Any suggestions - £1200 to fix coolant leak?

T

thejeangenie

Member
The coolant light started coming on every 2 or 3 weeks. Took to local dealer. They did pressure test, replaced a hose. £90 for privilege. Coolant light came on again fortnight later. Topped up, came on again 2 weeks later. Back to dealer. Now diagnosis is that it's Heater Matrix - £1200 estimate to repair. Yikes.

Any ideas as to how I might contact Audi Customer Services? I've emailed twice and get no replies.

Any other suggestions?
 
Hi

You can get the Audi UK (customer Service) number from any main Dealer just give them a call and they will give it to you.

I assume your £1200 est is due to labour as a Matrix is a tiny radiator and shouldn't cost much to replace/exchange, but its the time that must be costing the high amount.
 
Hi.
My last A2 kept losing its coolant.It was fine if I kept below 60 but as soon as I went over that for any distance the temperature gauge rose & the coolant system had a hissy fit. Another indicator of a problem was that the pressure in the expansion tank was massive. The cure to my problem was a blown head gasket.All ok after that was replaced. Good luck with yours.
 
Had a similar problem on our A2.

Main Dealer replaced the coolant tank and all of the pipes. Turns out that it was small areas on the rubber pipes which were leaking. The rubber pipes were replaced with stainless steel ones and we were charged £400 for the privilege.

Seemed a reasonable price to me.
 
I've got an A2 1.4 TDI SE with a coolant loss problem. Had the pressure test done at a garage and was told it needs a new head gasket at a cost of £1000 but there would be a disclaimer stating that it may or may not solve the problem as it could be the cylinder head. This means stripping the engine down again and paying again! I'm not sure I want to spend £2K on this car and tempted to part-ex it to get shot of it! It's already had a new anti roll bar and cam belt and only done 42,000 miles! Not impressed with Audi's at all.
 
That sounds bad, but I wouldn't take the first estimate and diagnosis anyway.
Have you had it diagnosed at Audi or independant?

Why would they charge £1000 without solving the problem? Thats like saying we will fit 4 brand new tyres and alloys and then if that doesn't cure the Cylinder head problem we will charge another £1000 and actually do the job. People often price themselves out of a job if they really don't want to do it. Ask people about a better garage in your location. Or if you do feel strongly about it get rid of the car. But it would seem a shame if you like it.

Decent garages will strip the car and send the head away to be tested only involving a minimal charge. If the head needs to be skimmed, then you pay one job lot for the repair. Not £1000 for a H/Gasket for no reason and then another £1000

It sounds like they don't want to touch it. So its there loss:D
 
Hi Livvy, welcome to the A2oc and sorry to hear of your bad luck with the A2.
The cooling system pressure test is not foolproof. Its best to do a secondary check on the antifreeze which looks for contamnation with combustion gases. The combined results would confirm if its likely to be the head gasket or possibly a cracked cyl head. (A cracked head is highly unlikely as the diesel cyl head is extremely tough) Another indication of head gasket problems is the cooling systems pressurises and blows antifreeze out of the vent in the header tank.
If this is not happening then another possibility is the water pump. Changing the cambelt puts extra pressure on the pump which damages the seals so its good practice to change the pump at the same time as the cambelt.
Try and find a VW garage which will look at all these options and do the checks for free, or at minimal cost before commiting to a headgasket change.
Let us know if you need any more help / advice

Cheers Spike
 
My headgasket was replaced by an audi dealer for 450.00 total inc parts labour & vat.This cured all my overheating problems.
 
thejeangenie said:
The coolant light started coming on every 2 or 3 weeks. Took to local dealer. They did pressure test, replaced a hose. £90 for privilege. Coolant light came on again fortnight later. Topped up, came on again 2 weeks later. Back to dealer. Now diagnosis is that it's Heater Matrix - £1200 estimate to repair. Yikes.

Any ideas as to how I might contact Audi Customer Services? I've emailed twice and get no replies.

Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

Audi custormer services 0800 699888.
High cost possibly due to havig to maybe take out thw whole dash to change the matrix, at £100+ an hour thats 10 hours which is probably about right, I need to change the Evaporator in my A4, same sort of cost hence I'm running without aircon and will be for the future.
 
Had second diagnostic check by Audi friend, same outcome - new headgasket required, I'm currently putting in coolant/water every morning and it lasts about 10 miles before it's empty, but there are no obvious leaks. Have booked the car into an independant garage as I need it fixed. The problem has been ongoing for quite a while now but has reached crisis point!
 
Hi Livvy,

There may not be any obvious leaks on the outside of the engine. It is common for head gaskets to fails internally, so you are sending the coolant out of the exhaust! I had this problem a long time ago with a rotten old Vauxhall Nova. In those days though my local mechanic fixed it for £250 (it was in 1995!). If the gasket failure gets worse you can get high pressures in the coolant system and then expansion of the coolant expansion tank. On my old 1989 Nova the expansion tank cracked and "popped" whilst driving down the M1. The RAC came to the rescue that time!
I am not sure of the consequences of running a cooler diesel engine without coolant, but I would guess they are serious. Until you are happy with the fix offered by Audi or your local independant garage, keep topping it up. But getting it fixed sooner rather than latter would be my advice.

Sorry that you are having problems,

Dave
 
When my head gasket was blown I still had to use the car daily including runs into london for the best part of 15k miles & once I realized how to stop it dumping all the water out of the header tank vent it behaved fine.The only way to stop the water loss was to keep below 60mph.All that time the temp needle stayed at 90 but if ever I crept above 60 I would find myself in a layby refilling the header tank.
 
I think that there's also a note of caution needed if continuing to run the engine when you know there is a head gasket problem.

If the water leak is due to a warped cylinder head then there is a risk of hot gas escaping past the main cylinder seal on one or more cylinders. If this goes on from any length of time the hot gas will start eroding a nasty little channel for itself which will grow quite deep and ruin the head or block (if the block is aluminium).

In the old days (they don't make 'em like they used to, blah, blah, blah...) I saw this happen commonly on Hilman Imps (CHG failure was an Achille's heel with these) where the whole engine was sometime scrap due to hot gas tunnelling across the face of the engine block. The technology has moved on a long way since then but the damage caused by neglect is never-changing.

Sometimes coolant loss via CHG failure isn't down to a warped head. Perhaps the most common car to suffer almost 100% CHG failure at some point in their lifespan, are the wet-liner Rover K series engines. In this case it's sometimes caused by thermal shock (thermostat suddenly releasing cold radiator water into a hot engine), but more usually by "head shuffle". This is where the head moves laterally slightly when under heavy load. It's compounded by the fact that Rover located the head on the block using plastic dowels - but that's another story!). This abraids the silicone sealant in the gasket around the water jacket faces. In this case there usually isn't any initial gas leakage. However after coolant loss, any subsequent overheating may cause the head to warp. Hot gas tunnelling can then begin.

I guess I'm suggesting that if you know you've got a head gasket problem, get it fixed asap as it may bite you on the b*m if you don't.
 
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