Headgasket's gone, what's my best option here.

[MaxFiesta09]

2009 For fiesta ZTEC S, 65k Miles, Paid £4k in June.

 

Car broke down, AA diagnosed a broke fuel injector. Garage checked again and said no, its some coils and leads in the ignition. They fixed that then the next day went for a drive and it was still broke. Now they think its a head gasket problem.

They've told me it will likely be around £1k to fix and even then there's no guarantee it will work when fixed, but I'll have to sign something agreeing to pay either way. Apparently with the 1.6 engine it still plays up ever after fixing the head gasket. They also asked some of their car dealer friends how much they'd offer for it in its current state and they came back with £400, obviously I don't want to lose 90% of the value in 6 months of driving it.

 

As I see it I have a few options

1) sell it and get a bike. Don't really want do do this unless I could get 2k+ for it but that seems unreasonable after hearing their £400 offers.

2) Pay for a replacement head gasket, could work but also potentially just burning £1k. Does anyone know if they are correct in saying it might not actually fix the problem?

3) A new engine. Been looking online and found them anywhere from £600-800, this plus install about £1.5k? If I get a good engine this seems like a solid option, but i'd need a solid second hand engine for that. How often are second hand engines decent?

4) My dad has a mechanic friend who said £1k sounded steep and thinks he could do it for £700 ish. I can transport my car to his garage for £100 is, so £800 all in. But again, might not work.

 

What would you guys recommend? I'm stumped, I have no good options and have never encountered anything like this before. I also know nothing about cars which doesn't help.

 

Thanks! 

[st line x 140 driver]

31 minutes ago, MaxFiesta09 said:

2009 For fiesta ZTEC S, 65k Miles, Paid £4k in June.

 

Car broke down, AA diagnosed a broke fuel injector. Garage checked again and said no, its some coils and leads in the ignition. They fixed that then the next day went for a drive and it was still broke. Now they think its a head gasket problem.

They've told me it will likely be around £1k to fix and even then there's no guarantee it will work when fixed, but I'll have to sign something agreeing to pay either way. Apparently with the 1.6 engine it still plays up ever after fixing the head gasket. They also asked some of their car dealer friends how much they'd offer for it in its current state and they came back with £400, obviously I don't want to lose 90% of the value in 6 months of driving it.

 

As I see it I have a few options

1) sell it and get a bike. Don't really want do do this unless I could get 2k+ for it but that seems unreasonable after hearing their £400 offers.

2) Pay for a replacement head gasket, could work but also potentially just burning £1k. Does anyone know if they are correct in saying it might not actually fix the problem?

3) A new engine. Been looking online and found them anywhere from £600-800, this plus install about £1.5k? If I get a good engine this seems like a solid option, but i'd need a solid second hand engine for that. How often are second hand engines decent?

4) My dad has a mechanic friend who said £1k sounded steep and thinks he could do it for £700 ish. I can transport my car to his garage for £100 is, so £800 all in. But again, might not work.

 

What would you guys recommend? I'm stumped, I have no good options and have never encountered anything like this before. I also know nothing about cars which doesn't help.

 

Thanks! 

get ford main dealer to fix it guaranteed fix with warranty. Guessing costs money. 

In life you either buy car new lose ***** loads of money or cheap and pay for repairs.

[iantt]

I think you need to get it to some good garage who can diagnose your car's problem properly. 

[MaxFiesta09]

44 minutes ago, FiestaForever said:

It sounds to me that the mechanic is trying to take you for a ride, first off if they cannot be sure what the issue is then they are not very good at what they do, if they were they could tell you first time what wrong and they would be able to fix it first time and it would actually fix whatever problems you were having.

When some one says there is no guarentee to fix it, alarm bells should be ringing, in other words if it doesn’t get fixed by us there is nothing else we will or can do, and in all probability they will be unwilling to give you your money back.

1K is very expensive, you might end up paying less at a Ford dealership, or about the same. At least if you took it to Ford you can be sure it will get fixed as they will know exactly what they are doing.

You paid 4k in June? Where did you buy from, do you have any type of guarantee/warranty with it? Seems strange that 4k car would have such an issue just 6 or so months down the line.

Good luck.

 

2 hours ago, iantt said:

I think you need to get it to some good garage who can diagnose your car's problem properly. 

2 hours ago, st line x 140 driver said:

get ford main dealer to fix it guaranteed fix with warranty. Guessing costs money. 

In life you either buy car new lose ***** loads of money or cheap and pay for repairs.

Bought it from a dealer, pretty big place had an inventory of about 200+ cars. Had a 3 month warranty so that's ran out 😞 I think I just got unlucky really.

I'll ring the for dealership in my city tomorrow to try and get a quote for a fix. If it's ridiculously expensive i'll take it to my dads mechanic friend who sounded confident that he could fix it for a reasonable price.

Thanks for the help everyone.