Transit Connect 1.6 diesel PCV Valve or Head Gasket

[HuMpH]

Hi,
I was on motorway last week in the connect when it lost a little power and I noticed the temp rising. I stopped and let it cool down and added some water to try and get it home. The engine eventually got too hot and let the coolant go.
AA man comes along and he advised me that head gasket had gone. I put it in a local garage to have it properly diagnosed and get cost to fix. They say they have done a front end strip down and ran diagnostics and that the head gasket showed no signs of fault. They reckon it is the PCV valve that is the cause.
After having a quick read it seems that the pcv valve issue would have also had smoking and oil issues,which the van did not suffer from. Has anyone had same issue ? was it expensive to change pcv valve ?

Thanks.

[metalworker0]

Never heard of the PCV valve causing this before on a diesel unless it caused low oi level ...sure you have not got the info off them mixed up. it may be blocked ..but i think they have missed the real cause.

which could be a number of things, if not the head gasket.
to name a few .

thermostat
fan thermostatic switch
fan its self, broken ..not starting - burnt out
water pump impeller broken
loose aux belt
faulty pressure cap
not sure if your van has thermostatic louvers in front of the radiator
sticky brakes
blocked DPF which could be the result of a pcv chucking out oil
badly silted up cooling system


all the best mark

[HuMpH]

Thanks for your reply Mark. TBH I did think I must of heard him wrong,especially when he started quoting telephone numbers to fix it.

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I can't find a replacement pcv valve for my van anywhere, not even at the price shown above.
Thanks Ian.

[metalworker0]

well the vendors of the pcv valves on ebay ..only list it as transit when they mean connect

search term in ebay:

FORD 1.6 & 1.5 TDCI DIESEL PCV FOCUS SMAX MONDEO GALAXY PCV VALVE FIESTA TRANSIT

and its only £15 to £20. ( non genuine) note: cant find a picture of this on any of the ford transit connect parts diagrams

or it could be this, what they have replaced

1847101 FORD into the ebay search - which is the oil separator that some would call a pcv ..and - £48 genuine ford

654231314 - gasket - this is bogus parts number not showing up in any google search

and they probably mixed up coolant flush with coolant bottle when pricing

and why replace the bottle ..was that the real problem ..leaking etc

have you actually paid them? ....how old is it? - ...how many miles?... is it 16 valve or 8 valve?

all the best.mark

[HuMpH]

Those prices you posted are the main reason I started to question what they had priced for.
I rang fords parts today and asked about a pcv valve, after 15 mins of searching their catalog I was told they have no such part number listed and he would ring me back in half hour.
When fords rang back the guy said he can only think that they are talking about the one in the rocker cover, it comes as kit with new cover and can't be bought seperate from fords...he quoted £211.39 all in for genuine parts.
Am nipping garage in the morning to confirm what part they are charging £412.45 for. Will update tomorrow as should also have a copy of the diagnostics they ran.

[HuMpH]

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This is what they call a detailed diagnostic report..although it does state that the head gasket is fine.
I got a phone call this morning stating that their technician had finished rebuilding van and they wanted final payment, around £555 which makes a total cost just over 1600.
Oh he went on to say that further flushing and testing now shows van is smoking and the coolant bottle smells of fuel, they think the head gasket has gone...

[metalworker0]

You've still have not said if its 16 valve, SO I'M LEFT GUESSING ..if so, the injectors pass through the rocker cover ..and leaking injector washers can pressurise crankcase and within .

The engine with such is called the 1.6 HDI TDCI as far as i can find out

Here's an ebay listing with pictures of the combined rocker cover / camshaft carrier(if i'm right) showing the injector holes and i think glow plug holes ..all will be buried beneath other plastic covers.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/127055395892?

Don't know much about this engine ..ive been here about 4 years and we've only had one thread with someone owning one, and that was a couple of weeks ago. and that was the 1.5 version ..different again, (well when compared to those pics on ebay.)
They are more commonly fitted to the other ford cars like the focus as well as Citroen and Peugeot.


all the best.mark

[Altransit]

All I can add, if it's any help at all, is that we have 4 vehicles with that same engine fitted, mine has 115k miles, the other 3 are hovering around the 200k miles point. We've never had any H/G problems, or anything at all with the cooling system, but I believe that the header tanks can split and dump all the coolant. Injector seals have been a problem on one of them, and injectors themselves on two of the others.
It's a pretty hardworking and reliable little engine, and IMO Ford should have fitted it in the Connect much sooner, and dumped the dodgy wetbelt version of the 1.8

[HuMpH]

I was told the 8v version was fitted to most of the newer (2011) onwards vans.
The garage are trying to say that my head gasket was not the issue as it was a pcv that was not working.
The AA guy that came out showed me that certain hose was under pressure almost from starting the van, he never mentioned blowby at dipstick or the pcv valve and was sure it was gasket.
The Technician that worked on it says, as the pcv valve was faulty this had an effect on the diagnostic tests not showing problems with head gasket, only once replaced and rebuilt did any issue with gasket show up.
So after costing 1600 to be fixed, they now want another 1500 to do gasket and timing belt. As I can't drive the van away I am going to have to let them fix it and maybe try legal route later to try and get a bit back.

[metalworker0]

Hard to know how garages run their businesses these days, in years gone by before 1980 lots of drivers were clued up about things, lots did their own servicing , had their head in car mechanics magazine, which probably sold hundreds thousand monthly. now probably less than 10,000. cars became ever more complex ..people lost interest .
So these garages now taking advantage of peoples lack of knowledge ...was that their plan all along?

all the best.mark

[HuMpH]

After chatting with one of the garage owners, we did decide to go along with the further work at cost of £1500 and try legal route later.
However I have had a call to say there is more bad news..and it is going to cost around another 1100.
I asked for a detailed report to be emailed to me but all I got was a estimate with the Technicians report written on the bottom.
Technician's report is as follows:
'Head removed and have confirmed the vehicle has previously snapped a timing belt as there is impact on the pistons from valves, head gasket has visibly split and failed. Will also require a new aux tensioner mounting bracket as it had seized and spanned on removal, new oil cooler as this is a large amount of leaking coolant. Also require testing of the cam box to see if there is any damage from previous failure.'

Please let us know how you would like to proceed with the repairs required. A 50% deposit would come to £541.50 inc VAT.

So my van in bits and I can't keep giving cash, I've no idea what happens now. Would trading standards be the best starting point.

[metalworker0]

Well any good garage would not make wrongful diagnostics at your cost ..sounds like its working like this

we try that ££££
we try this £££££
or we try this now ££££
ok it was that all along £££££££

learn as they go philosophy at your expense

So if you went ahead and said yes ..what would be the total amount paid out to this garage ..sounds like its exceeding the price of the van now

Did you ever watch the Doc Hollywood film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uakq0aOVlMw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35JYvYSPb8A

all the best.mark