A couple of questions about blown head gaskets

Factual Questions
1

My car (94 Chrysler Le Baron Convertible) started leaking radiator fluid two weeks ago. I thought it was the water pump, but a guy who was interested in buying it said it was a head gasket (and suddenly wasn’t interested anymore). He seemed to know what he was doing, and wasn’t just trying to lowball me, so I believe his diagnosis.

  1. Is there anything I, the driver, did that accelerated the blowing of the gasket, or was it just its time?

  2. When buying our new car (2009 Mustang Convertible) my wife mentioned she had blown the head gasket in a couple of her cars in the past. (This was before we knew our car had blown its gasket. It had many things wrong, so I wasn’t even going to replace the water pump I thought had gone.) The Ford salesman said blown head gaskets are really a thing of the past. Any truth to this?

  3. (Lucky bonus question) Why are they so expensive to replace? You just* remove the head, scrape off the old gasket, throw in the new $3 gasket, and stick the head back on.

(*) Based on a lawn mower repair class I took in High School thirty years ago. May have no relation to reality. (ETA: actually, I don’t remember if the lawnmower engine even had a gasket.)

2

A blown head gasket can be very expensive, as there are many parts to remove to access it. Labor intensive.

Gaskets get old. Still, some cars are known to blow a head gasket sooner than others (some engines just have a rep for this. Turbo 2.2 engines from Chrysler do this alot).

It was a 750 to 1000 dollar repair on those engines.

3

Surfaces have to be re-machined or else the new gasket will fail again very quickly. Also many cars nowadays have deformable bolts holding the cylinder head. These can only be used once and are quite expensive to replace.

4

The head(s) may also be milled slightly to flatten the mating surfaces better for the new gasket, that’s a cost too. There are many parts one may have to take apart to get the head off an engine.

Head gaskets I don’t believe are a thing of the past, just that engines are better designed to not take that kind of hit with better cooling. But you can still blow a head gasket with poor maintenance, abusive driving, and poor cooling.

Yeah, lawnmowers engines have head gaskets.

5

My car (94 Chrysler Le Baron Convertible) started leaking radiator fluid two weeks ago. I thought it was the water pump, but a guy who was interested in buying it said it was a head gasket (and suddenly wasn’t interested anymore).

External leakage, such as from a water pump, is rare with head gasket failure. More typical is internal leakage and symptoms such as rapid coolant loss, rough running, white smoke (steam, actually) from the exhaust, and coolant in the oil. Now, there are different ways a head gasket can fail, and he may have been right, but I’m skeptical.

1) Is there anything I, the driver, did that accelerated the blowing of the gasket, or was it just its time?

Generally a driver-caused head gasket failure is from letting the engine overheat severely.

2) When buying our new car (2009 Mustang Convertible) my wife mentioned she had blown the head gasket in a couple of her cars in the past. (This was before we knew our car had blown its gasket. It had many things wrong, so I wasn’t even going to replace the water pump I thought had gone.) The Ford salesman said blown head gaskets are really a thing of the past. Any truth to this?

Head gasket failures are less common with most newer cars, but certainly not unheard of.

3) (Lucky bonus question) Why are they so expensive to replace? You just remove the head, scrape off the old gasket, throw in the new $3 gasket, and stick the head back on.*

Removing a head from an automobile engine is VASTLY more complex than that. Actual working time (remove and replace) is typically most of a day. Then the head has to be stripped of manifolds, sensors, etc. before being sent to a machine shop for pressure testing, resurfacing, and such. A gasket set is needed - besides the head gasket itself (which would go for 10-20 times the price you mention), there are manifold gaskets, valve cover gasket, various other gaskets and seals, and sometimes head bolts that need to be replaced.

6

Thanks everyone, for the replies.

He opened the radiator cap, and thought there was oil in the coolant. There was brown-green goo that stretched from the cap to the radiator when the cap was first removed, and more goo just inside, which he said was due to oil in the radiator fluid. I’ve noticed I needed to add oil between oil changes, so this seemed plausible. On the other hand, I have added Bars Leaks to try to stop a heater core leak (eventually bypassed the core when that didn’t work), so maybe that’s what was in there.

7

Adding oil between changes is not uncommon. Up to a quart oil consumption per 1,000 miles (burning oil that gets past the piston rings) can be considered normal or acceptable - i.e., not bad enough to warrant a repair. Most cars use less than that, of course, but all use some.

Most head gasket failures leak coolant, often disastrously. It is possible to have one that leaks oil internally, but it’s not at all common. Oil in the coolant typically looks oily, and often has the “milk shake” appearance commonly associated with coolant in the oil. Bar’s Leaks generally is darker, looking more dirty than oily.