gasket, causing it to fail. Yes, based on your symptoms it is likely that your Cobalt has a blown head gasket. The A A inspected it. Told me so!

Any advice. I have a dodge neon srt I have a high pitched whirling sound, white smoke that smells like burning rubber from the exhaust but no overheating no leakage anywhere no bubbles under the radiator cap when the engine is running nor is there any water in my oil or milky substance in the oil.. Please help me out. Thanks for your question about your Dodge Neon!

The problem sounds more like you have a bad turbo. When a turbo goes bad, it often makes a high pitching whining sound or a whirring or whistling sound. Also, as the bearings in the turbo wear out, they can also start to wear out the seals which will allow some oil and coolant that is running through the turbo into your exhaust pipe.

We recommend taking your Neon to a shop to help you decide if you need a new or rebuilt turbo. Would a bad turbo also cause having oil in the coolant reservoir? Does your Head Gasket Sealer help to solve this problem? Typically, a bad turbo would not cause oil to get into the coolant reservoir. That would usually be associated with a head gasket or intake manifold leak.

Unfortunately, we do not manufacture a product for that type of a leak. A hard part repair may be your best option. I was driving my 03 silverado from florida to north carloina when it started over heating and blowing white smoke I had it towed from NC to Fl and the mechanic said its not a blown head gasket it is the water pump. And while they were there they replace all hoses to the collant and oil. I brought it back and now they say theres a blown head gasket that happened after we picked it up… I dont believe i have this bad of luck..

It is very possible that the head gasket was already leaking prior to the water pump being replaced. If the water pump has been replaced and you are still losing coolant then there is a great likelihood that the head gasket is blown. If you are trying to avoid the costly repair could try using the BlueDevil Head Gasket Sealer to help seal the head gasket from leaking.

He told me that the motor was good and everything. Can driving it too fast can cause the headgasket to blow up? I just bought this car a few weeks earlier and there is nothing noticeably wrong with the car. No under performance, over-heating, tailpipe smoke, coolant or oil loss. My questions: Is a 20ppm reading confirmation to do a major engine job?

A cooling system with no leaks will have a reading of 0 ppm. The fact that you are getting a reading of 20 ppm does indicate that the head gasket is blown. However, it is impossible to predict how quickly the problem will become worse and how long the vehicle will be in good enough shape so that it can be driven safely. BlueDevil Oil Stop Leak would not help with the issue you are experiencing. To give yourself the best overall chance of BlueDevil working successfully, in addition to the directions, you should remove the spark plug from the cylinder with the leak; this will be the spark plug from the cylinder with the low compression reading.

Leave that plug out for the 50 minute idle in order to relieve the pressure from building up and thus allowing the product to seal properly. Thanks for the reply. Is the 20ppm test value a early sign of HC failure and if that value goes up to over ppm I have a real problem to deal with? Normally, they would need to have the Block Dye Test hooked up for longer than 5 minutes to get an accurate reading; the combustion gases will not show up until the thermostat opens which will almost always take more than 5 minutes.

You may want to have the test done again and have the tester left on for 15 — 20 minutes so that you may get an accurate reading; you can also rev the engine slightly so that the engine temperature rises a little quicker.

The BlueDevil Oil Stop Leak is designed to sop oil loss from around any rubber seal or gasket such as an oil pan gasket, rear main seal, valve cover gaskets, etc. So, the instructions for the Block Tester are incorrect, because they say to have the test done for at least 2 minutes. I did the test for about 5 minutes right after I drove home from work. I connected the bleed off hose to the tester.

The connections were sealed by use of a tapered adater so I was sucking radiator vapors into the tester. I can repeat this test for 15 minutes. What if it still does not change color? The vehicle should have already been running and engine warmed up when you start to use the tester.

I would allow your vehicle to idle for 15 — 20 minutes and then start the test after the engine has a chance to warm up to ensure the thermostat is open. If the dye does not change colors at any point during the test then that simply tells you that you do not have combustion gases present within the cooling system. However, in the early stages of a blown head gasket you will not always have the obvious tell-tale signs.

If the engine was misfiring on a certain cylinder or two would that be a good indicator or what spark plug or plugs to pull? Yes, that would be a pretty good indication. The vehicle would only be able to idle with one spark plug removed.

If you have more than one cylinder that is getting the leak, or if its hard to tell which cylinder it is based on the spark plugs, you may want to have a compression test performed. Then, whatever cylinder is reading with the lowest pressure, that would be the plug you would want to pull. Okay, did the test for the third time, the test was always done after the car had been run for 30 minutes or more.

This time I tested for 15 minutes and had someone rev the engine about 20 times over this test period. No color change at all! My wife did not understand the test so I placed the tester near the cars exhaust pipe and watch the color change in 5 seconds, which help convince her the shop had B. As stated earlier, this car has no symptoms of HC failure. We got going down this path based on a 20ppm reading from a shop that does not keep records of test results.

At this point I will simply do what I do with all my 4 cars. Do maintenance and keep an eye on fluid levels. Thanks for your time. I have a Lincoln Navigator that overheated on a freeway. It went to Hot and the Engine Temp emergency lights went on. When the car cooled down I checked and the radiator fluid was nearly empty.

I added water as an emergency and was able to drive home without further overheating. I had a radiator fluid flush and the fluid that came out looked orange like carrot juice. The guy at the shop said it looked clear now. I had the car inspected by 2 different shops and they could not find the culprit, they said there were no leaks they could find, just low fluid.

They did yet another flush and topped off my radiator fluid. I take it back and they say, well, maybe your thermostat is bad, so they change that. Will the head gasket sealer work? Thank you for any help you can give. Thanks for your question about your Navigator. Often times mysteriously disappearing coolant is a sign of a blown head gasket that is still just a very small hole. We would recommend using BlueDevil Head Gasket Sealer after you replace your water pump as it will not harm or damage your new water pump, but it is very important that BlueDevil Head Gasket Sealer be circulated throughout your engine and a good working water pump will help with that.

Thanks for your question and if you have any more please leave us another comment on the article listed above. He finally got a new car in the beginning of december and instead of taking the honda to the junkyard I had him sell it to me. I got it through that month with just an oil change and a radiator flush with the only issue being the overheating while idling thing no white smoke and no milky oil but there was still oil leaking into the coolant.

Since then it got to where it was overheating much more quickly and frequently at which point I got the pour and go head gasket sealer I had also used a different brand of head gasket sealer a month or to prior which held me over till that point. There were a couple days where my coolant suddenly disappeared between filling it at my house and arriving at my job about 22 miles mixed highway and city driving but even that stopped happening after maybe a week and it was doing great.

I used the blue devil stuff on April 9th , and maybe two weeks ago it started having a new issue, where when it started the rpms would be VERY low, and this was intermittent, during both warm and cold starts seemingly randomly although pretty much every time I got gas. If that makes sense? My question is, is it just too far gone at this point?

Unfortunately, it sounds like the only way to get your vehicle back to running the way it should is expensive repair. We were happy to hear that the BlueDevil did improve your situation even if it was for a short time. It may just be an instance where all of the symptoms have become too severe for BlueDevil to work to its full potential. You will have to weigh out what the value of the Honda is to you and whether or not it would be worth having the expensive repairs done or searching for a new vehicle.

However, if an engine is overheated due to low coolant or another factor, the extreme heat can cause various issues with the engine. I have a blown head gasket on my Jeep Grand Cherokee it is in the process of getting fixed. I had replaced the water pump prior to the blown head gasket about 5 months ago.

Do I need to now replace the water pump again did the blown head gasket ruin the new water pump? It is not likely that just a blown head gasket would cause a new water pump to leak. However, if you were running just plain water in the system, rather than antifreeze, it can sometimes cause a water pump to leak due to water not having the same lubricating properties as antifreeze.

You may still be able to have the part warrantied since it has only been installed for about 5 months. We recommend checking with the shop that installed it or the manufacturer of the part if you installed it yourself. Will i need to do a follow up in a few months or miles?

Is it guaranteed in any way? Once the product seals, it would be a permanent seal. Also, there is a money-back guarantee on the product. If for whatever reason the product is unable to help seal your leak, you are able to contact us and be refunded for your purchase.

Hi my son got a 95 blazer as a gift, something to tinker with, knowing it needed work. Discovered it needed a Head gasket, as had a miss and lots of white smoke in exhaust. Got some yellow label blue devil, but it sat on shelf for a couple months while he fixed other stuff on it till we finally got around to trying the blue devil today.

Smoke from exhaust seemed to stop about the 30 minute mark, but by 50 minutes was back. Question is, reading previous replies here, we should maybe have pulled the spark plug with the miss? Would that have made it work better? It often will take a day or two before all of the moisture clears from the exhaust system. Hopefully by now all of the symptoms have alleviated and the vehicle is able to be driven normally. I have a Subaru Outback which seems to have a blown head gasket.

The car runs fine, no white smoke from the tail pipe, no oil coolant mix in radiator or engine, no misfire. However the radiator overflow bottle keep fill up and I have to add coolant to the radiator ever morning. I also get P and P codes returning every two weeks cylinder 3 and 4 misfiring.

If you suspect a head gasket failure, the scientific test is to check for combustion gasses in the cooling system. This test will show if the compression has leaked into the cooling system, and therefore if the head gasket has blown. The old mechanic's trick is to take off the radiator cap, start the car, and look for bubbles in the coolant. However, these will not show if there are any other failure spots in with the head gasket, so the absence of gasses in the cooling system does not guarantee a healthy head gasket.

Some older head gaskets can just fail because they are of a poor design, and are not robust enough for the application. This used to be more of an issue with older style, metal gaskets, which could only last for so many years of going from cold to hot with every startup before an inevitable failure. Thankfully modern MLS multiple layer steel replacement gaskets are now available for most applications, and offer improved reliability over the original gasket design.

Go to front page. Search results Search Haynes. Year Year Make Make. Model Model. Once a head gasket has failed it can cause all manner of problems, including: 1 Overheating A head gasket failure may be caused by an engine overheating one too many times as a result of a clogged radiator, coolant leak, faulty fan, etc.

Preventing Head Gasket Failures A few dollars of prevention is much better than the several thousand dollar cure when it comes to head gaskets.