M42 Profile Gasket Casualty

[cheesebox]

My 318is died yesterday. It started drinking water and overheating a couple of days ago, with no obvious signs of where water was escaping from, and the oil looked fine. It's got 82K on the clock.

Now when I fill the radiator, water pours out from the side of the engine, near the coil pack but lower down. I assume it's the profile gasket that's gone. Does this sound about right? I've a nasty feeling it was never replaced under warranty (it still had the original style timing chain tensioner when I got it last year at 72K miles - would have expected that to have been replaced).

I was thinking about calling the AA to tow me to a garage, but then I thought they'd probably insist on trying to "repair" it with Barr's Leaks or something similar. Is there a risk of permanently clogging the system and heater matrix if they do this, or can the clag be removed later with radiator flush?

Arse. I'm gonna be eating gruel for the next 3 months.

[Chris-W]

I'm afriad that if you have water pouring out where you describe, then more than just the profile gasket will have gone...more like head gasket or worse.

[cheesebox]

Hope it's just gaskets! I think The head gasket should really get replaced anyway when you change the profile gasket so not much greater expense there.

Are you thinking cracked head?

There's no water in the oil, looking at the dipstick - maybe that's just luck.

Luck's probably not the right word here...

[Chris-W]

I was more concerned that if there is actually coolant pouring out where you describe it suggests that the profile gasket has failed to the extent where it is allowing coolant inside the timing chain case & who knows where else!