Hi everyone,
First time posting and recently new owner of a 1.4 puma. Had the car a couple of months and it's being going great- until now. :-( Was returning home for the weekend friday two weeks ago (heading onto the M50 motorway in Dublin) when I noticed steam coming from out of the bonnet. Needless to say I pulled the car in by the side of the road as soon as it was safe to do so and to my horror found the temperature guage was up at max! Anyway to cut a long story short it turned out that one of the pipes on the HCV unit (heater cooler valve) had broken off- resulting in all engine coolant leaking out of the system. This pipe was the right side pipe and is now lodged firmly in the pipe running back into the engine..
I've since had mechanics looking at the car, mainly to verify the engine wasn't screwed; had been driving for a while (10 mins) without coolant. They also temporarily by-passed the HCV meaning the car can be driven to a garage but obviously it's not a long term solution as there is no heater now in-car and the fix might easily give way at any time. I'm all good on the engine (luckily nothing seems to be damaged) so just the HCV issue to fix now...
So I asked the same garage who did the engine checks etc. to price the cost of a new HCV and pipes, labour etc. to fix the issue properly. They came back at me with a price of ~€270-300 for the parts themselves plus €170 labour; they said the job was pretty labour intesive as it involved removing the dashboard to fit the car.
Now this is a pretty steep price from what initially seemed like such a simple problem, a broken pipe. Sure enough new parts have to be bought and thats fine, theres also labour for which I was expecting at least €100. But almost €300 for the part itself? This doesn't seem right to me. Maybe I'm wrong and this is the normal going rate, so I'd like your thoughts on this one. They were intending on ordering the part direct from ford and new, so maybe this is the reason why.
This is the part I need to get replaced (thanks to the original poster, very helpful):
http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=2432&hilit=coolant+pipe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here are pictures of the problem also. Apologies for the quality, these were taken on a phone:
I'd also like to get new pipes running to and from the engine as both are not likely to be in good health given that the HCV
pipe failed itself.
Do you have any thoughts on this? Am I being taken for a ride here or is this the normal rate? Have
I any other options perhaps for sourcing this part? Any advice at all would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Darragh.
First time posting and recently new owner of a 1.4 puma. Had the car a couple of months and it's being going great- until now. :-( Was returning home for the weekend friday two weeks ago (heading onto the M50 motorway in Dublin) when I noticed steam coming from out of the bonnet. Needless to say I pulled the car in by the side of the road as soon as it was safe to do so and to my horror found the temperature guage was up at max! Anyway to cut a long story short it turned out that one of the pipes on the HCV unit (heater cooler valve) had broken off- resulting in all engine coolant leaking out of the system. This pipe was the right side pipe and is now lodged firmly in the pipe running back into the engine..
I've since had mechanics looking at the car, mainly to verify the engine wasn't screwed; had been driving for a while (10 mins) without coolant. They also temporarily by-passed the HCV meaning the car can be driven to a garage but obviously it's not a long term solution as there is no heater now in-car and the fix might easily give way at any time. I'm all good on the engine (luckily nothing seems to be damaged) so just the HCV issue to fix now...
So I asked the same garage who did the engine checks etc. to price the cost of a new HCV and pipes, labour etc. to fix the issue properly. They came back at me with a price of ~€270-300 for the parts themselves plus €170 labour; they said the job was pretty labour intesive as it involved removing the dashboard to fit the car.
Now this is a pretty steep price from what initially seemed like such a simple problem, a broken pipe. Sure enough new parts have to be bought and thats fine, theres also labour for which I was expecting at least €100. But almost €300 for the part itself? This doesn't seem right to me. Maybe I'm wrong and this is the normal going rate, so I'd like your thoughts on this one. They were intending on ordering the part direct from ford and new, so maybe this is the reason why.
This is the part I need to get replaced (thanks to the original poster, very helpful):
http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=2432&hilit=coolant+pipe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here are pictures of the problem also. Apologies for the quality, these were taken on a phone:
I'd also like to get new pipes running to and from the engine as both are not likely to be in good health given that the HCV
pipe failed itself.
Do you have any thoughts on this? Am I being taken for a ride here or is this the normal rate? Have
I any other options perhaps for sourcing this part? Any advice at all would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Darragh.
I mean I'm pretty new to cars (this is my first that I own) and that but that price just seemed nuts. 
