It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

[Mort]

A weekend of highs and lows this one was for me, regarding the Cav.

Drove down to Wales in it and by chance ended up in a convoy of three Cav's, which was nice...

Then later that evening while coming back after droping some friends home I noticed the temp was suddenly through the roof I limped it to where I was staying and when I got out of it it was steaming and bubbling. Came back to it in the morning to discover that it had no coolant in it, and when I poured some in, it just leaked straight out (of the water pump by the looks of it). I let the breakdown people recover it to their garage, they reckon that it'll cost $185ish to put on a new belt kit and water pump (doesn't seem to bad that, although I'll wait till I see an actual bill before I get to excited), plus whatever else needs doing to the engine. I'm waiting now to see if I have cooked the head, the recovery driver started it briefly to get it on the truck and it sounded worse than the truck did


So I have a question for you lovely people. If you find yourself pootling down the road and discover your temp is reaching for the sky, what is the best course of action. Do you stop the engine asap, and risk being stranded at the side of the road, or do you limp / race to a safe stopping point, where you can do a little more investigation and repairs?

[Cavalier342]

well i would stop in the most immediate safe location, and turn it off as soon as possible, wait a while then pop the bonnet to look out for anything unusual. I may limp it for a while but i would certainly not push it. When the engine gets that hot, that gasket will be cooked roast.

[branny361]

STOP and let it cool it will knacker it pretty quick if you carry on , your oil will start to boil ,lose all its properties the engine will expand and sieze , cost you more than 185 quid

[Envoy CDX]

Personally, I'd have slapped the recovery driver round the head for driving it onto the truck myself.. They have a winch.. use it!

But yeah, I'd have pulled over ASAP and checked things out.

[andysri]

you just cant argue when it comes to engine temperature. if its over heating, stop, let it cool. as long as there is still coolant in the system you may be able to get away with a few miles at a time in between stopping to let it cool down again. otherwise its a tow home job. better that then serious engine damage

[Colorado]

Hope it doesnt cost too much

[carlos_canter]

All depends on location i suppose, eg: road works on motorway with no hard shoulder, or nice wide country road.
If theres no where to stop, whack heaters on full and if the road is flat or down hill, turn off the engine and coast to a safe place or at least a straight stretch of road if possible.

What I tell all the members i go out to is this, the car is a piece of metal, no matter how much we get attached to them. Pull over, Get out, Leave the car. If it is safe to investigate, then do it. If it aint, move away in case the car gets hit.

Am pretty disgusted at the recovery driver getting your car on the truck under its own power, especially with an engine fault and the extra strain going up the bed wont help, admittedly i do drive cars onto my spec frame, but they only climb a 2inch bar. But i never drive a car onto a bed, its unproffesional and against IVR rules and regs.

Im guessing it was a bonified recovery contractor who came out?

Gutted for you mate that the girl is having problems, hope she is sorted soon.

[Mort]

Am pretty disgusted at the recovery driver getting your car on the truck under its own power, especially with an engine fault and the extra strain going up the bed wont help, admittedly i do drive cars onto my spec frame, but they only climb a 2inch bar. But i never drive a car onto a bed, its unproffesional and against IVR rules and regs

Im guessing it was a bonified recovery contractor who came out?

I believe so, they were the ones that Direct Line sent me...


... and so the saga continues. Got a call Tuesday afternoon (a few days later) to say that the car was ready, which surprised me cos I thought that they were going to take a peak at it and call me with a quote before doing any work. Also they had just changed the pump and not the belt kit. After a bit of an argument (and after they had been told that their recovery driver drove it on to the truck, not sure if that really made a difference but the conversation seemed to get a lot easier after that point) they agreed to put the new belt kit on it as well for a total bill of £190.60 (including the work that had already been done, up from the £185ish original quote, not bad since he told me there was no way they were going to put the belt on for just the cost of the parts. ). So the next Saturday (day before this post) I went back to pick up the car. Bloke on the desk presented me with the bill and seemed utterly shocked that I wanted to see the car before I paid it

I assume that most people would want to take a look at what their £190 is paying for? Or am I just strange like that?

Anyway car looked right and engine sounded ok surprisingly, (although I'll give it a while to settle down again, before getting to happy), so I paid the bill and left. Drove around for a bit and the car pulled and drove like it should, so I got on the M4 and headed for home. After 70ish miles of trouble free motoring I looked out the back window to see a plume of steam (think entire coolant leaving the car quickly) and the temperature started to climb again. This time I stopped the car before the temperature got to the red and shut it off. Called the breakdown people (again) and got them to recover me. Since I was only 30ish miles from home I got them to recover me there (cost about £80 extra mind, might think about extending my breakdown cover next year). Phoned the garage that had done the work looking to kick off but they had all gone home for the day.

The next door neighbour has a friend who is a mechanic for Rover who happened to be in the area so he popped round and had a look at the car for me. After popping up up on some ramps and looking at the back of the engine, he reckons that a pipe is leaking and not the water pump. I'm did kinda suspect that is wasn't the same problem as the water did seem to be coming from somewhere slightly different this time. It will make my life much easier if it isn't the water pump as I won't have to get into a massive argument with the garage about it.

So another question, what part is it that I need to order? X20XEV engine, apparently it is an s shaped hose from the tank to the back of the water pump / block... I'll hopefully get that fitted this week, and then I can see what the next thing wrong with the car is

I do feel a little sorry for the Porshe driver behind me when the pipe went. His car will have gotten covered in hot coolant, and I imagine getting his car cleaned and polished again will cost as much as it cost me to get recovered...

[Colorado]

The saga continues then. Sounds like the garage didnt do it properly. Hope you are luckier when it is fixed again.

[Mort]

The Cav is back on the road!!!! YAY !!!! (at long bl**dy last!!! )

So finally the bloke who was going to fix the pipe found the time to fix it (this isn't the Rover bloke but another bloke I know, mustn't be hard on him though as he is only charging me £80 for the job, which is less than I expected it to cost).

Attached below is a picture of the hose removed from the car, with at bit of paper stuffed in it to highlight the damage. Looks like there can be no doubt that it is the cause of the latest person. Having driven the car to and from work today the engine feels like it should, and is running a little cooler than it has since I have owned it, so clearly the new pump is doing it's job. Hopefully I'll be able to do an oil change at the weekend and the car should run fine for a while...

[Envoy CDX]

That looks like a cut more than a split to be fair - hopefully all is well now though

[Colorado]

Yep hopefully that it is done now.

[Mort]

Drove the car for getting on for a week now. All seems good apart from the fact that the EML has started to come on more often than not when I start it. Paper clip gives me camshaft sensor error.

I only changed it a month or so ago. It's had the new socket fitted, so I'm going to get a sparky friend to make sure all the wires are working as they should before I go changing the sensor AGAIN. Does anyone have any guidance on the best way to check the wires?

[Mort]

Ok, final post in this thread, then I'll go back to updating my WIP thread.

A couple of days after my last post I noticed that the Cav was REALLY starting to lose power. Thinking it might be something like an air hose worked loose following the recent work (and praying that it wasn't the head gasket) I got the mechanic back to look at it. He couldn't see anything wrong, so replaced the spark plugs as that job hasn't been done since I have had the car, and that seems to have fixed the problem. I'm really hoping that that is the end of the problems for now (other than the fact that I still need to sort out the cam sensor) as I believe that that is all of the consumables in the engine replaced Anything else going wrong will start to tip the balance in favour of scrapping the car and buying something more reliable (before she who must be obeyed scraps me )

And yes, I know that I should have replaced all the consumables as soon as I bought the car as best practice, but I didn't have the money or the time. Lesson here for you though kiddies, it is a set of jobs that is worth doing when you buy an old car.

[Colorado]

Hopefully it will be fine from now on. I am sure that if you do a paperclip test when the car isnt running you get a camshaft error anyway.