Would you spend £1.5k on a head gasket on a car worth £5k?

[TwatWaffle]

VW Touran Tdi sport. 11yrs old and done 105,000 miles. Immaculate condition.

Seems bonkers to us to spend that amount on it, but don't think we have any other option

Not quite the same but we're spending £500 on a car worth about £1500 and we've already spent about £700 on it this year. It's a 11yo high spec car which is a really good runner and we won't get anything like it for the money we could spend so we were advised to fix it. It depends what the car is like and if you could afford to replace it tbh.

Ah, similar boat then - spending about a third of what it's worth on getting it repaired. Sorry you've already had to shell out £700 this year, cars are such money pits aren't they?

I think it depends how much more you're going to have to spend out. If this is the first thing in a long list to come then i'd say don't bother. If it just the one thing then it's probably worth it.

Blankscreen if only we had crystal balls eh?! We've only had it 9 months and it had various problems initially, all covered under the 6 month warranty (which expired in Feb). Have spent £300 on a window regulator.

It's so hard to know what to do for the best

Clearly a crystal ball would be good but I'm a sure an independent mechanic will give you an honest opinion.......

Are you sure that it's really worth that much? Seems high for a car that age with mileage over 100k. If so I'd be tempted to spend it and then sell it on.

Ok. Thanks. We're hoping to find out more tomorrow.

If you got rid and bought a new car instead how much would you spend on one?

I don't know. Dh spent £8k on a new 2nd hand car for himself last year, and mine is the main family car (3 kids).

I would get another quote?

£1,500 is a lot, assume it's the TDI 2.0 140 model?

Even if it overheated and you need to have the head skimmed and allowing for the new water pump, head bolts, timing belt and tensioner this is rather costly.

Shop around for a good Independant garage and see how much cheaper you can get it.

Well yes because with a knackered head gasket the car is basically fucked, so you could spend £1500 and still have a car or scrap a £5000 car.......

Fix it as cheaply as possible, flog it, buy something Japanese that’s actually well put together. Still amazes me that people buy this junk based on a reputation from the 1980s when they actually did build decent cars.

themueslicamel yes the 140bhp model with leather heated seats etc. The coolant bottle was empty so car overheated yes, and garage said it'll cost at least £1350 to fix (they'd put a new timing belt in, and all works would have a 12 month warranty). They are a local independent garage and sales place, who have always been good to us. Will def ring round a few places though and get some other quotes - thanks.

FrangipaniBlue I've just been on Auto Trader and turns out the car is actually only worth £3.5k now ! We paid £5.5k for it last August

reddington I had a Golf GT Tdi before my Tourans (had one before this but some twat in a Land Rover rear-ended me and wrote it off) and it was an 02 plate and never let me down. Bought it when it was 2yrs old and had 60k on the clock, and it didn't let me down once even tho she had over 170k on the clock.

I must admit, I have lost my faith in VW's a bit now and wouldn't mind trying something Japanese for a change.

Stick it on eBay as it is with the fault fully described. Make sure it’s nice and clean, with plenty of good photos and detail the service history etc. Start it at £1800 with a buy it now of £2500. Quite likely someone will buy it to fix themselves and flip, the work will be cheap if they’re doing it themselves. If it sells for £2500 you’re up on the deal.

Really? But if it sells at £1800 I've then "lost" £2700 in a year and will still have no car?! I can't not have a car, so don't really think this is an option, but thanks.

I'll be phoning around some other mechanics tomorrow, just worried as our garage have already started stripping it down.

If you spend £1500 on fixing it you’ve got a car worth £3500 and have lost £3500 in a year. If it sells for £1800 you do indeed end up a couple of hundred worse off but worth that to get out of the hassle, if it sells for £2500 you’re quids in. You could just stick it on eBay for £2500 buy it now and see what happens, forget the £1800 start price.

I would probably spend 1500 and drive it into the ground. It's value isn't relevant if you get a few more years out of it and it suits your needs.

Shop around and get it done.

They won't have started to strip it down, it's not that big a job, a morning to remove the head, and one the head has had a skim an afternoon to reassemble.

I have to whip off the head of ds1 Polo as it has a duff exhaust valve and reassemble it with a new timing chain, tensioner, bolts and gasket set and I will do it in a day.

lapetitesiren you have a point there re: re-sale value. I really hope if we go ahead with the works that we get another 3 or 4 years out of it. Hope nothing else goes badly wrong!

Have called one garage that I used to use, and they agreed we wouldn't get much change out of £1500. Just waiting for a call back from another.