'Sup,
My trusty 306 has just been in for its MOT, and came out with no advisories other than a slightly loose bumper, but... the head gasket is gone. There's some oil in the water etc, though I've not noticed any overheating myself, temperature gauge hasn't been going beyond normal or anything, and the oil hasn't been milky, so I'm of the opinion that, as of now it's not 'that bad'. I can drive it, but the mecahnic of course has said 'the less miles the better'. I need to do a 100 mile round trip this weekend and I'm pretty confident it will survive as I think it's probably been gone a few weeks and I've been driving a lot not noticing a problem. Anyway, I've got about a week to decide whether to get it fixed or whether to get a new car. There's a bit of a problem with the idle control valve I personally think as well, which hopefully wouldn't be too much of a fix with the gasket. But my predicament is.... I've no idea what to do, and am wondering what you guys would do?
I really love this car, it's my first car and it's been so reliable; I've done about 40,000 miles in the past 3 years on him, with fairly heavy loads etc. I've had some stuff done, a new coil pack, a new windscreen motor arm, but mostly just wearables - clutch, tyres. The clutch has only done about 20k! The engine is getting on a bit, but given that it went through the MOT so smoothly, I'm thinking that perhaps forking out the £300 or so to get the head gasket done may be the right thing to do. But it's done 152k miles now, that's a lot, but people said it was a lot 30k ago. Having purchased it for £500 and spent about £800 on it since, it's been a brilliant car, and may continue to be so for another year? I can scout a good car for £600 odd quid now, but the clutch may go the next day, anything can happen, so is it better 'the devil you know'? Because of the mileage and space I require I've been looking at bigger things, but being 24, have to be careful about insurance premiums going through the roof. Ideally, I'd love a 306 estate but I've spent the past couple of days glued to screen and there just doesn't seem to be that much out there right now.
If I had the time / contacts, I'd source another 1.4 engine and get that put in, all would be well! But I don't.
What would you do?
Cheers,
Harry.
My trusty 306 has just been in for its MOT, and came out with no advisories other than a slightly loose bumper, but... the head gasket is gone. There's some oil in the water etc, though I've not noticed any overheating myself, temperature gauge hasn't been going beyond normal or anything, and the oil hasn't been milky, so I'm of the opinion that, as of now it's not 'that bad'. I can drive it, but the mecahnic of course has said 'the less miles the better'. I need to do a 100 mile round trip this weekend and I'm pretty confident it will survive as I think it's probably been gone a few weeks and I've been driving a lot not noticing a problem. Anyway, I've got about a week to decide whether to get it fixed or whether to get a new car. There's a bit of a problem with the idle control valve I personally think as well, which hopefully wouldn't be too much of a fix with the gasket. But my predicament is.... I've no idea what to do, and am wondering what you guys would do?
I really love this car, it's my first car and it's been so reliable; I've done about 40,000 miles in the past 3 years on him, with fairly heavy loads etc. I've had some stuff done, a new coil pack, a new windscreen motor arm, but mostly just wearables - clutch, tyres. The clutch has only done about 20k! The engine is getting on a bit, but given that it went through the MOT so smoothly, I'm thinking that perhaps forking out the £300 or so to get the head gasket done may be the right thing to do. But it's done 152k miles now, that's a lot, but people said it was a lot 30k ago. Having purchased it for £500 and spent about £800 on it since, it's been a brilliant car, and may continue to be so for another year? I can scout a good car for £600 odd quid now, but the clutch may go the next day, anything can happen, so is it better 'the devil you know'? Because of the mileage and space I require I've been looking at bigger things, but being 24, have to be careful about insurance premiums going through the roof. Ideally, I'd love a 306 estate but I've spent the past couple of days glued to screen and there just doesn't seem to be that much out there right now.
If I had the time / contacts, I'd source another 1.4 engine and get that put in, all would be well! But I don't.
What would you do?
Cheers,
Harry.