Hi All, Im having problems with my freeelander on cold startup. It makes a gurgling water sound which comes from behind the dashboard (behind where the radio is located) the noise is related to engine revs and dissapears after around 2 to 3 mins or engine running. The strange thing though is that it is only present on quite cold days at cold start-up. The garage say that they have bled the coolant for me but when a cold day comes along, its still there. Any ideas anyone as its driving me mad....

Matt.

 

I have a 97 Disco and it does the same thing. My boyfriend, who had the vehicle before, told me that it had always done it and he didn't think it was a big problem. I'm really not sure though.

 

First question to ask, does the vehicles heat up the interior quickly after starting up?

The reason I ask is that from the location of the sound, it could be the heater matrix that has a problem, as that is located roughly where you are hearing the sound.

Second question is, do you notice any loss of coolant at all.. again it could be the heater matrix that is loosing it, and causing the air to gain entry..

 

Thanks for your ideas and advice. I checked the coillant and found that there was no loss, the interior of the car does take a while before warm air tends to come through. The garage finally did a chemical test on the content of the collant and found that there was exhaust type contamination in it - thus they coincluded that the head gasket must have been weeping (only when the engine was completely cold i guess). Theye changed it for me and thankfully its not caused a problem since. Thank you again so much for your ideas / advice. Matt.

 

States Freelanders all have the Rover petrol V-6. What do they have in the UK ? No head gasket problems here.

Bait

 

We have three engine types, the V6, the TD4, and also the 1.8 K series engine, supplied by Rover cars..

The 1.8 K series engine is a curious engine design, maybe more common now, briefly, it is an all aluminium engine, and it is held together completely by 8 bolts, that go from top to bottom. Undo these bolts and the entire engine falls into it's component bits.

The main reason why so many K series engines get head gasket failure is simple that the bolts are not regular checked and made tight again as they stretch. These bolts should also be replaced once they have increased in length by a certain margin, (not sure what it is)
Coupled to this, the 1.8 version of the K series engine in the late 1990's also seems to have been fitted with defective head gaskets, so required them replacing far earlier than they ever should have. The last 3 Rover cars I have had, (two with 1.1 K Series engines and the last was a 1.4 K series engine) had all done well over 100,000 miles, and were still fine with the original gaskets.

The major problem is not so much the gasket leaking, but any over heating, as with it been an ali engine the heat builds up very quickly and warps the head and block. It sounds very much like mathew has caught it very early before any damage could be done.