driving down the M3 last night inoticed what i thought was smoke in the rear view mirror, was travelling at 70/75mph at the time, i pulled over and was engulfed in steam, the top hose had blown off, RAC man reattached hose and refilled with water, on starting the scoob with the cap off the water was expelled like a fountain, switched off, put in more water, resealed cap and restarted, lot of steam/moisture came from the exhaust and top hose was pressurised, tickover running at around 1500rpm, got recovered back home.
engine starts and runs ok albeit fast on tickover, could it be head gasket ?
thanks in advance......

 

does sound like it

 

the hoses are supposed to be pressurized, to 1.1 bar. try draining the system dow and refilling it with fresh coolant. better to try the easy things before assuming headgasket. hose failure is common.

 

Could be a number of things. Blocked/leaking Rad, air lock, stat.

Try filling through the turbo hose with a funnel and disconnect the small rad hose that goes to the header tank. Leave the cap on. When you see coolant flowing from the top of the rad, put all hoses abck on and top up header tank. This will eliminate air locks.

Take the stat out and test in boiling water.

Get the car up to temp and check the rad is hot allover. Does coolant come from the overflow behind the passenger side headlight?

Tucker