Hi Y'all.

Head gasket on my 1998 1.6 Audi A3 was replaced in March 2005. It seemed to 'go' without any prior warning, just failed to start one day, and then blew a big plume of white smoke from the exhaust once started. It had 105,000 miles on the clock and full service history.

Now I am having engine trouble again - severe loss of coolant, creamy oil cap etc. and having read up on the subject I am worried that it could be on it's way out again. But then as per some of the threads on here, I am hoping that it might be a smaller problem as I do short journeys to and from work, so maybe the cream is just condensation, and the coolant loss due to a crack or something?!

To my knowledge when the gasket was replaced last year, no other work was done to the coolant tank, pump or radiator, so my question is this - When the garage discovered that the gasket had blown, should they have tried to diagnoseout the cause and fixed it? It seems stupid to have fixed such a major part of an engine, and not treat the actual cause?!!! Do you think I might have a chance of talking them into reducing cost, if they didn't complete the job properly the first time? Worth getting two opinions?

The final bill last year came to £800 which included drilling out and replacement of spark plugs which had been cross-threaded! I really can't face the thought of shelling out again to fix this, (or afford it!) and have been avoiding taking it the garage in case of bad news. I'm getting a company car in a few weeks and was hoping to sell the Audi, but now I'm concerned it will be unsaleable.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi,

I just posted a thread on what happened with the head gasket on my '97 1.6 A3 - might be of some use.

Based on what you say - the creamy oil is likely to be due to short trips, it happens to me all the time. Taking it for a long drive should clear it up temporarily - all the water in the oil should evaporate.

The coolant loss is the big worry - it would be worth checking round all the coolant pipes to see if you can see leaking (white deposits), as well as seeing you if can smell coolant in the exhaust - this would almost definitely mean a cylinder head problem.

If you got the work done at a franchised Audi dealer (I take it you're in the UK from the '£800') it should have a 2 year guarantee on it so take it back and get them to have a look...

Hope this helps.

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1997 A3 1.6 SE