Blown head gasket
 

Long sad story for our 2005 LR3. Sunroof drains clogged and leaking into floor and replaced by dealer in November. Apparently a common issue in Land Rovers. Then onto electrical issues. The instrument cluster had to be replaced a month ago. All seemingly ok for a few weeks until lost power on the freeway. Pulled over and no gages or lights showing anything wrong. No smoke or steam like a overheat. Tow truck driver noticed there was no coolant. Towed to dealer and they said needed T-stat housing and hose. They repaired that then test drove and said head gasket blown. They said they wouldn't have known the head gasket was blown before they fixed the t stat housing etc. Only 9500 to replace head gaskets or 12k for new engine.....

Dealer states not their fault as the instrument cluster was installed properly. I think they should have check entire instrument panel system when they repaired to make sure all gages and warning lights were working so......

I would appreciate any input....

Obviously the gauges weren't in proper operation to lose all coolant and have no indicators on the dash. If it were me, I'd try my luck at smalls claims court to try and get the judge to see it your way and get a new engine or at least the repairs covered. If the tech can't prove he did a proper diagnostic on the cluster before certifying it, then I say you've got a strong case.

Not necessarily true. The dash should certainly show if your engine is running hot. However, it will not show that you have no coolant. For some reason, the low coolant warning is disabled on the LR3s by default. A lot of us have "enabled" the warning via the IID tool though.

what's the process for that? Which menus? Any drawbacks to doing this and is the warning disabled on ALL LR3s? All model years?

Not sure I can answer your questions, but I can say that it was certainly disabled by default on my 2006 and I know others have stated it was disabled for them as well. As far as enabling it... I can't remember, but I think it was in the CCF. I got suspicious after my plastic coolant tee broke and I had steam pouring out from under the hood, but no coolant warning light. :o

Could the default disabled status have to do with the coolant level sensor issues that I've heard about? Apparently the sensors were a bit wonky and would throw low coolant warnings when coolant levels were fine. Seems like a rather bad way to fix that issue though.

For the OP, I had my engine replaced for far less than the $12k quoted. Another silly Land Rover issue that could have been fixed with a warning light for something critical: there's no low oil level warning and my PCV went bad and sucked it all out of the sump. I got a lightly used engine (45k miles) for about $4.5k and install was about $4k at in independent mechanic. I still can't believe the head gasket job is $9500!

If you love the truck and will keep driving it for many years, doing the work makes sense, but just don't do it at crazy dealer prices.

How can there not be a low oil warning? What about low oil pressure? I think you are right about the genesis of this disabling of the low coolant alert. That sounds like a familiar story...and any time now Bbyer will be along to give us the details!...I hope.

There is a low pressure warning, but that's more like "Ding dong, your engine's gone" than an actionable warning in most situations. My other car has both, so I foolishly assumed it was standard practice (or that checking the oil level religiously wasn't necessary). In my situation, the low oil pressure warning never went off.

thanks everyone! Do you think they should have known head gasket blown before replacing Therm. housing and hose to the tune of 2k? They knew it was out of coolant and is it not common practice to check oil consistency?

Well, I probably would have, given that if the engine overheated enough for it to lose power. That's pretty bad. And the temperature gauge was in the normal range? If it was, that would make me suspect their instrument panel repairs, which would lead you to continue driving the car till it overheated and blew the head gasket. If provable (a big if), the dealership would be at fault.

I'm guessing you lost the coolant before that point since there was no steam or leaks, but there's a plastic T breather valve on top of the thermostat on a hose that is notorious for disintegrating and leaking all of your coolant out. It's a $15 part. Hopefully the dealer didn't just go replacing the thermostat as well just for fun.

One more thing, you mentioned oil consistency. I'm guessing there was coolant in the oil? Even the test drive with coolant in the oil could have been enough to do some damage to your bottom end of the engine, so I'd skip the head gasket job and go for a replacement engine. Coolant + bearings is no good.

The head gasket can fail in a number of different ways:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/landrov...cf3809cd19.jpg

You are the third person to say not to repair head gaskets but to replace engine. Funny the dealer didn't recommend that.....

They don't care... I find the higher the price of the techs, the less they know. Most high priced dealer techs only replace parts according to a scan tool diagnosis. REAL mechanics on the other hand can diagnose and repair most issues from experience with part replacement being the last option.


A good example, my friend that owns the shop I go to has been a tech for over 25 years now. I had the Caravan towed in because it seemed the starter was toast. Experience told him that it was just the contacts that had eroded in the starter and he was able to replace them ($7 each) plus a little labour. Saved me the price of a new starter... that's what a real mechanic does.

I still say that if Land Rover disables the low coolant warning feature because of known sensor issues, then they would be even more culpable in coming good for the repairs. Trick is, I guess is to have incontrovertible proof of this happening.

Another example of dealer tech incompetence.

on the D2 board a guy went through water and was getting trans codes. Dealer said he needed a new trans.

Since water got in under the seats I suggested a trans ECU, he swapped a used one in and all good.

Bad enough the cluster failed, but Its bull$hit that they charged you 2k to only come back say you have a blown head gasket.

if you have a governing body in your state that repair shop answer to, I would call them right away. We have BAR in CA and it's their job to protect the consumer against fraudulent activity.

Thinking on this a little more, the dealership may have a leg to stand on in saying they couldn't have known the gasket was blown before fixing the coolant leak (although still not sure it needed $2k of work, depending on what the issue actually was). If all or most of the coolant leaked out, and the engine then overheated, then blew the gasket, there would have been no coolant in there to contaminate the oil. It probably would have looked fine if they checked. It was only after they fixed the leak and added back in coolant would it have mixed with the oil.

Still, was the $2k fix really necessary? From what I've heard, the thermostats don't generally fail catastrophically (usually more of a slow leak), but the bleeder valves (the $15 part) do.

Don't feel bad, I sunk about $1k into my engine in new belts, tensioners, and PCV valve right before it threw a rod.

So, a follow-up:

I took the LR3 into the dealer today to have them look on the CCF and see if the LOW COOLANT WARNING had been disabled. It had! Further, the tech could not turn it back on. So, just to satisfy our mutual curiosity, he unplugged the coolant sensor and lo and behold, the LR3 annunciated a "LOW COOLANT" indication.

So, while the warning doesn't work through the CCF, it still does work.

Well, that's good to know! It was hard for me to believe that they would completely disable something like that. I guess the CCF entry must not really be associated with the warning message. Perhaps a remnant of something in the past or something put there for future use?

Right...I have a hunch that when they re-designed the expansion tank and sensor, they went with a different logical stream like a binary switch, and in order to make it work they had to permanently disable the old signal through the CCF.

Hi,

I am contemplating replacing my LR3 Head gasket set myself. Is this something anyone has done and has a description step by step process for it. I took the car to a dealer and they tested and confirmed exhaust fumes were getting into my coolant. The vehicle drives on limp mode with exhaust smell at the back and in the coolant tank. I am not loosing any water and it is not overheating.