Interesting - 3 different thicknesses of gasket available for the 1.9 PD's (must be for skimming) and the ARL engine uses different bolts to the rest...
Well i've just done 170 miles on the motorway and back and all's well !! Not used a drop of coolant. Mine is the 115 ajm engine as well and so was the other one we did at work. It has now done 131k miles so it's not done bad really. As for the thickness of the gaskets i belive thats determined by the number of holes in the edge of the gasket. Jason
Crispy is an vw tech! We also have one working for us. The above sounds more like a batch problem than a design. Still, anythings possible in car land.
According to the notes on my VW report mines a 2 hole gasket. Good to hear yours is now sorted heardy. Mine didn't like my trip last night, from Wickford, Essex to MK I was sat on the M25 for a couple of hours then when I did get off and cruised along at 80 it soon overheated, ended up going 50 on a dual carriage way until I could pull over safely. while all of that was happening i couldn't work out how to turn the damn TP off on the radio Will be popping in to the 3rd and final garage I'm after a quote from after work on Monday if I finish early enough and then make some decisions from there. Who ever does it I'm going to get them to look into my overboosting problem a bit more to, the last garage replaced the cheapest bits first for me which improved it but it still happens.
Well thought I'd add some closure to this thread. Head gasket was done along with a head head (pics to come next week...on hols!) Was deffinately them 2 causing the problem as the damage is quite clear to see. But finally got my car back Friday night have done 450 miles already and it's spot on! Sooooo pleased to finally have a working car again, and I think the overboosting is sorted too, I was going easy on the car for those 450 miles though so can't be sure on that. So new head.. about 600 including courier cost garages work 735. This included alot of other work too.... new front discs and pads (brembo discs on mintex? fast road pads), CV boot, exhaust bracket, all new seals for the PD injectors and 13 hours labour. i'm very pleased overall, I'm in debt to my parents for the next year or so now, but i do have a fully repaired car
