I'm having fun and games with the cooling system at the moment. Friday morning, I invented a new game called "Astra spotting on the M20" while I was stood waiting for the AA bloke to turn up after I lost all power on the motorway and the engine overheated. Absolutely no coolant in the tank, and I know it was full because I checked it on Thursday evening. My Dad asked me to check his before he went away for the weekend, so I checked mine while I was at it...
When the AA guy turned up, he did some basic tests and couldn't find any external leaks. Said he suspected it could be the water pump, but it would really need to be taken into a garage to be certain... so he towed me home and said if I fill it to just over the max line on the expansion tank, I should hopefully be OK for 2-3 miles to limp it to a garage...
So I took it to Nationwide Autocentre in Maidstone Town Centre. This was recommended by the AA guy, mainly as they're affiliated tot he AA and as a member I can get a decent discount. I took it in and explained it had overheated, no external leaks spotted by the AA patrol guy, possibly the water pump but I really need it checked out completely for anything else it could be as well.
Called me up an hour or two later and said "Yup, it's the water pump but we'll need to do the cambelt at the same time due to the way it's setup on these modern engines". I wasn't too sure about that, and the cambelt has only been done 20,000 miles ago... but I'm not technical enough to know much about it... so I just said "Yeah, OK. Do what you need to do to fix the leak and get it working properly again".
So next day, they call me up and say it's all done, sorted. Pop down there and picked it up... but I did notice a small puddle under the bumper... but it was only small, and it was parked on a slope... so I gave them the benefit of doubt incase it was just where the leaking coolant had got caught when they were oing their tests and it had just run off the under tray, or if they'd accidentally spilt some while trying to fill up... I checked the expansion tank level and it was fine... so I thought OK, I'll see how it goes. They've fixed it apparently, so it should be OK...
Drove it home. 2 whole miles. Only about a quarter of the expansion tank was full now. Most of it had gone... somewhere... Unfortunately they were just closing up as I picked it up... So I did a few tests yesterday and found out something interesting. The guy said to me at the desk that they'd left it running for 20-30 minutes and it was fine... so I ran it for 20-30 minutes, and guess what? It was fine... Got it to temperature... I put the bumper back on (I'd taken it off to look for leaks) and then went to grab some more water incase it [censored]ed itself again ready to go for a drive... Before I went, I rev'd it a bit and checked it... Think I held the revs at 2k RPM for about a minute... Oh look, half the coolants gone already.
I don't know if you can see very well in this picture, but I could see coolant running from underneath the radiator, pretty much dead centre:
That's when looking down the gap where I've ringed in red:
Got the mother out to rev it a bit for me while I looked down there to see if I could see anything happening, and when she rev'd it, it [censored]ed itself. When she stopped, it was fine... So I put the bumper back on and this happened:
So from what I can see, the new water pump has made sod all difference, and it's still just as bad as it was when it went in to start with... so this morning, I topped her up and drove her straight back to the garage.
Parked up, and typically it hadn't used much coolant to try and prove a point to the guys while I was still there, but it had used a bit... It was sat just on the line when I'd filled it over the line.
Walked in, put the invoice down and just said "Morning. You changed the water pump on my Astra on Saturday to fix a coolant leak & overheating problem, but it hasn't made any difference as it [censored]ed out all the coolant on the 2 mile journey home."
The guy started to look very sheepish when I said that... Took down my details and asked to leave it with them. I said I want it sorted as soon as possible and at the moment, I'm not willing to pay any extra because they've done the diagnosis and replaced a part that was un-necessary and hasn't fixed the issue.
So I left it with them. 3 hours later, drove past with the mother to see they've not moved it at all, but they've opened the bonnet... Got a call about another 3 hours later telling me that they think it might be the radiator, but they're not sure. They'd ordered a new one which had just arrived, but it was the wrong one so they had to order another one which won't be here until tomorrow. He then started saying they'll have to try and hook it up and see if it fixes the problem or if there are any other leaks anywhere. He also said that he's been on holiday last week so doesn't know much about it, but apparently one of the technicians said that there might have been a problem with the radiator on Friday. If that is the case, I've got two questions to ask.
1) Why was I not told about this?
2) Why was nothing done about it?!
I'm sorry, but to me that doesn't sound very professional. I've had a few people tell me now that just a simple pressure test will show them exactly where a leak is without having to even run the engine... so if they've done that, then surely they can be sure what the problem is. They don't seem to know what they're talking about. So if anyone is in the Maidstone area, I would highly recommend against using Nationwide Autocentre.
It's still there now waiting for the monkeys to get the right radiator for it. I really want to take it somewhere else now, but seeing as they've taken over £300 of my money to "fix" the problem already, I'm not going anywhere until they fix the problem.... I'm not spending any more money un-necessarially.
