The underlying points above are correct.

HG's fail just like that... And also depending on the size of the external leak you can keep driving it for a while if you DO NOT overheat it. You have to keep an eagle eye on the coolant level for sure.

Maybe your bad mood interfered with you getting that last point. If you can keep it topped off don't be afraid to drive it. If the leak is too big for that then you get to refresh the last big fail point of your engine so that your Rover will last another 100k miles!! You've done a lot of work, with new HG's your engine will be in great shape and you can fret over all the other mechanical things that fail.

^^^^^^^


Oh, someone has resurrected about 30 dead threads about coolant leaks, I must have got confused.

No need to be in a bad mood with me.

Just helpfully saying, that if your coolant leak is small, you may be able to continue driving the vehicle if you can monitor the fluid level, thus keeping the temperatures low enough to prevent serious damage.

Did you locate the leak before having the garage look at it? What proof do they have it is the HG? Have they quoted a price for replacing? Do they know Land Rovers?

I would want to see evidence of their diagnosis. If I wasn't sure myself.

Good luck.

It does kind of sound like the aforementioned shop is going right for the throat, well, because Land rover. Nothing wrong with assuming Headgaskets are bad on an engine prone to issues with them.

Understanding their diagnosis may ease or worsen how OP feels about it.

Hey chubbs,

Sorry to hear about your coolant leak, I feel your anger and pain as most of us on here do. Unfortunately for you and every other D2 owner on the planet, you have reached about the Max Life of our head gaskets. It could be the valley pan gasket that is leaking also and sometimes it can look like the heads are leaking from the back of the engine. More then likely it's the heads though and with your miles they will need to be changed very soon either way. Was the bottom of your engine and oil pan covered in oil? A lot of times the heads leak slow for awhile and mix with oil from and leaking oil pan and it will cover the bottom of your engine and oil pan but you won't see anything on the ground really. Anything you do see looks like oil and not coolant so it's easy to miss the fact coolant is leaking too.

I bought my 2001 with 97K miles and the head gaskets blew at just over 100K miles similar to yours. There were no major spills or leaks on the ground but the bottom of the engine was covered in the grease and gunk from the slow oil and coolant leaks that went unfixed until one day I came outside and there was a puddle of coolant on the ground. My truck never over heated either but that is probably because I parked the truck before the coolant got too low, I got lucky.

I changed the head gaskets myself and with the money I saved I was able to replace the water pump, oil pump gears, timing chain and sprockets, all the hoses, 180 thermostat, radiator, coolant reservoir, and many other things to get the truck solid again. It's been 4 years and I have 182K miles on her and I just noticed and small coolant leak from the passenger rear of the engine right above the starter yesterday. There is nothing on the ground at all (not 1 drop) and I'll bet I can drive this way for a month or so before I see the first drop on the ground. If I didn't know where to look and my engine bay wasn't so clean it would be very easy to not even know it was leaking. I've really taken care of her the last 82K miles and done everything right, it's just that time again for head gaskets and there's nothing you can do to stop it. #RoverLife