Anyone able to offer Advice please?

[RobF1988]

Car - Ford Kuga 65 plate.

A few months ago the acceleration would cut out and engine heat would spike. There would be no coolant left. Id top it up to the full and a few days later It would be empty again. It ended up being a leak in the coolant system and needed that replaced for around £300.

Started getting the same problem again a couple of weeks ago. Booked it straight in and found coolant was leaking again..this time it's from the EGR system? (I'm not great with cars...!) But also I'm being told the head gasket has gone from blue to green/yellow and is well on its way because it's been getting run hot.

It's going to be £750 to do EGR Valve or £2,500 for that and head gasket to be done. Car is only worth around 4k with 150k milage. My question to experience people is I appreciate it's unlikely worth getting the head gasket done and the garage have also suggested that but they said it's a toss up on the EGR system. As once the head gasket has started to go, it's going to go. So I'm trying to weigh up if it's worth the £750 to effectively get it back on the road or am I just going to find the car screwed in a few months time anyway?

Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated

[Truckosaurus]

At that mileage I'd be half tempted to just top up the coolant and trade it in.

Even if you spend the £2500 then there's not much life left in it, and it will be worth even less in another year to 2 with closer to 200k on it.

[stevieturbo]

RobF1988 said:

Car - Ford Kuga 65 plate.

A few months ago the acceleration would cut out and engine heat would spike. There would be no coolant left. Id top it up to the full and a few days later It would be empty again. It ended up being a leak in the coolant system and needed that replaced for around £300.

Started getting the same problem again a couple of weeks ago. Booked it straight in and found coolant was leaking again..this time it's from the EGR system? (I'm not great with cars...!) But also I'm being told the head gasket has gone from blue to green/yellow and is well on its way because it's been getting run hot.

It's going to be £750 to do EGR Valve or £2,500 for that and head gasket to be done. Car is only worth around 4k with 150k milage. My question to experience people is I appreciate it's unlikely worth getting the head gasket done and the garage have also suggested that but they said it's a toss up on the EGR system. As once the head gasket has started to go, it's going to go. So I'm trying to weigh up if it's worth the £750 to effectively get it back on the road or am I just going to find the car screwed in a few months time anyway?

Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated

If the EGR is leaking, it can also leak combustion gasses into the coolant which would show on a colour test on the cooling system. So the head gasket diagnosis could well be false, either accidentally, or deliberately.

Confirm 100% where the leak is, rectify that and then move forward.

Some better testing needs to be done really to isolate exactly which problems exist

[GreenV8S]

RobF1988 said:

I'm being told the head gasket has gone from blue to green/yellow

I guess you're referring to a sniff test. That won't be conclusive if you already have an EGR leak into the cooling system.

[E-bmw]

As both Stevie & GV8 have said fix the fault & move on.

IMHO cylinder head gaskets don't "start to go" they go or they are good.