454 Forfour CDi head gasket failure

[Tony Owens]

May I introduce myself?
I'm Tony from the East coast of Ireland. My other half runs a 2005 LHD ForFour CDi 95 we brought in from Germany some months back (replacing a leggy but loved Forester Turbo). It has 180k kms and is in generally good nick.

Perhaps people on here have some advice...
We've discovered the 454 is using a small amount of coolant and seems to have a little oil in the expansion tank. Use is around a litre of water/1000 km. We've been nursing it like this for 10k kms or so, pending getting some time to explore the problem. Local garage thought it might be the oil cooler (I assume it uses an oil/coolant type cooler). On closer examination they now think its the head gasket. There is no mayonnaise around the oil filler cap or exhaust smoke/steam. Dipstick seems water-free. The motor runs faultlessly and (barring codes which I have not checked) the oil in the coolant and the water loss are the only symptoms of a problem.

Any thoughts anyone? The garage is angling to pull the motor and replace the head gasket but have no experience of this car. I have no intention of authorising anything until I have confidence in what is being done and why. Also until I have seen fault codes and sourced a replacement head, head gasket set, and detailed work instructions. All of which will be a challenge in tiny Ireland!

Cheers

[tolsen]

Do a block test to check for combustion gases in coolant to confirm whether head gasket is gone.

[Tony Owens]

Thanks for that Tolsen.
I assume this involves flushing the coolant jacket, refilling, adding an indicator substance then running the motor under load for a while....


T

[tolsen]

Not at all. Just run engine, remove expansion bottle cap and fit block tester whilst drawing gas samples from expansion bottle through block tester test fluid. Test indication fluid in block tester will turn yellow if test is positive. Test is very sensitive.

[problemchild1976]

Not heard of head gasket issues on any of the forfours and the cdi is the toughest engine of them all.

Unless it's been run dry then.

But there is always a first.

JJ