My Fiance bought a rover 214 seven weeks ago from peoples Ford in edinburgh.It is a P reg having covered only 26000 miles.Three days ago it started to overheat so we topped it up with water till we took it back to them.Today they tell us that it needs a new cylinder head gasket and will take no responsibility whatsoever.They have said that they will fix it for a SPECIAL PRICE of 500POUNDS.We haggled with them and they would not do it for less than 400 pounds.Please can somebody help with what kind of price we should expect to pay as this seems extortionate.

I would contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau. I think that Peoples Ford are partly or fully responsible. What sort of warranty did you get ?

Not comparing like with like but I just had the following work done on my girlfriends Renault 19. New Cam belt, 5 new valves, new Oil and filter, new head gasket plus some machining work and various checks of other components as a result of cambelt failure. All in with labour and vat, cost was £499.10.

ChrisW.

I think you need to check your warranty and as for £400 for a cylinder head gasket on a rover, try someone else.

Sorry to hear this, this time last year my 28,000 mile Rover 220 Coupe blew it's head gasket and this cost £1200 to fix (head warped, needed skimming, values had to be re-ground etc. etc. etc.). It is a common problem with the K series engine, I know many people who have encountered this. If you end up paying £400 that's not bad but that's not the point, you must have some sort of warranty from the dealer? Even if you don't, I'm sure you've got a chance of pressurising them into doing for free if you make enough noise.

Good Luck,

Matt.

Often you'll find that warranties included with second hand cars (usually crap) do not cover a blown cylinder head gasket (as well as a multitude of other parts). As said above, check the small print on the warranty.

As far as the repair is concerned, I suspect that the amount quoted is about average since changing a head gasket is a very labour intensive job (the head gasket itself probably costs less than £10). You may well get the job done more cheaply at a non-franchise dealer.

D.

mutant_matt,

Sorry to be an anorak but the engine in the Rover 220 Coupe isn't a K series it is actually refered to as a T16.