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MG MGF Technical - HGF diagnosis

When I bought the 2001 VVC MGF in June, I knew about the HG problems, but apparently it was ok so away I drove. 3 months later and the muck in the coolant tank, which appeared as small blobs at first, is now like a sludge. Less than 21000 miles on the clock, and I'm a little bit annoyed.

I took it yesterday to an ex MG Rover dealer in Chemnitz and I'll post the findings in here, and the cost etc (assuming it's HGF, which I'm pretty sure it is). I'll also get the 3 year service done at the same time.
Chris Heinrich Perkins

Hi Chris,

Sorry to hear that, I made it 3,000 miles further before mine blew :-(

The cost of fitting the PRT thermostat might make the bill a bit higher, but if the head is coming off then it should be quick & easy - perhaps worth looking into, since it seems to have cut the likelihood of another failure significantly.

No harm in checking that it's been properly bled after you collect it, even the best mechanics can have an off day.

Good luck!
Mike Hankin

Thanks Mike,

Where can I find details/suppliers of this PRT thermostat that everyone is talking about?
Chris Heinrich Perkins

You could also consider a remote thermostat from either QED or Elise parts. It is easier to fit and arguably a better solution.
Blue Pocket Rocket

>It is easier to fit and arguably a better solution.

here's the argument!

The rover one has been designed and tested by rover, it has been accepted in very tight cost control enviroments to do real good (or it would not have been fitted). It has proved itself on many cars(10 of thousands), over 4 years, not just MGF but landrover.

That said there have been some HGF's, but there are always HGF's on every car with an engine.


The QED thermostat has been used on very few cars (100's?) and there hasn't been anyone shouting about how they've been let down.


You chose
Will Munns

> The rover one has been designed and tested by rover, it has been accepted in very tight cost control enviroments to do real good (or it would not have been fitted). It has proved itself on many cars(10 of thousands), over 4 years, not just MGF but landrover.

Well yes there is that argument. However it took Rover nearly 8 years to come out with PRT and only because Landrover complained. Given the amount of testing the MGF had before its launch in 95 its surprising this problem wasn't picked up. Even in TFs with PRT HGF still occur and usually within 20k miles, so it hasn't been a complete fix. Maybe Rovers testing wasn't as thorough as it should have been.

> The QED thermostat has been used on very few cars (100's?) and there hasn't been anyone shouting about how they've been let down.

Maybe because they haven't been let down! It's not just QED that have an RT solution there are other tuners(Eliseparts to name one) who do the same thing. Given that motorsport tends to highlight any weaknesses very quickly maybe they came up with the right one.
Blue Pocket Rocket

Can you give me links to these 'fixes'?

Although we all love our MGF/TF's there really is no excuse for such frequent HGF's at this stage of the internal cumbustions engines development.

I think it's not short of outrageous that mine has popped after 21000 miles, and I don't think I'd be able to trust a Rover solution to this problem, simply because, as mentioned above, it should never have been a problem in the first place. When developing the MGF it should have been fixed from the word go.

And if not, then they had years to fix it. There were slight improvements made for the MY2000 weren't there...But what good did they do.

I love the car, it's British and that's important to me, but i honestly don't think i'll get another MGF/TF after this one. Why is it, that frustratingly, whenever a decent British car comes along recently, it seems to be blighted with something bad that's niggling but usually important? And any that were actually pretty good have been absorbed by other, foreign companies. It depresses when I see the odd Rover here in Germany, to think what our continental neighbours must think now that Rover have failed again (admittidly, after they were bled dry by BMW). They Germans have their BMW, Porsche, Audi, Merc, VW, Smart, Mini to be proud of. The French even have a couple of big car makers, and I have nothing to be proud of now. It nearly brings a tear to my eye.
Chris Heinrich Perkins

The 'remote thermostat' does not effect the flow of water thru the head when the outside is very cold but the engine is very hot. The Rover thermostat does.

If the PRT thermostat was a placebo designed to placate Ford then it would only be fitted to Landrovers - it is not.

The British "car industry" is alive and thriving - we have the most productive workforce in the world.

The "British car" industry is also alive and well with many small firms producing fantastic cars with a range not seen anywhere else in europe (the world?) [lotus/catarum/noble/ariel/westfield/morgan/pilgrim/ultima]

+ at least a million kit car companies

What we don't have is a _volume_ "british car" company. But why should that matter? the money doesn't go back to france, it goes into the workers wages and the government coffers.
Will Munns

>> Can you give me links to these 'fixes'? <<

Try http://web.tiscali.it/elise_s1/index.htm
Rob Bell

I've got to agree with Will on this one!

When people across the world think of luxury top end cars, two names which feature very highly will always be Bentley and Aston Martin!

Now, although, technically, they are not 100% British, they are seen to be and are commenly thought of as being "Born and Bred" from England.

And then obviously, as Will pointed out, you have the other lesser known abroad but just as highly respected over here smaller companies.

When it comes to cars, we are stil very much "Great" Britain. :-)
Kris Ford

I know someone's going to pick me up on this so I'll sort it now. :-)

>>technically, they are not 100% British<<

I'm referring to Aston of course, who were bought by the Ford Motor Co. in the mid-nineties but are still based and produced in Gaydon, UK.
Kris Ford

> The 'remote thermostat' does not effect the flow of water thru the head when the outside is very cold but the engine is very hot.

Yes it does!! When the engine gets hot the thermostat opens. What PRT does is introduce some more volume into the bypass circuit. In fact even without PRT coolant still passes through the head into the bypass circuit. However even with PRT the inherent fault still remains in that the thermostat is being asked to do two jobs - controlling input and output temperature but in reality it is like a man - it only do one job at a time!

Chris
I understand your frustration as mine went at 23K but if the head is not warped then its just a gasket change plus belts for good measure. If the job is done properly then it won't happen again. Then you can get out there and enjoy the car (which is what I do):-) .
Blue Pocket Rocket

Thanks for the info.

It's all very well reminding me about the smaller companies that are making British cars (although Lotus aren't 100% are they?) and I wish them every success. Still, a part of me died somehow when the last remnant of British mass car makers died earlier this year. A remnant that represented Austin, Morris, Triumph and the other BL marques that made some great cars. I'm certainly not alone in being a bit depressed, I'm sure.

I know that most people still consider Bentley, Aston, Rolls, Jaguar, Daimler, even Vauxhall etc to be British, but they're not...Well, not quite.

So the British workers are still making lots of cars, and that's great for their livlihoods, but why does it seem that the owners of the former British manufacturers didn't seem to think twice about selling up? I mean, how come they didn't amass the kinds of money that BMW have to keep themselves going...Why was business for them so bad (and I'm not just talking about Rover...Jaguar, Aston, Rolls etc also spring to mind). Bad business practices, or did they simply produce cars that weren't as good as the competition?

Why did things stagnate over the last approximately 25 years?

It's nothing to do with my Head Gasket anymore :-S, but it bothers me.

I hope the new MG China/British partnership will produce excellent cars in the near future to make me proud that even just a part of the new firm is British.
Chris Heinrich Perkins

>> It's nothing to do with my Head Gasket anymore :-S, but it bothers me. << Maybe we've been distracted by the current issue of HGF, but surely what we have all bought into is the heritage of MG - no manufacturer anywhere is capable of producing cars that don't go wrong, but relatively few are able to compare with the strength of the MG brand. OK, the Britishness of it all may have taken a recent downturn, but let's not overlook the fact that if it wasn't for the MG pipedream-come-reality of an affordable sportscar, we'd all be driving Euroboxes and wishing we could afford an Aston. MX5 drivers need not interject at this point, I've seen you guys disappearing into a gravel trap trying to corner as quick as a an F ;o)

OK, MGs that use the K series engine suffer from HGF. The unlucky few that suffer this early on have good cause to gripe, especially since warranties became irrelevant, but let's face facts - what makes a sportscar fun is the extraction of something closer to the limit from the assembled machinery; Toyota turbo units weigh more than an elephant, so reliability comes at the expense of chuckability, in fact all the competing manufacturers have their own niggles. Given the right working conditions the K series engine is better than the rest, and that's not just British pride speaking, so let's do what we can to keep it within tolerances, regardless of what the business end does about minimising its liability. When the head is coming off anyway, it must take ooh 20mins extra to fit the PRT, admittedly no cast-iron guarantee of no repeats but current evidence suggests it's the most valid protection.

As BPR says, don't let this irritation affect the enjoyment factor. You'll be back out giving those Boxsters something to think about quite soon, and with luck you'll pass one or two on the hard shoulder (Porsche aren't immune to gremlins either, and you can add a nought to the repair costs!)
Mike Hankin

Chris

Everybody seems to be getting too political and technical here.

The K series engine is a light, all aluminium alloy unit which has a high rate of expansion and contraction and is all held together with those long steel bolts with a much lower E & C rate. When you start up the engine from cold, think of it as a load of loose bits. Drive it hard from cold it will very likely leak! OK a slight weakness, but it does go well in a lot of cars doesn't it...

Once hot, the alloy will have expanded and tightened all the joints ready for full power.

Personally, I have worked on this theory with my 2000 MGF 1.8i, and have ALWAYS driven it on low throttle and kept revs below 3000rpm until the OIL is somewhere near it's full working temperature. This takes about 6-8 miles (10-14km). Once the engine is hot and tight it can then be thrashed as you wish.

I now have 25k miles on the clock and due to HGF concerns, have always check water level (& colour) before/after journeys and it has never dropped at all (only after a coolant change - every two years, when the last of the air is still finding its way out)

Yes it's hard to drive gently with such an eager and willing motor, but I reckon it's got to be worth it. Even at 3000rpm in 5th you can still do around 70mph, so it really isn't that bad. You just have to get used to being passed by others while you are still warming up your pride and joy - then go for it!

Were you this careful at warming up your engine?

Hope this helps

Pete
Pete Tipping

Pete,

Yes, I read elsewhere about being careful from cold, and not going over 3000rpm until the oil is hotter. I read that you had to wait until the oil temp was on the gauge at 60, which I found to be about 3 miles.

Perhaps I wasn't careful enough, I don't know, but I did only have the car for about 2500 miles before the HG went, so who knows what the previous owners did to it.

When it's fixed and back, I'll be double careful!
Chris Heinrich Perkins

Chris
Glad all is sorted now. I particularly did not mention an actual oil temperature as they seem to vary quite a lot between cars. Mine seems to finally settle at around 130 deg. I wait until I've got a reading of 120, before any full throttle stuff.

Regards and Happy MG'ing!
Pete
Pete Tipping

Pete
Had my Trophy from new and did as you do but the HG still went at 23k. So being careful sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't.
Blue Pocket Rocket

I've just read that motorway driving over 70mph is also bad, because of the cold air at the front, position of the stat etc...Leading to the engine getting hot, then quickly cold, then hot again and repeating the cycle.

When mine is fixed I'd like to drive it back to England, so how should I drive on the Autobahn?

Should I definitely get a PRT fitted (the late TF type)? I mean, does it really work, and will I be able to worry less on long trips?

Chris Heinrich Perkins

Chris
Fit either PRT or QED RT whichever is your preference. On the autobahn cruise at whatever your comfortable with - engine will be fine. It is the warmup which is vital.
Blue Pocket Rocket

Strange how we all have our little routines which we think will help avoid HGF!.

I am firmly in the "Warm down" camp!!.....

As a Heating engineer I have seen the damage that is caused to low water content alloy heat exchangers, through "Heat soak"......

Doubless I am wasting my time (and petrol), but its my little placebo!..

:o)
Mark.L

Right, ok, that's settled.

I'll have a look at the prices and availability of both those options (as many links as possible pointing to suppliers would be a big help).

And nevermind all the routines, I'll simply make absolutely sure that the engine/oil is nice and cosy before putting any stress on.
Chris Heinrich Perkins

Yep I'm in the warm up and warm down camp too Mark!
Blue Pocket Rocket

http://www.qednet.demon.co.uk/

http://www.eliseparts.com/

http://www.mgfcentre.com/
Blue Pocket Rocket

The garage are finished with the service and Head Gasket replacement - Cost EUR996 (about £690).

I know that's probably cheaper than a service and HG replacement would be in the UK at an MGR dealer, but it's still a lot of money to spend on a 3.5 year old car with 21,000 miles on it!

And it came just at the wrong moment, when I have to lay out cash for lots of other things all at once.

I'm not sure if I've got a PRT on it now on not. I don't think so as they should have cancelled that request.

I'll pick it up tomorrow. I expect I'll learn to 'love' it again, but the HGF feeling at the back of my mind will always be there.

Chris Heinrich Perkins

Hi,
Browsing and came across this thread,
thanks for the info, the syptoms on the wifes car
match exactly to your descriptions of the stats
behaviour, ie high temp indicated, rad fan running
and temp still rising as though the thermostat is
either closed partially or completely. Any ideas
what triggers the problem, the car (2002 1.8i MGF)
has only 19k???
BTW it's off the road until I've fitted a
QED unit.
Mike
Mike Gay

Mike
Sounds like the thermostat needs changing. As I have the QED RT fitted give me a call on 731196 if you need any advice.
Blue Pocket Rocket

You pessamists about the British car industry have forgotten Land Rover. 200,000 of them are made every year at Solihul and its designed at Gaydon. Then theres Jaguar, made in Coventry.
My daughters 2002 TF blew its head gasket on Saturday only 33,000 miles - B*llocks!
Paul Hollingworth

No we haven't...They're not in British hands any longer. They were sold off just like the rest of 'em. What we do best is spend 50+ years building up a car brand, and then sell it off to the highest foreign bidder.

I love Landies and Jags, but I'd like them more if they weren't owned by a massive US firm.
Chris Heinrich Perkins

This thread was discussed between 28/09/2005 and 26/10/2005

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