that dirty word again

[pug306driver]

Don't know where to put this ( you will say in the bin probably ) and have not seen the car yet, but, Citroen Berlingo 1.9 diesel ( that's all I know at present ) the driver said there was a "loud bang" so he pulled over, only to find that the coolant expansion tank had " exploded" lol!.

Anyways, exhaust is dry, no prior overheating ( according to him?? ) , engine runs smooth with no misfire, no mayo on oil cap but some black oily looking deposits in old exp tank. Not heard or seen this engine running, so don't know about excess bubbles/coolant ejection yet.

Oil cooler, how often to they fail and anyone heard of expansion tanks " blowing up" before?? 

More info to come when I see the little gem.

Condition of car, exp tank top and thermostate not known at present.

Have since found out that car was from a "auction" some weeks ago, so how long is a piece of string, probably will turn out to be a right dog me thinks.

[welshpug]

ive seen an expansion tank blow up, replaced tank and csp and was fine

[Mattcheese31]

oil cooler went on mine this year, replaced and is fine, didn't pressurise so yours could be faulty rad cap or HG

[powerandtorque]

...Or just brittle plastics. Seen most plastic parts of cooling systems explode on various cars over the years, so it's not necessarily indicative of an underlying issue - although clearly the cooling system over-pressuring due to a fault certainly won't help matters!

[pug306driver]

Had some feedback but not seen car yet.

Thermostate checks out fine as well as rad cap ( but why did it "over pressure"? may be old age of tank?? , not seen tank yet ) rad, dry exhaust and runs ok. System flushed out and no oil rising in system, no bubbles apart from bleed bubbles, info more to come. dw8b engine.

[Poodle]

Seen this a few times on different cars, it's always just been the expansion tank cap at fault. Besides, those engines are bombproof, you can't go far wrong. Worst case you have to do a headgasket (which is a piece of cake), but that's pretty unlikely.