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[STEMO]

Hoping to hear more tomorrow, but the following words have been used in no particular order...

Grand
New
Nine
Engine

Cars not worth much more than that, surely?

[Doctor Gollum]

52k miles on it. So that's a pretty appalling level of failure.

[Doctor Gollum]

They have said that there is now coolant all the way through the engine. The car breaks when it over heats (no warning lights). They were able to recreate the issue on Friday and coolant smell came out the exhaust. Apparently Nissans are not fitted with low coolant sensors, so there is no warning if this happens. Before labour, they are quoting £9k for a new engine as it can’t be repaired. They have suggested an option is to go to an external (non Nissan garage) and ask them to source abd fit a reconditioned engine.
It’s probably best I go in and speak to them (plus I need to get stuff out my car) but my questions are:
1. The car had a full service in November last year. Would a coolant leak not have been picked up then? I’m guessing it is connected with the thermostat casing thing in Feb but want to check.
2. ⁠after the car was returned to me on 14th Feb as fit to drive (& a £842.88 bill) how were we then able to drive it up to the midlands and back, drive it around locally and drive it up to St Albans before the issue reoccurred? I know there were issues starting it (car was booked in for a battery replacement on 28th Feb) but it didn’t overheat/play up in the 5 hours it took us to get to Leicester on 14th Feb. This is the bit that really doesn’t make sense to me.

[Doctor Gollum]

My initial thought is to replace the head gasket and possibly head along with thermostat and housing and coolant sensors. And a timing kit if it's belt driven.

[Viral_Jim]

Honestly that feels like an incredibly lazy 'diagnosis' or another way of telling you to take it elsewhere because they don't want to deal.

Even if the car had overheated, I can't see much worse happening than a badly warped head. I would get it away from the parts cannon wielding laptop jockeys to someone who actually knows what they're doing and get the head taken off. Or its probably 45mins work for a competent home mechanic 

A quick google suggests all 2018/19 petrol Squash are chain driven.

[Doctor Gollum]

Thanks. I was thinking the same, and if the parts come from Nissan the convenience of everything bolt straight on outweighs the savings from buying bits everywhere and running into problems.

[TheBoy]

An awful lot of dealers (of any marque) won't do any engine disassembly themselves, but ship it out to a local backstreet garage.

I'm guessing they can't find one willing to touch that car...

[Doctor Gollum]

Or want to sell her another one.

[Doctor Gollum]

So, to be fair to the local Nissan dealer, they waived the cost of recovery from St Alban's and their diagnostic fee.

Had a quick look at the car, and think their diagnosis might be a bit excessive... Although I understand the mentality of throwing a new engine in, there's the possibility that a new head gasket might cure it without much else.

Basically their diagnosis demonstrated the following:

1. The cooling system is both contaminated with exhaust gasses and losing coolant via the exhaust.

2. It depressurises into the cylinders when cold causing the partial hydrolock effect.

3. The car has recorded 136°  max coolant temp.

4. The oil cap is covered in caramel mayo.

Item 4 is a red herring, basically the car does alot of shorter journeys with the occasional longer one so never really warms up properly. The oil on the dipstick looks like it has been in since November, but absolutely zero evidence of water mixing and the oil level is spot on.

[Doctor Gollum]

The plan of attack is straight forward with a hope of effecting a reasonable repair.

1. Drain the oil to confirm a lack of coolant in the oil.

2. Pull the spark plugs and pressure test the cooling system to confirm a leak into the cylinders.

3. Strip the top end down and remove the head and check for flatness of both head and block.

If the block is warped then replacement engine, running second hand rather than new, will be the solution.*

If the head is warped then that's getting replaced.

If the block and head are true and there's an obvious gasket failure, then it'll get a new head gasket and put back together. No obvious gasket failure and the head will be replaced.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan of attack?

*Or it gets slapped back together and sold as spares or repairs.

[Doctor Gollum]

Incidentally, it's an HR13DDT.

[Raeturbo]

Maybe do a leak down test before you start, the more info the better👍

[Doctor Gollum]

The car had lost almost half it's coolant within 500 miles of the thermostat housing replacement and having now seen the car, there's no evidence of the thermostat housing being the source of the leak, nor anywhere else in the engine bay. Which only leaves one option...

The only other question is what effect it might have had on the turbo, but it needs to be running first.

[Sir Tigger KC]

Sounds like you have a good challenge on your hands there Al. 

[Raeturbo]

If as you said the oil is clean and uncontaminated, that should be ok as the turbo can and does sustain very high temperatures.