Hi,

Last month I had my head gasket replaced with the new type of gasket set. My 1.8 K series engine (75k) was allowing water coolant out of the exhaust but I had no oil contamination (luckily). Prior to this engine was running hot but not off the scale when in slow moving traffic.

I put this in the garage for them to replace the gasket set, and when I got this back, the engine is noisier than a diesel now and the garage says that at least 2 tappets need replaced. The engine's tappets were fine before and did not make this noise. The total bill was about £600.

The garage is saying that they will fix the noisy tappets at extra cost. But my view is that problem was caused during the time the head was put back on and therefore the garage should fix free of charge. They are saying that air must be in the hydraulic tappets. But reading other forums and the Haynes manual the tappets should be inverted and kept in oil so that air does not find its way into the tappets. Is this the fault of the garage? What should I do or say to them?

tell them they are muppets abd shouldn't be let loose on a k-series

The tappets should quieten down quickly, there are STP oil additives for sticky tappets.
Have you tried revving at 3k rpm and taking for a bit of a burn. Its supposed to be centrifugal force that gets rid of air.

thanks for the advice.

I have run the car for 150 miles and the noise has not dampened down at all. This looks like a permanent issue.

I am just about to put in an engine flush, then replace oil and filter. hope this works.