The Camaro Club (UK)

This isn't Chevy related but it is engine related.. happy to remove if needs be. I just really wanted to get some opinions out there on what could be one of the biggest load of bollox i've heard.

Mum drives a 2009 Peugeot 209 and there's a slow oil leak. Garage says it's the head gasket (they cleaned the engine bay, as there was oil everywhere, she brought it back a week later and they were able to spot the leak location). They're quoting a grand and they've said that 'because of the car it is, the heads aren't straight so need to be skimmed so that the new gasket seals'. I'm sorry but what?? That has to be a load of bollox right? You need to skim the heads for a new gasket? what??

What bugs me more about it, is that the guy lives down the road and we've known him for over 30 years. He specialises in french cars so you don't really want to doubt him. Hasn't even offered mates rates on his £70+vat per hour labour rate. I'm sorry... £70 per hour (that's £84 to the customer). Most people make that in a day, even less after tax. But you charge that per hour? Sorry, this has turned into a rant! I just have a real problem with ridiculous hourly rates. That works out to £2,800 per week, over £10,000 a month. Hmm, so anyway, i never heard of such a thing as needing to skim the heads for a gasket change, unless you're going for higher compression ratio or you've overheated the car and warped the heads. Or have i missed something.

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my friend has done a few french car heads recently and has had to get them skimmed, if they are made of alloy.....but i know that has been with cars that have had head gasket failure and overheated. i dont think he makes £1000 a week or even a fortnight let alone a job! he is in chesham if you want his number

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1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

The only way to tell if a head needs skimming is to take it off and place a straight edge across it to check. To simply say "The head needs skimming" is pure BS, especially as the customer will never be able to check if it was in fact skimmed.
Don't believe the garage, and this is said after 30 years in the industry and seeing first hand the wallet flushing stunts service managers will pull.

First, clean the engine. Now grab a few c.c's of a florescent dye. The one especially for engines is fine but the more readily available one used in A/C works just as well, they are both dyes suspended in oil. Check with a UV light after every trip until you see the leak. Then go from there.

Wow, that a nice hourly rate , I usually pay £30/35 mates rates at a local garage. Even then there normal hourly rate is £50 tops.

Peugeot have always done this. I'm in the trade (motor factors) and we list 3 different thicknesses of head gaskets for most of the Peugeot engines. Having a head skim on them is not unusual.

The price he is charging is taking the piss though. Hes a garage he'll be sending that head off to a engine re conditioner to get it skimmed. Take the car elsewhere and get a another quote.

You may or may not know Peugeot engines are in most Fords !!!
I've worked on the peaces of crap (engines) for many years and I have not ever had to have one skimmed for an oil leak issue
Plenty of skimms for overheat faults tho
These engines leak oil from every mating face ,joint ,pipe,gasket,washer blah blah blah
Jesus even the fuel leak off pipes leak off all over the top of the cyl head !!!!!!!
So bottom line is if the head comes off for any reason ie over heating or leaking water or oil or compression you wont truly know if it needs skimming until the heads off !!!
Hth

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Some days it just isn't worth chewing through the restraints !!!!

Thanks for all the replies, it's good to know that the general consensus is that it's overpriced. I guess he was drawing a conclusion that the leak from the gasket is being caused by a warped head due to an overheat, so playing it safe. Though, it would have been nice for him to explain and make the call once they were doing the change and being able to if the head was warped indeed, rather than just saying it's that way and that's how it is.

As it's a mild leak, thinking of using some head gasket goo glue sealant stuff (can't think of the proper name) just to slow it down even more and then see how it is over the next few months. It's a really slow leak anyway so may be ok for a while, will just need to keep an eye on it. Thanks for all the helpful replies! I didn't know that Ford used Peugeot engines, quite surprised by that! I've heard that Renault / Peugeot diesel engines are found in other cars, but never would have thought fords!
Managed to find an even better hourly rate recently. A software vendor for our company charges £85 an hour. Plus a 'project management' fee of between 10-35%. And they're useless at what they do.

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How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

How to post youtube vids: Click on the 'youtubeHD' button at the top of the message box and in the middle of the ][ brackets that just appeared, copy and paste everything from the youtube web address that appears after the = sign i.e if this is the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0 just copy "K2cNqaPSHv0").