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MG MGF Technical - sorry but - HGF

Hi all,

I've been in and out of this forum but kept pretty quiet since I got my used MGF 1.8 MPI in the spring.

Had a great summer in the car, wonderful drives out in the country with the roof down and the odd blast about.

But what an achiles heel eh? Yup, got my, seemingly obligatory, HGF recently. Noticed steam coming into the car through the vents, looked in rear view mirror and saw a big cloud of steam - oh dear, daughter was beside herself (9) 'cos she thought we were on fire. And then the indignity of being sat on the side of the road for 90 minutes waiting for the RAC whilst everyone drives by with a smile on their face when they saw me.... except Mazda owners whom seemed besides themselves with glee.

I know a 1 person attack on MG/Rover is pretty fruitless, but since there are so many people suffering from this problem has anyone ever considered having a consolidated assult on them? Do any of the MG owner clubs harras MG over the problem? Have they ever actually admitted it being a problem? Has anyone ever contacted one of the TV consumer programmes? If they are not embarrased about this problem, they ought to be.

Well mines getting sold next spring when the markets better, I love the car but now it just feels like your waiting for it to happen again and it kind of sucks the fun out of the whole thing.

Ho Hum
GW

Look at (an register) http://www.shame.4mg.com

Little consolation, but things have significantly improved with the last of the MGFs, and the new TF.

BTW we have no incidence figures to actually judge how big a problem this is. FWIW there are many cars out there with a 'reputation' for problems with head gaskets. It may be of some surprise that the MGF doesn't appear to be one of them... which seems odd if you ever read this forum.
Rob Bell

Sorry to hear about your HGF. Hope you're covered under warranty. Sounds like you've had a great deal of enjoyment out of your F over the summer so I hope this doesn't make you feel like you want to get shot of the the car.

Having (touching every bit of wood in sight) not experienced this myself, I feel under-qualified to comment. But I'm hoping that others on this BBS who've had HGF's will post reasurrances that it's not something that's likely to happen to you again, and that they don't regret hanging onto their cars.

Are there many known instances of people suffering more than one HGF?

If by any chance you're not covered under warranty, then to give you future peace of mind, a policy can be taken out for under £20 a month.

It's also worth mentioning (as is commented on from time to time) that a lot of postings on this BBS will relate to problems owners have had with their MG's. This might make you think that you next break-down is waiting just around the corner. However, happy owners will have less need to ask advice on this forum, and there are many F'ers out there who've enjoyed many years of trouble free motoring (Ted, I'm sure you'll back me up on this one!)

Bad luck GW, hope you're back on the road soon.

Jim

Jim

I appreciate that getting the HGF must be pretty damned demoralising but if you look at the table Rob refers to, you will see that very few people get a second. Also your head should be repaired with the improved gasket and the steel locating pins. The chances of a second are therefore slim. You could consider it a rite of passage in F ownership!

With regard to having a pop at MGR, the problem happened during BMW's stewardship and the problem has been well aired on Watchdog and the like. I suspect MGR could claim that they have taken steps to fix the problem since BMW legged it.

Cheers and sympathies

Patrick
Patrick Beet

Jim

Absolutely! March 1996 MPi from new and so far so good!

Ted
Ted Newman

Just for balance - my HG blew twice :o(
Dot

But Dot how many times has it blown in the Elise - same engine!

Ted
Ted Newman

Patrick is spot on - all I can add is that if you have indeed been in and out of this forum I don't see how you could have been unaware of this problem with pre-2000 Fs. My car has had 2 HGFs - but most likely because the first one was fixed before the new gasket and dowels were available, by the previous owner, at a non-franchise and non-mg specialist garage. The price I bought at was discounted to cover the risk of it happening again so I was not too fussed when it did. At least I knew the second time it was fixed properly (by B&G). It's now given absolutely no problems for 15 months - even done a thrash to Berlin and back including 4 laps of the 'Ring.
David

Of the 265 HGFs listed on shame.4mg.com only 16 of them are second failures and the vast majority of these are dated from before the upgraded locating dowels and gaskets were introduced.

I'm putting together a page of stats on the failures at the monent, it will be completed tomorrow, for now, the raw data can be viewed at http://www.mghorizon.com/~shame.

I'll add a link from the list when it is complete.
MikeB

Hi Jim

Where can I get this policy that saves me looking at the coolant level every time I open the boot(ie twice a day). Seems I need to break this obsessional behaviour.As a matter of interest, I open the cover and have to push down on the car body work to make the coolant move up and down just to reassure myself. Is this the same for everyone???? It must look a bit odd if people see me???
malcolm

Malcolm, you can wean yourself off the habit by gradual reduction - a sort of reverse running in. I used to look every day but forgot once, then only looked at weekends (wife uses it during the week), then every fortnight, and now it's once a month. BTW the level is rock solid, never moves.
David

Don't be sorry, at least you don't have to drive a boring old Escort around. If you want to swap I'd be very happy to get back in an F, HGF or not...:-)

To save confusion I will now be known as T.E.D. on this BBS:-)
Tony Escort Driver

Hi and thanks for all the reassuring words!

I know its easy to focus on the negative, and it is the negatives which seem to come up on forums a lot as that is what people need help on - so perhaps I am just a bit over sensitive to the HGF problem.

Well, I suppose I had better garage the baby for the winter and see how I feel next spring. I would love to keep the car, its just that feeling that its happened once, will it happen again seems to take the edge off the fun when driving.

On the positive side, the car was still under warranty so the garage had to sort the problem out - even though they did put up a little resistance.

Well, thats my moan over with :) Thanks again and happy motoring to you all!


David, Berkshire - I didn't find the forum until AFTER I got my car soooo, thats why i wasnt aware of HGF problems.

Tony Escort Driver - I also drive around in a boring Astra (kiddy carrier) just to keep me appreciative of the joys of open top driving. But thanks for the offer :)

Rob Bell, North London - Put my HGF into the Hall o' Shame, mind you it hasnt shown up on the table yet.

malcolm, London - Once I heard of HGF probs I checke mine twice a day, once on the morning before I used the car, then on an evening when I tucked it up in bed. Never had any change in water level prior to the event.
GW

I found once I had got over the pain of shelling out £500 for the repair, I soon got over the angst and the car is such fun to drive that one can forgive it!
When I had a Merc, it had irritating problems too, although none quite so expensive!
T Green

My F had an HGF when it was about one year old, it was fixed under warranty at no cost to me and after 4.5 years the problem had not reoccured (at which point I had to sell it after two years out of work). In fact the last three years of ownership were more or less trouble free. If the HG was replaced with the new parts and metal dowels it should be fine from now on as this seems to have cured the problem on more recent cars.
T.E.D.

<<<<Put my HGF into the Hall o' Shame, mind you it hasnt shown up on the table yet>>>>

Yes it has, it's all the way down the bottom. :-)
MikeB

>>>I didn't find the forum until AFTER I got my car ...
===sorry - that wasn't obvious from the other post; we do see quite a few people saying things like 'I was thinking of buying an F but now I've read the archives I'm not so sure - what do you guys really think?'
David

As I say, if you don't like your F give it to me :-)
Tony Smith

Having read all of this, i feel rather depressed!! I'm having a few snags with my car at the moment, is it asdvisable to replace the HG now (and dowels) before anything happens. If so, how much money am i looking at shelling out to have this done??

Jules
Jules

I can't see any real advantage to having the work doen before anything has happened. The only benefit is lack of inconvenience. But you probably belong to RAC or similar. I'd leave it - it may never happen!
T Green

Malcolm,

>>Where can I get this policy that saves me looking at the coolant level every time I open the boot(ie twice a day). Seems I need to break this obsessional behaviour<<

LOL! Know the feeling! Perhaps MGR should set up a Coolant Level Checkers Anonymous. Other than that going cold turkey would appear to be the only answer!

Best of luck, hope you don't 'fall off the wagon'!

Jim

Jim

My head gasket went two weeks ago at 42k miles with full MGR service history. oil changes every 3k miles....but still it went.

MGR Customer services didn't want to know as the car was out of warrantee. They just referred me back to dealer....

Had one phonecall tonight from an MGCC member who has just suffered the same problem and also an email from another club member who also has this problem.

My only advice is if you haven't had a HGF yet and you have an early model F, then take out an extended warranttee or have the head gasket changed when they do the main CAM belt service - then you are only faced with one big bill instead of two.

Martin
4MGF
Martin Woods

Martin, did you point the two new failures to the Hall of Shame?

For some reason the last four weeks have been bad, HGF reports have gone up for some reason. :-(
MikeB

> gone up for some reason. :-(

No worries, we did some advertises in the last weeks.
Participation was poor since abou one year. So a lot are missing.

BTW nice works with the statistics, though it's not representative.

Cheers
Dieter
Dieter K.

This thread was discussed between 03/10/2002 and 08/10/2002

MG MGF Technical index

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