Yesterday I picked my car up from the garage. They told me my core plugs were leaking and could do with changing. This morning I thought I'd have a look how bad it was. I've only done a couple of miles since picking it up but already there is a bit of water around number 3 spark plug. The water doesn't seem to be coming from the core plug though. There is hole and it looks like it is coming from there. Should there be something in this hole? The car is an 03 Fusion with a 1.4 Duratec engine. The core plugs are the bolt in type.

 

Hi there

Depending on how bad the leak is I would try bar seal through the coolant , if that doesn't work then your probably looking at changing the head as the core plugs bolt type are really hard to get out ,hope this helps you out a bit  

Thanks Hutchy36. I don't know how bad the leak is yet but judging by the colour of the HT leads it's not looking good. I hadn't heard of Bars Seal, ta. I've been looking at similar products on Amazon but I'm worried by the reviews saying the products clogged up their car's cooling system. Having just spent £460 on other jobs on the car I don't want to bugger it up with coolant additives but neither do I want to spend another couple of hundred getting someone to try and get the core plugs out.

I'm really annoyed with the garage. It went in for a cam belt because the car has done 100000 miles and it was making a noise from around the cam belt/water pump area. I told the garage I was on a budget and to let me know if it would cost any more than their quote. The sods only told me about the leaking core plugs after they'd done the cam belt work. They knew I would have said forget it if they'd told me about the core plugs before doing the cam belt.