Head Gasket Dealer Replacement Costs? (1 Viewer)

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hey guys

all this headgasket talk, has me wanting to bring the rig in and get it done at my local dealer (dont feel comfortable doing it myself) for piece of mind

curious, who has had this done at the dealer and how much did it run ya?

i am thinking of having this and the PHH done at once

anyone care to chime in here?

oh and i already searched :flipoff2: found TONS of posts of people debating about them and doing them themselves, but no talk of dealer cost to replace it

thanks
 
I checked into this a while ago to do as PM but the $2000 dealer price deterred me from doing it. Im sure and independent shop would be much less (about 1/2 as much). There is a lot of labor factored into the $2000 considering the head gasket itself is around $150. The price above does not include any machining either.
 
mooker82 said:
I checked into this a while ago to do as PM but the $2000 dealer price deterred me from doing it. Im sure and independent shop would be much less (about 1/2 as much). There is a lot of labor factored into the $2000 considering the head gasket itself is around $150. The price above does not include any machining either.

WOW, is the machining necassary/recommended even if its ok to begin with and its only being done as PM?

Thanks
 
Mangler, any possibility yours has already been done?
 
The only way I would even consider doing a HG as preventative maintenance was if I was doing it myself. Otherwise just drive the freaking truck - this isn't something that's guaranteed to fail on every rig ... so you may never have problems. I've seen stealership quotes between $2-6K for a HG, and if you've got that kind of money to blow on PM ... you shouldn't be here asking questions. You can replace just the HG for under $200 your self - we did my buddies for about $600 with head work and replacing other stuff "while we were there".

Tucker
 
I'll second what Tucker said. If you can't do the work yourself then you might consider doing something you can do by installing a better temp guage so you can better monitor the running temp of the engine. I think this is the second best approach to the HG issue as detecting it early would save some cost on the repair.
 
Tucker-

I am just curious...was this Nicks truck? Was his blown or was it pm?

Enjoying cooler temps in TX,
David
 
TX_TLC said:
Tucker-

I am just curious...was this Nicks truck? Was his blown or was it pm?

Enjoying cooler temps in TX,
David
It was another buddies '95 that was blown ... Nic was there drinking beer and pointing out what we were doing wrong :D I don't know what to think about this weather ... cold front in TX in July! Yard's nice and green though -

Tucker
 
Boston Mangler said:
hey guys
i am thinking of having this and the PHH done at once
thanks

I had the dealer do my PHH because they quoted me $110 to do it. While they had it they hit the front with a van and replaced the front bumper with and ARB and my already leaking radiator. :cool: So I ended up pretty good on that deal.
 
Mangler -

I'll third what Tucker suggested.

Keep in mind that we - the members of this forum - are an atypical group of users and, by the numbers, represent something less than one third of 1% of all 80s that were sent to North America (I crunched the numbers; this is not a wild a$$ guess, but a very close representation of how our numbers actually compare to the whole).

There is no way you can extrapolate our reported experience with the cooling system to the whole, even if we consider the documented design flaw of the HG and the independent experience of professional mechanics such as Robbie, whose advice I highly respect.

If you have reason to believe you have a problem - such as bubbles in the overflow bottle, or unusually high operating temps (monitored on your aftermarket temp gauge) - then consider Rick's sage advice (stated elsewhere) and change out the HG as PM.

Otherwise, be diligent with cooling system PM, and go with it... but don't let it ruin your day. If you want an added level of comfort, get a $20 oil analysis done on your motor. If there is even 0.1% water or coolant contamination in the oil, it will show up there - long before any of us ever see any of those dreaded "bubbles."

Cheers, R -
 
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The pretty good dealer here quoted $1550 not including machining if it needed it. I have 155K and started getting nervous... I did a Blackstone lab oil analysis just to see if there was any coolant or moisture in the oil yet... came back with a very clean bill of health... at least there isn't a slow HG breach... though I imagine it would go all at once.
 
I wouldn't much faith in an oil analysis, that's not were the problem is. The problem is with the cylinder sealing ring and the rear water passage. This is a very specific type of failure since it's a very specific fault in the original HG design.

As I see it here is my order of responses to the issue:

1. change the damn thing out!

2. dillegent coolant flushes and system maintenace with an auxillary temp guage

3. dillegent coolant flushes and system maintenace

4. kick back and wait for it to blow.

What's not included is how much do you depend on the vehicle. I need mine for work, so I changed it out. But everyone needs to assess their own dependancy on the vehicle and it's value to them and then make a decission on which way makes the most economical sense.

While I was a #1, I'm sure that others are a #4.
 
I wouldn't much faith in an oil analysis, that's not were the problem is. The problem is with the cylinder sealing ring and the rear water passage.

If your leaking coolant into the cylinder, oil analysis will show it, about the only head gasket leak it won't find is if coolant is running down the outside of the block. :D
 
landtank said:
While I was a #1, I'm sure that others are a #4.
I'm with you Rick - I'm just more of a #3 ... of course I've got a couple other Cruisers and live 5 miles from work. I don't think it's that big of deal to change it, but can't see doing it unless it needs it or I've got to do something else in there.

It's not nearly as bad as all these silly threads are making it out to be IMO ...

Tucker
 
Look, from the responces here to pools etc., we see about 15% have had a HG failure over an average truck age of about 150,000 miles. Do you all see that this represents a HG failure on average for every 1,000,000 miles driven (100/15*150,000)! My truck has 110,000 miles on it and I would imagine that I will be getting a 100 series by the time it reaches 150,000 miles, so the chances that I will experience HG failur {1,000,000/(150,000-110,000)} is 1 in 25, or 4%. Are we not getting paranoid over this? Change out the crap temperature gauge sure, and keep your cooling system well maintained, and that's the most anyone should be thinking about.
 
As I recall the PO of my rig had it done around 120K miles to the tune of about $2000. That included a ton of new ancillary parts from fuel filter to plug wires.

No way I'd do it at the dealer as PM, unless you are supercharging the engine or something. Doing it yourself might make sense if you have the skills.

If you want an exact number, I can dig out the reciept. Let me know.

Charlie
 
MH_Stevens said:
Look, from the responces here to pools etc., we see about 15% have had a HG failure over an average truck age of about 150,000 miles. Do you all see that this represents a HG failure on average for every 1,000,000 miles driven (100/15*150,000)! My truck has 110,000 miles on it and I would imagine that I will be getting a 100 series by the time it reaches 150,000 miles, so the chances that I will experience HG failur {1,000,000/(150,000-110,000)} is 1 in 25, or 4%. Are we not getting paranoid over this? Change out the crap temperature gauge sure, and keep your cooling system well maintained, and that's the most anyone should be thinking about.

Warning! Statistics-geek comments coming below... :rolleyes:

While personally I'm a #3, headed for a #2, I think the concern is that the failure rate of the HG might not be constant, and therefore you are increasing the risk of failure as time/mileage increase. you can't just extrapolate out at the same failure rate to a million miles...
 
whodat said:
Mangler, any possibility yours has already been done?

No, dont think so, the PO gave me a huge stack of records and i dont see it in there

Oh well, Thanks for the info guys I am just going to monitor it closely!
 
tucker74 said:
It's not nearly as bad as all these silly threads are making it out to be IMO ...
Tucker

Yes, that is kinda what i am getting from it.

Thanks
 
tucker74 said:
It's not nearly as bad as all these silly threads are making it out to be IMO ...

Tucker


Agreed. Give it a while and all the HG threads will go away and you'll forget about it until 6 months down the road when someone else has a problem. It comes in spurts and makes it sound worse than it is.

PS> I've changed my mind and decided not post my above comment as I'm afraid it will jinx me and my HG will blow this weekend. :flipoff2:

knock on fake Toyota wood, knock on fake Toyota wood, knock on fake Toyota wood....
 

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