2008 Pontiac torrent. Fan stayed on after ignition turned off. Never overheated, no leaking fluids, no warning signs flashing, etc.Dealer said it is the head gasket and quoted over $2000 to repair. Mechanic did not find any other problems and said normal wear and tear. 60,000 miles.
6 Answers
if that was the only problem ,the fan! some cars are wired to run fan even after shutdown of engine till a cooldown. a head gasket causes all kinds of running problems, along with pumping the coolant out the overflow. were you subjected to with rip-offs?
Im wondering. I still don't have the car. It has been a week.
Fan is supposed to stay running if the temp sensor tells it to, even if the engine is off. - - - If the engine temp is normal and the fan continues to run, it's either sticky fan relay or a bad temp sensor. Easy fix. - - - If engine temp is high, then the fan is doing what its supposed to do. The question then is whether the engine is hot within normal ranges, or is overheating due to some mechanical problem. - - - A head gasket is generally the last thing we would check. Low coolant, air in the system, bad sensor, bad t-stat, there are many things that can heat the engine beyond the normal range. Ask to see the compression test - if they didn't do it, or won't give it to you, I would be suspicious.
Is it procedure to replace the thermostat when replacing head gaskets? I wasn't able to get a compression test report.
Not really, but a good mechanic would do it anyway as the engine is apart and it's easy to do at that point. It would be very unusual to have a bad t-stat or a bad head gasket at 60k miles on a 5 year old vehicle. That said, no decent mechanic would replace a head gasket without first checking the compression, examining the spark plugs, checking for coolant in the oil, or oil in the coolant. You MUST do those things to be sure there's a problem with a head gasket, in fact it's the only way to tell.
Get a combustion leak test kit and use it on the coolant. If it tests positive, that means exhaust gasses are leaking into the coolant, which is a symptom that the head gasket is leaking and needs to be replaced. I just went through the same thing, although the repair ended up being closer to $1,500. You might want to get quotes from other mechanics before paying over $2,000 to a dealer.
