[440sixpack]

Yes, sad but true. I was watching the temp gauge a lot because it always seemed to run hot to me (without over heating). Finally last Friday it went into the red twice and immediately back down. So I didn’t drive it all weekend and took it in first thing Monday. After a few hours of looking at it they told me I had a bad head gasket. Luckily, the mechanic is 99% sure that this was caused during assembly, and not due to any other issues. So, let’s hope this isn’t going to be a common issue.

 

[RUgoinUp]

Either way it's bad news :roll: that's also gonna spread like wildfire!

 

[440sixpack]

Yeah, I was rather pissed about it. But, what can you do.

 

[Acidryno]

How many miles on it did you notice the problem and right now?

-James

 

[440sixpack]

Well, when I first got it, it overheated when I left the dealer. The dealership looked and thought it was a airbubble in the cooling system, so they added more fluid and all appeared to be fine. I still thought it was running hotter than it should, so they replaced the thermostat. It went into the red around 1000 miles, and I took it in right away.

 

[daytonagts]

That is what we have a warrenty for to fix any small problems that might come up. Nobody is perfect.

 

[ebbtide]

You can engineer greatness, but you can't do much about the guy putting it togther. That's why every manufacture, no matter their quality ratings, has a warrenty. The operator was probably on their cell phone

 

[cali]

WOW!
Sorry to hear bro...I been watching mine all day yesterday.
I drove bumper to bumper for about 60 miles in about 85 degrees....I got up to 220 once, but that was with full ac.

Once moving it sticks at 200deg....hope u get it fixed

 

[440sixpack]

i gave it a good work out today, and it appears fine. Didn't go over 200 but once, and this was thru some very hilly roads. Only thing I notice when I shut it off was some very faint gurgling that lasted around 5 seconds, but nothing like it did before when it was warm. I'm going to take it in next week just to make sure everything looks good to them.

 

[drizze99]

I'm glad it's true read heat gauge and not what is put into 99.5% of cars!

 

[440sixpack]

The burping noise happened after driving it home after buying it, before the thermostat was replaced. The dealership that found the headgasket problem was a different one, so if he could have blamed he other dealer I'm sure he would have. I'm not fond of dealerships either, but I think this one was bad from the get go.

 

[440sixpack]

it overheated the first time I left the dealership, 5 mins after I bought it. Is the dealer incharge of filling the coolant sytem when they PID it, or does it arrive filled from the factory? If it comes from the factory like that, they would have had to reason to touch it.

 

[440sixpack]

Slightly revised…

1) drove car off lot and overheated (no burping noise at that time)
2) dealer claims they burped the system, and filled the coolant backup. I didn't hear the burping noise till I drove 150 miles home.
3) car STILL ran hot (but didn't overheat)
4) brought to dealer = T-stat change
5) car STILL ran hot, finally over heated
6) brought to dealer and they said yer headgasket is bad

They claimed they burped it the first time, but obviously I have no way of verifying that. But the 2nd dealership's tech thought it looked like it happened during assembly, and would have no reason to cover for the other dealer. I gave them a complete history of events and he still thought it was an assembly issue. Either way, this is all a big pain in the ass.

 

[benzcl500]

seems like a PITA!! you have to drive 150 miles to get to the dealer

 

[Mike B.]

No, what I'm saying is after the first time you brought it to the dealer, it should have been A-OK... but the cooling system on the 2.4L is hard to get all the air out - i.e. burp the air out... if the dealer broke into the cooling system to change the thermostat, then he needed to properly burp the cooling system which the obviously did not...

Actually, this 2.4 has a nifty little bleed valve on the water box just for bleeding air out of the system. It looks just like a brake bleeder valve.