Citroen Dispatch Cylinder Heads

Heads run R2,950 to R11,500 depending on the engine and on whether it is a reconditioned unit or new. A head gasket to suit the shared Citroen, Peugeot and Mini engines is around R945 through our network. The gasket is never the expensive part of this job — the labour and the machining are — which is why a proper skim, new stretch bolts and a pressure test are worth insisting on rather than economising. Send the VIN and engine code.

The classic five: white exhaust smoke, coolant vanishing with no visible leak, overheating, milky residue on the filler cap, and bubbles in the expansion tank while the engine runs. Those symptoms are shared with a failed head gasket, and the two are not the same repair — which is why a combustion-gas test on the coolant, followed by a pressure test of the head once it is off, is what settles it. On the 1.6 HDi a cracked head usually follows a documented overheat.

The gasket itself is around R945 for the common Citroen, Peugeot and Mini engines. Everything around it is where the money goes: typically eight to twelve hours of labour, plus skimming the head flat, plus new head bolts, which are stretch bolts and cannot be reused. Do not let anyone refit old bolts to save a few hundred rand — they will not hold the clamping load and the job comes back. Send the VIN for a full quote.

Sometimes. A small crack in a non-critical area can be stitched or welded by an engineering shop, and there are specialists in our network who do this properly. What is not worth repairing is a crack running between valve seats or into the water jacket — those are in the hottest, most stressed part of the casting and repairs there rarely hold. Any head we quote a repair on gets pressure-tested first, so the decision is made on evidence rather than optimism.

Almost always coolant reaching the combustion chamber, through a head gasket, a cracked head or, rarely, a cracked block. The test is your nose and the persistence: coolant smells faintly sweet and the plume does not clear as the engine warms. On a cold Highveld morning a short white puff that disappears within a minute or two is just condensed water vapour and entirely normal. A plume that is still there at operating temperature is not.