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Originally Posted by jca  I a word, yes. A ti with 130k miles on it, is way past due cooling system preventive maintainence, so there is a very good chance the overheating is being caused by a failure of one or more cooling system components. Likely suspect is the water pump. Overheating can cause of head gasket problems, but you may not have blown the head gasket yet. Signs of a bad headgasket: sweet smelling white smoke out the tailpipe, brownish white gooey stuff on the inside of the oil filler cap (coolant mixing with engine oil), loss of coolant (into the combustion chambers, causing the white smoke), contaminated coolent (engine oil leaking into the coolant system). There is a chemical test for this. At a minimum I would have the mechanic explain why he thinks the head gasket is blown and/or I would take the car to a good indie BMW mechanic for a second opinion. You have a very desireable ti in my opinion. Lovely color and a Cali top to boot. Good luck, John |
Thanks for the great info, John. The main symptoms the car has been experiencing are:
1) very fast leakage of antifreeze (tank drains to about 2/3 empty within minutes of starting).
2) coolant dripping from tailpipe.
Sounds like you've got some good experience with this....would these symptoms suggest the head gasket to you?
I'll look out for the other symptoms you mentioned, which I have not specifically noticed. But eliminating them would give me some hope that the car does have life in it yet!
Thank you again!