New Heart for ruby, from a leaking head gasket.

Hello all,

I initially posted it the "Low engine coolant level without external leak" thread, but once our issues played out i have decided to move it to its own thread.

Initial psot

Jackets said:

Was noticing a stumble on startup after the car sat for the night, so it was mentioned to the dealer on the next oil change. They looked no codes.


Coolant was down some, so they Found a leaking hose and replaced it at a cost of $63.20. plus the Oil change at $52.45


He did not want to diagnose the stumble told me to "Drive it till the light comes on"


At that point i started keeping an eye on coolant as i figure we got Hosed (pun intended).


It was using Coolant maybe a half liter per 1000km. But no light, Stumble worse almost stalling when cold if it was cold out.


Temp gauge always saying good. ( i now know its a **** hoax gauge)


We use the OLM to gauge oil life since the dealer suggested that, and it runs us about 10-12,000km to change. Never burns any.


It was slowly using more and more coolant. at 75,993 km it was returned, To me it was a failing head gasket, NO external leak, coolant smell when running, worst at startup. But i was told they had never done a head gasket on one yet (Nov 26/16), and it was just the pump as they had changed lots of them. Told them to Pressurize the system and if it leaked down to humor me and pull the plugs. Grabbed the rental on them and left. They called about 3 hrs later and said i was indeed right that coolant was leaking into #1.


Have it back, runs smoother now. Got it back at 76,000km on the nose lol. Still a dog under 2600 or so though, but CEL came on 180km later. Went back and its got a lean code, mech looked and poked and found a vent line not on right. Cleared the code.
Went another 40-50km and its back on again. I'll stop again today on the way past later.


They also replaced pulg #1 as it was cracked.


Its a 2014 1LT, We average about 200Km a day 7days a week. 7.4l/100 on summer tires, 8.4/100 on Winter tires. Gf loves it more then me i swear, i like too though.


Ended up here looking for the issues it has like the coolant loss thought i would add our experiences to the list here.


As a side note, our rez tank cap fits nice and firm.


Cheers.

Click to expand...

Got the car back Wednesday the 21st


When i took it back in it was using coolant again, they checked the gasket was leaking again, so they decided to replace the head.


After a few days they called and said the head arrived, installed and still leaked after testing. They decided that the block was to blame and ordered in a new longblock for it. (GM/PN 12668772)



I have not totaled all the parts they tossed at it but i figure about $6000, plus shop time (long block alone is listed on my paper work at $5404.50).


I've put about 600km on the new engine, thus far it seems ok although only about 70% of the grunt the old one had even with the leaking head gasket. ALthough i have not really push it to hard yet.

I have noticed whine/whistle in time with boost, even the gf commented on how "annoying it is" and she had not noticed it with the old engine, while she is partly right it was almost inaudible, it is quite pronounced now. worse then any of the Cruzes i had on loan while it was in the shop.

I'm not positive on what the whine/whistle is, it sounds like kind of like a bad alt if you know that sound but it also sounds very similar to the bad catalytic converter i had in a Mazda Protoge5

Thus far the dealer has been great to deal with no cost out of pocket. Let see out of all this we've used
Covered Rentals
2014 Cruze LT Red identical to ours. was good shifted notchy though. 63k km or so
2014 Cruze LT Silver with mylink put maybe 50km on it, BCM took a dump seemed good otherwise. 72k km i think
2014 Cruze LT Silver (replacement for the broken one) worked decent but had 1/32-2/32 tread depth never noticed until i caught some slush avoiding a fallen tree and wrecked it. 78k km
2014 Buick Verano with summer tires i hated this car but it was peppy again about 70k km

Dealer loaner after warranty rental coverage ended
2011 Cruze, with the 1.8 auto, was ok. had about 150k km on it


We shall see what this noise adds up to, any thoughts?
If it stays running good without issue i'll wait until i have 5000km and go for the first oil change to ask about the whine/whistle

On a side note, I'm looking for a wired gauge solution to keep tabs on vitals since the temp gauge is a joke(man that urks me) IF you put a gauge in a car it should work right. Looking at the Ultra Gauge MX 1.3, it there any other products like it that are wired and cheaper?


Anyways, Thanks all