I have just bought a W reg escort estate 1.6. I was running it for 3 days and needed to fill with water. I done this but stupidly didn't leave the cap off after filling up. I checked the water again yesterday, 4 days later, and needed to fill again. My neighbour had a look at it and it looks like there has been an air lock which has now released. I want to know if this sounds realistic or does it sound like the gasket has gone?

I have also had to fill up the oil and noticed last night after running it for about 20 minutes and doing a very short drive, 2-3 miles, and after pulling in and leaving the engine running I noticed there were little puffs of smoke coming out the exhaust. Does anybody have any ideas on what this could be?

I am going to book it in to the garage to get checked over but want to know if there is any point as I only payed £350 for it so not going to be a great loss if I just have to scrap it but would much rather not. Does anybody know how much it is likely to cost to replace the headgasket or possibly the full engine?

Cheers for any advice you can offer

 

Are you sure you filled the water system properly first ?

I.E. Did you bleed the water through the whole engine properly ?

 

I didn't do anything other than fill the water bottle. I let the engine run last night with the cap off the water bottle and could see air bubbles coming back into the bottle through the pipe from the engine to the bottle. What issues would it cause if I had not bled the water through? Would you think this is now done?

 

If anyone else can help would be much appreciated. As a further update I drove to work to do and when starting there was a knocking noise. Drove home and stopped at my mates for about 2 hours went back out turned the key and nothing! After about 8 attempts it eventually kicked in and started no bother but the first few times there was litteraly nothing.

 

right fill up the water while the engine is running with the heaters on full and leave the cap off thats to bleed the water system, then check the oil fill that to just below max leave engine running with oil cap off and check for condensation coming out, normally if gaskets gone there will be cream under cap or on dipstick, or the water in the header tank will have a rainbow efect

 

if its still loosing water the knocking could be the water pump, but normally they make a squeak

 

dont worry about the little puffs of smoke it was cold last night so it will look like its smoking as for the water make sure your front footweells /carpets are dry as it could be a matrix leak but if itis a gasket leak then get some k seal from your motor factors £12 its good stuff just add it to the water in the tank my mates vectra had this problem 6mths ago but has been fine since the k seal just make sure you drain the water after the k seal has done its job.