[Vwdiesel] '02 Jetta TDI Head Gasket

[Dave Cook]

I know we talked about this a bit before, but I wanted to get thoughts on a couple things.

Recap:

My friend's '02 TDI Jetta has been getting bubbles in the coolant consistently since probably a year ago or longer.  It doesn't really seem to cause much of a problem other than wasting coolant by it being pushed out of the cap and having to add more.  And while he and I took it to Colorado (from Kansas) last fall and were fine, he (read: his wife) is somewhat nervous about taking the car with the baby on longer trips.

So, we'd like to fix it.  

Last fall I disconnected the coolant lines for the EGR and the bubbles persist.  So the head gasket seems to be the likely culprit even though they are somewhat rare on TDIs. 

Anyway, couple questions on "what would you do?"

The car has 190,000 miles.  The auto trans was replaced somewhere around 150,000 or so.  Otherwise it is in pretty good shape overall and runs well.

He would like to eventually sell it and get something a bit bigger for the growing family, something along the lines of a TDI Passat or so but he said realistically that it probably will be a couple years before that happens.

So, I remember folks talking about having the head reworked-flattened, valves guides/seals replaced, etc.  

I told him about his, and of course it adds time the car is down and cost.  We questioned whether this would be necessary to do with the plan of selling it in a couple years and the fact that things are running fine other than the bubbles.  

Thoughts on that?  I've had luck with an old Rabbit diesel just pulling the head, cleaning things up, and slapping the new gasket in.  We talked about just doing that, too.

Also, I know that the old IDI heads required somewhat specialized knowledge of the head by the machine shop.  What about the TDI heads?  Or is it something any competent shop can handle?  Or should we look into exchanging it for a rebuilt one or something?

Planned at the same time is a new timing belt and ancillary bits, as well as possibly deleting the EGR.  

Anything else to consider while the car is disassembled that much?

Dave Cook