Help! - Losing coolant & limp mode after EGR & EGR cooler delete, head gasket gone?

[creatz]

Hi all,

First of all apologies for the long post however am really stuck on this one

Picked up a standard Ibiza Cupra TDI the other week so I'm back in the Seat scene after a while!

Purchased it off a fellow member of these forums, it has been very well looked after having been used for commuting, 150k miles on the clock. It was ticking over slightly strangely and sounded almost as if it had a slight misfire so I feared that the camshaft was on it's way out, but having my mechanic check it over and giving it the all clear I took the plunge and bought the car.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I've given it a mild remap and all is going well. Gone into limp mode a couple times when driving harder at higher speed, had it plugged in and confirmed my suspicion as being sticky turbo veins as the previous owner didn't drive the car hard.

Fast forward to this week - I've just had a local chap fit an Allard EGR delete, as well as deleting the EGR cooler. He also sprayed some Mr Muscle to unclog the veins.

Trip to the airport the next day and it is going into limp mode when crusing along at 75mph. This happened more often when I used cruise control, or sat at a constant speed. So if I flicked on and off the throttle it would go further without going into limp mode - if not, it would go into limp mode every other minute.. Not impressed.

The next morning I notice a puddle under the car and check the coolant - it's almost empty and appears to have overflowed out of the cap due to high pressure. Also worth noting that there is a lot of coolant pressure when opening it after the engine has been sat overnight. Topped it up and it lost a lot of coolant from one trip when driving over 80mph - on the way back I drove slowly and it lost less coolant.

The car is preforming the same as always, temperature is sitting at 90. There is white smoke when starting the car from cold.

Few of these symptoms are pointing to head gasket failure but I want to find out if it could be something else before I go there?! As it coincides with the work it had done so hopefully it's something cheaper...

Any help appreciated,

Thanks!

 

[aceman]

My first thoughts when you said you had a egr delete was a coolant leak from the coolant pipes that fed the egr cooler. Was a proper egr coolant pipe delete kit used like what Darkside sell here;

http://www.darksidedevelopments.co....-cooler-delete-pipe-for-ibiza-polo-fabia.html

However what you say about white smoke when you first startup in a morning does not bode well and sounds very much like head gasket failure. You could get a Garage to do a coolant pressure test and maybe a sniffer test to check if there are exhaust contaminants in the coolant which would confirm if the head gasket has gone. I would check for leaks elsewhere as well as it isn't unknown for the expansion tanks to gain a crack and start leaking so give it a thorough inspection too.

Good look fella and hope it doesn't turn out to be head gasket.

 

[creatz]

Still no luck

So I had the turbo cleaned out properly & it no longer goes into limp mode when flooring it - however it still goes into limp mode when on cruise control/sat at constant motorway speeds!

Still losing coolant; bad news is that after cleaning turbo (mr muscle) some of the carbon that the exhaust kicked out has gotten into the coolant showing that exhaust gasses are in fact getting into it. Very pressurised when I open cap, bubbles up.

Now I still don't think it's the head gasket, I've tried reading up and nobody has the same symptoms.

Only lose coolant when driving hard, no loss of power, no overheating, no mayo in oil, only a tiny bit of white smoke when starting (heard it's a lot when head is gone)..

I'm convinced it's something to do with the EGR cooler being deleted as it only started doing it after that, I'm also convinced that's whats causing it to go into limp mode but don't understand how? I'm no mechanic!

I'll give that pipe a go that you've suggested however some of the leak is coming from under the expansion bottle, which is running down the chassis and dripping further down. How would a leak cause exhaust gasses to get into the coolant & cause it to go into limp mode?

I bought a new expansion bottle cap to no effect, next up I'll get a new bottle and see if a crack in that could be the culprit.

Cheers!

 

[Lowe]

Nope, I had a similar thing and the HG was gone. They don't always go 'bang', mine never once overheated or gave me any signs at all other than slightly pressurised coolant tank.

 

[creatz]

Do you think it could also be causing it to go into limp mode? Can't see how it'd be related however it's a strange coincidence

 

[Lowe]

I only experienced limp on the odd occasion - was an unrelated cam speed sensor.