Blimey.........sorry to hear about this it's not good is it.

Update & hopefully the conclusion on the water leak for you all, hope this might help someone else.

Decided to try out a new Independent after my last nightmare experience.

I picked up the car today. They have had it for nearly a month. Blamed the length of time on waiting for a lift to become available & then waiting on parts etc.

Initial diagnosis they couldn't locate it with a pressure test, so had to start stripping parts off. Eventually tracked it down to the oil cooler gasket.

I said i wanted to buy the kit you sent me a link to @Naks, but they said they would use non LR parts.

But i did make sure they changed the LR090630 & the LR092992 to the newer LR updated versions.

There parts cost were pretty reasonable and not marked up loads more than online prices.

They said as there so deep into the engine they decided to change the oil cooler also which is around £400.

The parts i think were unnecessary were: although they new the water pump had only been changed a few weeks prior. They replaced the brand new LR028136 oil cooler tube with another brand new one (waisted £25 on this) & also they replaced both the water pump gaskets again which were only a few weeks old for new ones (waisted another £40 on this, there answer to this was: The gaskets and oil cooler tube had to be removed – best engineering practice to replace with new.

And even though they found the oil cooler gasket to be the issue, they also replaced: rad overflow tank & cap-reservoir another £135 + labour. There answer for this was: there is a float in the overflow tank which, when the system is drained out, gets stuck. That would result in a coolant level warning on your dash if it hadn’t been replaced.

Have any of you heard of this before?

I've had a coolant flush in a service before and they didn't need to change the whole overflow tank?

I know i'm being petty about these small cost parts, just it all starts to add up.

It was around 4 hours labour for the initial investigation to find the leak & then another 12 hours labour to strip it down to the oil cooler gasket & replace & put everything back together again.

So with all the parts and vat added final bill came to nearly £3700! + the £540 for the previous indy to replace the water pump (which he thought was the cause) i'm now in over £4k!!! to solve a bloody coolant leak

Please let me know your thoughts?

Unless i can be-friend a mechanic who would be willing to work off his drive way on w-ends etc i'm not sure i can afford to keep my beloved RRS that these repair prices. Also still yet to know if this has actually solved it as not driven it enough yet. But it must of with the amount of manifold and cooler gaskets and hoses they replaced, i shouldn't have another coolant leak for ten years (i've just probably jinxed myself now).

Stay safe all. I need to now go and cry myself to sleep. 2012 RRS HSE 5.0 SUPERCHARGED Santorini Black

"And even though they found the oil cooler gasket to be the issue, they also replaced: rad overflow tank & cap-reservoir another £135 + labour. There answer for this was: there is a float in the overflow tank which, when the system is drained out, gets stuck. That would result in a coolant level warning on your dash if it hadn’t been replaced.

Have any of you heard of this before?"

I would describe that as a load of crap, changed my coolant twice and never had that issue, although they can be a bit of a pain to bleed.

Replacing gaskets, "O" rings etc. makes sense if they have been disturbed even if they are relatively new, plus crossover pipes as a precaution, post's do read a bit like "let's change everything" to cover every possibility and we should be o.k.

Cheers
Col

hi all,

Its been a while, which is good i guess as not had any issues for a while. Apart from insane insurance costs. But thats for another post i guess.

I've been keeping any eye on my coolant level since i had the coolant leak repair. Its now been 6 months and 4000mlies later and my coolant level has dropped from between the two lines / max and min levels on the expansion tank to the minimum line. Would you say this is normal coolant level usage? I swear for the first few years of owning the car. I never touched the coolant from year to year?

Any help / feed back would be hugely appreciated as usual.

Click image to enlarge

try not to worry,

Maybe hope it's just air bleeding out the system after the repair ?

Thanks for quick response Andy, yea i will keep my fingers crossed, as prior to the repair the level would drop from the top level to bottom level in a 4 hour drive of a few hundred miles. It surely can't be a new leak as they changed every gasket, o ring and hose there is pretty much Thanks again 2012 RRS HSE 5.0 SUPERCHARGED Santorini Black