04 Zafira diesel, cooling disaster (??) on M5 - engine not dead!!!

[sgould]

OK, It should be like this one. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vauxhall-Astra-Zafira-Vectra-2-0-DTI-Y20DTH-1998-05-Oil-Cooler-Filter-Housing-/151081444331




That also looks to be past its best.  But it looks as if it has oil and water connections.  It could well be your culprit.

[Steve McF]

Garage have had a look, they think oil cooler is OK, and that it is the head gasket after all.

Given the cost of getting that done, possible skimming of the head, flushing through the entire cooling system, replacing hoses, and possibly having to replace radiators etc, as well as steam clean everything else, if fear this baby will be going onto Ebay as spares or repair Already spent around £400 on it in the last 6 weeks or so, had it MOT'ed, aircon regassed, new front discs and pads, and 6 months tax , probably better to cut losses now and get something else

[sgould]

If everything else is sound.  You need to do the sums before jumping into another vehicle.  It may be cheaper to replace all the bits.  At least then you will know what's new and what isn't.

Unless you get a newer car with a warranty, you are buying a lot of risks.

Having said that.  My son and daughter-in-law have a Hyundai and that has a 5 year warranty.  They considered a Kia with a 7 year warranty, but the dealer was not as good, or something!  If you are looking to reduce the risk of sudden expense, and buying a used car, something like that would be better at a year or so old with a lot of warranty, than another Vauxhall which will have used up most of its warranty.

Good Luck!!

[Audax]

Surely it's less than £1000 to fix and you won't replace it with something that has had as much work on it recently for £1000 and the loss by selling on ebay as spares or repair will be more than £1000. I'd get it fixed unless you were already planning to get rid (which if you were why did you sort the brakes and aircon!).

[Steve McF]

Audax,

i know what you're saying - we got the aircon/brakes/MOT/tax sorted because we had a couple of big trips coming up, including a holiday driving in ireland. And I wasn't planning on getting rid of it that soon

I am mulling over exactly what to do.....we were thinking of getting something else in the next year anyhow

[sgould]

If you are changing cars, you still need to work out how much you would get for a repaired car against a broken one, and see if a repair is worthwhile.  I suspect it will be a case of whether the PX garage can repair the car itself and make a bit on it.  If it goes to a place that will chuckm it to the trade, I suspect you will get a lot less.

Second case is more likely if you are buying form a franchised dealer.  If you go off franchise, the risks of buying are higher, perhaps.  A guy who gives you a good price so tha he can repair yours, might have already repaired the one he sells you......

[Steve McF]

Still mulling over exactly what to do - don't think I'm going to have time to get it fixed before our hol, so need to get another car quickly, and sort this one out when we get back

Did a valuation on the car with the mileage adjusted to 64,000 (which is all it has, most others this age have double that), and got these figures:
Franchised dealer £2680
Independent dealer £2510
Private good condition £2210
Private poor condition £1720
Part ex value £1870

These are better figures than I thought.

What I want is for someone to look at the car and investigate exactly whether it is head gasket or oil cooler - but trying to sort that in the short time we have before hols is a bit difficult. If it is oil cooler, I'd get it sorted immediately, cooling system flushed through, and hoses replaced as necessary.

[Steve McF]

Just called the VX dealer to get a "worst case" idea on cost. He said it was 100% head gasket, and to do that and replace any associated cooling system parts, £1800 :eek:

Local garage don't even want to look at the car to try and diagnose

[sgould]

So your car is effectively worth the prices in the list less the cost of repair...

Ouch!

Are ther any Vauxhall independents, like Saab one around.  Surely there must be.

Or try a Saab Indy.  Same engine as a 9-3 & 9-5

[sgould]

Try this

http://the-saab-specialist-register.com/

[Steve McF]

A guy over on the Vauxhall Owners Network just posted this:

"   

    just picked up this thread would say oil cooler as its same symptoms as oil cooler its not o rings its the cooler that gone leaking from oiil to water side

    this is a old known fault with saab vauxhall 2.0 and 2,2dti engines

    get a new cooler and fit it with new filters and flush coolant a couple of times

    cheapest in uk here

    http://www.vauxhall-car-parts.co.uk/acatalog/VAUXHALL-OIL-COOLER---9117318.html

"

[Audax]

That makes more sense to me than head gasket. I'd get an oil cooler and try it, even a grotty secondhand one might work out. Then you can work out if it's a cheap repair or more expensive (head gasket), if the latter then you'd be better off finding someone to do it for you for less money than the dealer wants (I still reckon less than £1000 for that).

[Steve McF]

Well I can't do too much with the car over the next couple of weeks, but I made a start at trying to clean up some of the oil from the engine compartment today using degreaser - got a fair bit off, but I need to remove air filter box and battery to be able to clean lower down the engine. That'll have to wait.

But inspection of the oil revealed that there is still oil in the sump and it is still black with no evidence of water. There is no mayo under the oil cap, or in the engine from what i can see through the oil filler. However, the expansion tank is coated in what looks like thick grey oily mixture.

Does this suggest there is oil in the cooling system, but no coolant in the oil?

And does this give us any clearer indication as to what i should get changed? oil cooler vs head gasket??

Was in a Nissan dealer today and he looked up our Zafira on Glasses Guide, reckons it would be worth around £1300 - £1400 as a part ex (in running condition)

[Audax]

Was in a Nissan dealer today and he looked up our Zafira on Glasses Guide, reckons it would be worth around £1300 - £1400 as a part ex (in running condition)

Trade-in prices are always dependant on what the car you are buying is valued at and how much margin there is in it. When I sold Saab's from a specialists forecourt we would always overprice our cars so that they looked uncompetitive but it was more to do with us selling most of our cars to existing customers who really overvalued what their ancient 150k Saab 9000's were worth and would want £1000 trade-in against them. If you had a car that was actually worth £1000 as a trade in then the forecourt price of the cars we were selling could be discounted heavily or you'd get a full service for free and a longer warranty or something else to really sweeten the deal.

[sgould]

I don't know the position of the bits in your engine, so some post-calamity evidence may be due to gravity rather than pressure,  but what you have found - oil in water, no water in oil - would support the oil cooler failure.  Oil is at high pressure, probably around 60 lb/sq in.  The water at normal operating temperature would be at around 15 lb/sq in.  So if the oil/water interface is breached, oil would go into the water at least to start with.  It would also cause the water system to over-pressure massively and suddenly.  So you would have a sudden rush of oil into the cooling system.  This would overwhelm the ability of the pressure cap on the coolant reservoir to release the pressure, and so the hoses would be the next weakest thing to fail to release the pressure.

I think that the logic described above holds.  Bearing in mind that I not know the engine.

Once the pressure in the coolant system has been released by the hose blowing off, the question of water getting into the oil would only depend on how much water is left, and whether that amount of water has settled at a point higher than the hole in the oil cooler.

I think my first attempt at diagnosis in this case would be to remove the oil cooler and either pour some thin oil into the oil pipes ans see if it comes out of the water pipes, or vice-versa, pour water into the water pipe and see if it comes out of the oil side.  If it doesn't, I would try again with some sort of pressure test.  Air would be good for that.  Some inner tubing over the water pipes to the oil cooler and see if air comes from the oil side. 

I would, at least initially, discount the head gasket.  Even if they fail the hole is usually quite small and the excess pressure in the water would normally be released through the reservoir cap, the water would be released, there would be a hot smell around for a while before failure and the engine would be running unevenly.  I don't think even a sudden head gasket failure would give the sudden catastrophic symptoms you describe.  But if a quick oil cooler check doesn't immediately show a failure there, a head removal would tell you for sure. 

You might even be able to check the oil cooler in-situ.  From the picture it looks as if there are a pair of hoses on the water side, in and out, presumably.  Do the other ends got anywhere accessible?  If so, squeeze off (or disconnect and block) one of them, and pressure the other.  If it doesn't hold pressure, the cooler has failed.  If the breach is big, you may be able to do this by just blowing down the hose.

Good luck.