Rover nearly blew up in Tyne Tunnel!

[Dewgel]

Ok, I was coming home from work today, been covering the Wallsend branch and I had to use the Tyne Tunnel coming home.

For those of you who don't know, it's basically just a tunnel going under the river and it's like a toll of £1.20, and inside it's a single lane both ways so no overtaking / stopping.

Just as I was coming in, there was this Rover 45 with the full family in, and suddenly I saw water dripping from the arch where the wheel was.. and eventually it started getting worse and worse and I tooted the horn and flashed them but they ignored me.

They then noticed something was going on when a massive white cloud just came flying out from the air vents, under the wheels and through every gap possible. They all jumped out faster than anything.. luckily this was before the lanes merge into 1 so I could get past.. but imagine that happened in the tunnel, or worse he was driving / revving higher in the tunnel and it just seized up. Costs fortunes to get towed out from there, plus it would be impossible to move.

 

[k11stew]

bet they were popular! 1st day schools are back aswell so would of been 5x busier than last week.

heater matrix by sounds of it?

 

[Dewgel]

bet they were popular! 1st day schools are back aswell so would of been 5x busier than last week.

heater matrix by sounds of it?

Nah I'd probably relate it to something to do with the head gasket, or coolant system.

Looked like the radiator just burst from overheating. Yeah, the tunnell was absolutely mad.. I've never used it in rush hour, think I'll go through the town tomorrow see how long that takes.

 

[MicraFish]

It if was a Rover, then it would have definitely been the head gasket - everyone knows the K-Series is the most unreliable bunch of toss ever!
Meh, if they didnt pay attention to you when you were trying to help, maybe they deserved to break down by not undertaking simple maintenance on their car.
My partner has an MG TF with the K Series engine, and it has already had the head gasket go (before he got it, under 30k miles!! :wow. However, all he does is a simple check every other day, lifting the bonnet and checking the coolant levels - which is why these engines go, apart from being revved to death above 3k rpm when cold - and making sure everything is still dandy.

 

[jowley]

but when the head gasket goes and is done it will outlive the car unless its abused

 

[capnmchl]

The K series engine is designed in a way that makes head gasket failures more common.

 

[Hugh]

Or it could be a coolant problem. I had all kinds of fun with my metro when the radiator was shot.

 

[capnmchl]

As a result of the loss of Honda engines on the BMW takeover of Rover, an enlargement of the K Series design to 1.6 and 1.8 litres was carried out. This was done by using larger diameter cylinder liners and also increasing the stroke. The change required a block redesign with the removal of the cylinder block's top deck and a change from "wet" liners to "damp" liners. This change reduced the block stiffness and made the head gasket interface unstable.

That basically. But it could of been a multitude of reasons. But the larger K series have inherent problems with their head gaskets, as explained there.

The 1.6 isn't a too bad an engine. It's up there in the actual decent ones that rover made, but it's not amazing.