Head gasket help

[Tepson]

Hi all not sure where to start so ill just get on with it..

owned my gt turbo for a year now and the coolant has been pretty filthy ever since i bought it. i never thought it was oily as such just had loads of dirty brown mud kinda stuff in the rad cap etc. did a coolant change with the first service and on about 3 other occasions over the year and it gets dirty again pretty much straight away. There was no signs of water in the oil either (and still isnt!) My temp has always been fine and the car never really used any coolant or oil.

Also the heaters never worked and after checking everything else turns out it was the heater matrix. i still havent replaced this although i have one here as its a big job and have been waiting for a long summers day.

Right so about a month ago i started to loose a bit of coolant, seemed to be forcing itself out the overflow pipe but only now and again so just topped it up when needed. So 2 weeks ago now i was fed up with filthy coolant and my rad playing up so bought a civic rad and new hoses etc which has done nothing lol coolant still filthy and then about a week later my car has started slightly misfiring and feel really lumpy on idle.

so i checked the plugs and leads etc with no luck so i just took it to my mechanic and he seems to think that all this is down to my headgasket going. hes a friend and trusted mechanic so hes not scamming me and i think this is a fair enough assumption given the symptoms but my only worry is that coolant was filthy a year ago and that seems to be the main reason he thinks its the headgasket.

surely a headgasket wont slowly die over more than a year?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated as i dont wanna have the headgasket done and my car still be running shit after

thanks

[Taggy]

The dark murky stuff is no doubt rust from the radiator system, although you have changed over to the civic rad your broken heater matrix is most likely the culprit, if its not working giving you any heat in your cabin then its no doubt blocked with crap, gunge, rust, which is why you dont get any heat from it.

Thinking about it if its blocked then its going to be causing all sorts of problems with your coolant system with the water not being able to flow around correctly, i would remedy the heater matrix problem first, i am willing to bet my left leg thats where all your murky crap water is coming from!

Are you getting excessive white smoke from your exhaust when its running, what colour are your plugs, take all 4 out and compare, you should have a nice tan brown colour, if one of them is soaking wet or black it could indicate that water is getting into that particular cylinder.

Just work through it, get your matrix sorted first, then test the above.

Hi all not sure where to start so ill just get on with it..

owned my gt turbo for a year now and the coolant has been pretty filthy ever since i bought it. i never thought it was oily as such just had loads of dirty brown mud kinda stuff in the rad cap etc. did a coolant change with the first service and on about 3 other occasions over the year and it gets dirty again pretty much straight away. There was no signs of water in the oil either (and still isnt!) My temp has always been fine and the car never really used any coolant or oil.

Also the heaters never worked and after checking everything else turns out it was the heater matrix. i still havent replaced this although i have one here as its a big job and have been waiting for a long summers day.

Right so about a month ago i started to loose a bit of coolant, seemed to be forcing itself out the overflow pipe but only now and again so just topped it up when needed. So 2 weeks ago now i was fed up with filthy coolant and my rad playing up so bought a civic rad and new hoses etc which has done nothing lol coolant still filthy and then about a week later my car has started slightly misfiring and feel really lumpy on idle.

so i checked the plugs and leads etc with no luck so i just took it to my mechanic and he seems to think that all this is down to my headgasket going. hes a friend and trusted mechanic so hes not scamming me and i think this is a fair enough assumption given the symptoms but my only worry is that coolant was filthy a year ago and that seems to be the main reason he thinks its the headgasket.

surely a headgasket wont slowly die over more than a year?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated as i dont wanna have the headgasket done and my car still be running shit after

thanks