# Blown Head Gasket?



## andrewjwill (Feb 1, 2019)

I had a bunch of work done on the car in November. 3 sensors, battery, etc. The tech said (to my surprise) that my coolant reservoir was "bone dry". However the car had not overheated and there was no code or warning light to that effect. They refilled it and ran a pressure test and nothing came back out of the ordinary. It's been roughly three months and yesterday I noticed the reservoir is half empty. I feel like that is an awful lot of coolant missing in only 3 months time for a 4 year old car. Sometimes, when I am driving around 40-50 mph and lightly accelerate or just maintain speed the car stutters like its misfiring or I'm losing compression or something like that, Not a violent jerking. There is no milky look to the oil, no white smoke etc. And there is no leak on my driveway however the whole bottom of the plastic cover under the engine is wet and looks shiny. Has anyone else had this happen? Dad says the coolant has to be going somewhere and all he can think of is a blow head gasket. I have a 2014 Diesel and it has 60,000 miles on it. Any help you all can provide is greatly appreciated.


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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

Whoa, doesn't sound good. My Gen 1 seems to lose a very tiny amount of coolant, has almost since new. I had them leak check and pressure test the cap, and add UV dye, but we have not been able to find a leak... Wondering if it's a less severe case of what you have. My 04 Land Rover has had a tiny external coolant leak from a batch of bad head gaskets put in at the factory, of course mine waited until after warranty to show up. Some coolant stop leak sealed it up pending my ability to replace the head gasket. 

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## plano-doug (Jul 1, 2015)

andrewjwill said:


> It's been roughly three months and yesterday I noticed the reservoir is half empty. I feel like that is an awful lot of coolant missing in only 3 months time for a 4 year old car.


Not sure how much different your diesel is, but both my 1.8L Cruzes (LUW) have had coolant leak issues, some of which were with the coolant tank and hoses - ie, not the motor. In one case the dealer couldn't diagnose it, but I was able to find it. (In their defense, sometimes the conditions have to be just right for the leak to show itself. I was able to find it and took them some pics of where it was.) When you find the level low, get out a flashlight and start looking around. Trace the hoses looking for a wet spot. In one case, the hose on my coolant tank was leaking at the tank. It turned out the tank needed to be replaced.



> Sometimes, when I am driving around 40-50 mph and lightly accelerate or just maintain speed the car stutters like its misfiring or I'm losing compression or something like that, Not a violent jerking.


Perhaps the stutter is unrelated to the leak. My 2013 was doing something similar - it would sometimes bog down when I gave it gas. I swapped in a new accelerator pedal, and that cured it. The rheostats in these drive-by-wire systems need to be more durable.

I hope your problem it not a head gasket.

Doug

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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

Plano, good point on the tank, I believe that is same for gas and diesel engine. On the engine itself, not much else is same. The 2.0l diesel is quite the compilation of design efforts from various parts of Europe.

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## plano-doug (Jul 1, 2015)

MRO1791 said:


> Plano, good point on the tank, I believe that is same for gas and diesel engine.


FWIW, looking on gmpartsdirect.com , they list the same gas pedal for both my 2013 LUW and your 2014 LUZ diesel, "Pedal Travel Sensor - GM (13252702)". 

I will admit, I did not do a proper diagnosis on mine - I shotgunned it - but it did fix the hesitation I was experiencing.

That said, I'm not sure what a proper diagnosis is for the pedal. My instinct is to hook a scope up to the rheostat output and look for it to start jumping around as the throttle pedal is slowly depressed. There's probably a similar test, using a computer/scanner to read the pedal position, in the factory shop manual.

HTH.

Doug

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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

plano-doug said:


> FWIW, looking on gmpartsdirect.com , they list the same gas pedal for both my 2013 LUW and your 2014 LUZ diesel, "Pedal Travel Sensor - GM (13252702)".
> 
> I will admit, I did not do a proper diagnosis on mine - I shotgunned it - but it did fix the hesitation I was experiencing.
> 
> ...


Good to know, many have reported hesitant acceleration on the Diesel, perhaps it's a batch of bad pedals. It makes sense they would use the same pedal for all models, keeps costs down. 

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## snowwy66 (Nov 5, 2017)

If you had a blown head gasket. You'd defenitly know.


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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

snowwy66 said:


> If you had a blown head gasket. You'd defenitly know.


Usually, Yes.. but it's possible to have minor head gasket leaks and still run normally, example as demonstrated with my Land Rover, though I would not call it a "blown" head gasket, but it was definitely leaking out coolant. 

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## [email protected] (Dec 13, 2018)

Commonly there is a leak on our coolant system. It wasn’t the thermostat on mine. They (independent shop) replaced a couple of hoses and worked good.
This for me went hand in hand with replacing PCV valve.


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## Kbolecho1 (Aug 30, 2018)

My 2012 daughters car was losing fluid from the bottom of the reservoir. I went on Amazon (Prime) and purchased one that was only $17 for a Dorman aftermarket part. Perfect fit better quality. Don't forget the Orange 50/50 GM Dexcon Prestone mix


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