I bought my car- ‘98 Ford Taurus- with the engine light on, and they said it was just an oxygen (compressor?), but its not crucial to fix. In the past year and a half, my car jerks for a couple seconds every time I accelerate, my car leaks gas when its full tank, and now my heat doesn‘t work. So I brought it into an auto repair shop today. I only told him about my heat not working (it just blows out cold air) I kept all the other problems secret so they wouldn‘t take advantage of that info. They called me back saying that I had a cracked coolant container which leaked into my engine, and overheated my engine at some point. Now he wants to replace the coolant bottle, the head gasket, and something about a hose that connected to the back of my car. Total cost $1900. Is this a legit price, and the cause for my heat to not work? If I get this fixed would it fix my other problems with the car? Or is it not worth it and sell my car?
If your coolant bottle was cracked, it would leak out the coolant into your engine compartment. As the vehicle runs hotter, the antifreeze expands and continues to run into the overflow bottle (coolant bottle) and then, if cracked leaked out more. Continue the cycle and your coolant level gets down very low and your engine temp very high. Yes, this could/would cause your head gaskets to blow. And yes, it would cause your heat not to work. A good mechanic would figure this out fairly quickly when diagnosing the problem because your heater only works when your engine temp goes up, and with blown headgaskets, your engine temp may not be going up any more Did you notice water drops coming out the exhaust or smoke when you started? That is one of the first symptoms you are having problems. Look at the oil and if it is milky, then you have coolant in the oil and blown headgaskets. headgaskets take a while to replace as you have to pull the intake manifold and heads off to get to it. You also have to send the heads out to be machined and the valves re-done. $1,900 is in the ball park for the work that you described. Not all mechanics are theives. I am not one any more, but there are several reputable ones that enjoy working on cars and helping people.
Let me fix your car if you believe this. The bottle they are referring to is the reservoir tank for the coolant. It's purpose is to contain any excess coolant if the gets hotter than usually. When the temperature decreases, the radiator sucks this coolant back into the system. Cost for this should be around $150 for parts and labor. There is no way it can leak into your engine and overheat it. The head gasket is blown if there is coolant leaking into the cylinders and causing the engine to misfire. Have you had to add coolant to your car? Has your car been spewing white smoke from the exhaust or overheated? Have you noticed a loss in power in the engine? Chances are this might not be broken. You would mostly get a check engine light and you could take the car to an auto parts store to have the car diagnosed with their scanner. A ruptured hose, you would have puddles of coolant under your car which would be evident when you pulled away from the parking space. This is not a legitimate price, even if they were faulty. Get a second opinion, even from an auto parts store.
the price is about right, a head gasket is a big job and it sounds like that's probably the issue(even though there's not a lot of info). if you get it fixed, then it should fix the heating issue as well, but i'm pretty sure the gas issue is something seperate. you should get a second opinion before you agree to the repairs, but you're better off fixing it than selling it. a '98 Taurus with a broken head gasket is probably worth less than a grand, and you won't be able to buy much for that.
