Hello All,

I'm new to the forum and would appreciate your help if possible.

As the title states, I've had a total loss of coolant and had to be recovered today.

The recovery driver spoke about the cooling system over-pressurising due to the incorrect antifreeze having been used. I recently had the the coolant replaced with OAT type. He said the car needed "Sentinel" antifreeze, I have to say I've never heard of this. Can anyone tell me if the OAT type of antifreeze is incorrect for my car/engine.

Secondly, please see the attached pictures of a couple of pipes. Can anyone tell me what these are and whether it is a simple matter of replacing them? Or am I looking at something more serious, like head gasket failure?

All replies will be most welcome, thanks in advance.

Regards,

Mark

The big pipe is just an induction kit hose. It attaches to the air intake on the engine (near the turbo/to the airbox). It isn't really needed, but helps aid in cool airflow and forcing more air into the engine (negligible)

The second bit looks like a hose terminator, probably come off of one of your coolant hoses.

The headgasket is pretty unlikely to be gone, however if it is, it is a pig of a job. You will require new stretch head bolts and a lot of time on your hands.

Hello All,

I'm new to the forum and would appreciate your help if possible.

As the title states, I've had a total loss of coolant and had to be recovered today.

The recovery driver spoke about the cooling system over-pressurising due to the incorrect antifreeze having been used. I recently had the the coolant replaced with OAT type. He said the car needed "Sentinel" antifreeze, I have to say I've never heard of this. Can anyone tell me if the OAT type of antifreeze is incorrect for my car/engine.

Secondly, please see the attached pictures of a couple of pipes. Can anyone tell me what these are and whether it is a simple matter of replacing them? Or am I looking at something more serious, like head gasket failure?

All replies will be most welcome, thanks in advance.

Regards,

Mark

Don't know how similar the engine is to the old shape focus but a friend at work has just had the same problem on his diesel focus total coolant loss. The problem with his was the heat exchanger had to have it replaced cost him £380 at his local garage not a ford dealer. I'm probably barking up the wrong tree but that was his problem.

Hi...

Ok ref Anti-Freeze, you should ONLY ever use Ford of ford spec antifreeze in these modern engines, just to share with you, I used Renault stuff in my daughters Fiesta and it killed the water pump ?, the Ford stuff is below 20 pounds, so at the first instance, I would go and put this in my car and test it...

I beleive this may have a metal headgasket, if so with a minor overheat/ warp, you could drive around for months at normal speeds rpm's around town etc, but once you hit the motorway, with long sustained load on the engine, any warp would become apparent, the old type headgaskets had a little tolerance etc in them, the metal ones dont ?, so do sustained and through tests..

regards Sham

I.e. Just put in whatever the manual says too

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the replies.

The situation has moved on a bit since I posted and all is not lost, or at least it would seem anyway.

I spoke to a local garage, the owners are ex-Ford main dealers and are pretty switched on.

Apparently the "OAT" type anti-freeze is the correct type for this engine/cooling system. They reckon that the head gaskets on this engine are fairly robust and it is unlikely to have failed :).

They told me that the most likely candidate is the thermostat housing, which has a tendency to crack with a resulting loss of coolant. I've taken the car into the garage and sure enough their diagnosis is correct, cracked thermostat housing.

Waiting for the parts now, which are supposed to be in tomorrow, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'll let you know how I get on>

Thanks for the help.

Regards,

Mark.