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[swervy]

Hi all ,
Has anybody ever known of a 52 plate 2.6 v6 Y26SE engine to crack both heads as I was just informed by a recon head company that for 1 of these heads to crack is rare but for both extemely rare & said its normally the oil cooler that goes and that does the gaskets in , He reckons that the place my mechanic sent for testing did a vacuum test & not a pressure test ( am going to find out which & poss watch them test them as advised by the recon co.) , Would just like to know !! also does anyone know where I could purchase said items if they turn out to be cracked ??
Many thanks
Swervy

[Marks DTM Calib]

I have NEVER heard of and certainly NEVER seen any V6 head crack.

If you need heads for a 2.6 then later (post 98) 2.5 heads fit (check they ahev the additional holes to secure the coil packs).

Question has to be, what are the symptoms?

[swervy]

Marks DTM calib ,
Comp said oil level low so checked and it was so , as per norm checked water levels aswell and water was creamy coffee colour , so took to my mech who said sounds like the head gaskets are gone , new gaskets were put on + other part filters etc came to £450 for parts & £350 labour and about a week later same thing happened but this time header tank was pushing out the same gunk and oil filler cap had same gunk in it , as you can imagine I was not too happy as he said he did not get the heads pressure checked first time & said has had done now £40 each & both are cracked and to get the oil cooler checked he would have to have heads on ( Recon guy says the cooler can be checked seperately ?? , and thats where were at !!

[albitz]

The only problem your engine has imo is a failed oil cooler.The mechanic is talking rubbish.Collect your car on a tow rope and take it to someone who knows what they are doing.I would also be asking for a refund for the work already (allegedly) done.
Have you actually seen the engine stripped,with the heads off etc. or have you just been told this ?
If he did take the heads off,he was wasting his time and your money.
Every mechanic on this forum will tell you that they have never seen a blown head gasket on a 2.6 engine,even efter oil cooler failure.As for a pair of cracked heads....................

[Kevin Wood]

Sounds like it was oil cooler failure first time round. Mechanic should have picked up on that before diving in and changing the head gaskets. Oil level low and oil in coolant points straight at the cooler. Very poor diagnosis but, sadly, not unusual.

As to how or if the heads have cracked, possible cooling was impaired by the contamination of the cooling system but, as said, it'd be a first on these engines.

Oil cooler can be tested easily by pressurising it using an airline but in this case, I'd say I would change it anyway, as the symptoms make it a dead cert and the engine is stripped far enough to make it a quick and easy job.

I seriously wonder if the guy has actually tested the heads. Might be a ploy to get shot of a nuisance job, in such a way that it doesn't point to an incorrect diagnosis?

[albitz]

I wonder if hes removed them,never mind tested them.

[Kevin Wood]

to add.. £450 + £350 labour for a head gasket change is daylight robbery, IMHO.

Also, the oil cooler doesn't cause the head gaskets to fail, it just causes symptoms that leads to a misdiagnosis of head gasket failure. I have lost count of the number of cars on here where the oil cooler has failed and been successfully repaired without any head gasket issues at all.

[Elite Pete]

I'm with Kevin and Albs on this one, sounds like oil cooler failure to me.

[albitz]

to add.. £450 + £350 labour for a head gasket change is daylight robbery, IMHO.

Also, the oil cooler doesn't cause the head gaskets to fail, it just causes symptoms that leads to a misdiagnosis of head gasket failure. I have lost count of the number of cars on here where the oil cooler has failed and been successfully repaired without any head gasket issues at all.

Got one stood on my drive at the moment Kevin.Runs sweet as a nut.Nothing wrong with the head gaskets,which btw where diagnosed as having failed by the mechanic after he had replaced the oil cooler.Couldnt be arsed doing the necessary flushing imo,so just gave the owner (a mate) a cock& bull story.

If I were in Swervys position I would be getting trading standards involved sharpish.

[JamesV6CDX]

oil cooler failure. Nothing more. Get any one of us mobile mechanics to sort it, and get a refund from the garage, via small claims court if needsbe. Incompetence on their part!!!

[albitz]

£800 to (supposedly?) change the head gaskets when they didnt need doing in the first place. Criminal.

[cem_devecioglu]

when I first see the post without reading other replies, my impression was mechanic was telling loads of crap..
 
never seen or heard a cracked v6 head.. 
 
pm one of the mobile mechanics here and ask for your money back..

[Marks DTM Calib]

Thats a very bad mechanic and a very bad diag!

So far hes spent a big wedge of cash based on poor information.

As a pointer, lets consider a cylinder head face:



The above is a V6 head although most cylinder heads on modern vehicles are similar.

The blue areas are coolant passages, under normal running, these are pressurised but drop to approx atmospheric as the engine cools down.

The brown areas are oil return passages where the oil drops back to the sump. Thanks to the breather system, these are under a slight vaccum (assuming breathers are not blocked!).

The small red area is THE only place where pressurised oil passes and is nicely away from anything other than the head edge. This is protected by a copper insert in the gasket.

So to get oil in the coolant via a failed headgasket we need the strongest bit going (basicaly a copper O ring) to fail and the oil to travel a reasonable distance to the water.

Now if the heads were to crack it would most likely occur around the valves, this would potentialy allow the coolant into the combustion chamber but certainly not the oil.

Clearly the person doing the work thus far is lacking a grasp of the basics!

For this scenario, the actual answer is a failed oil cooler which is around three hours work and around 150-200 in bits.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Also, the head gaskets on the 2.6 are metal.........very unlikely to fail!

[Darth Loo-knee]

Yet again these garages ripping people off

I do wonder how they get repeat work....