B5254 head gaskets.

57buzzard · Post by **57buzzard** » 08 Dec 2009, 15:56

Do the head gaskets fail at a certain mileage?

I recently replaced my old 1996, which blew the head gasket and overheated the motor to the point of no return. It had come from Florida and showed 200k on the odo. My current vehicle is a 1998 V70 AWD from Nova Scotia and it is just rolling 300, 000 km. This one has a small leak somewhere under or from the Turbo unit. I can smell the glycol but haven't been able to trace it. This does beg the question as to when and if the head gasket should be replaced at a certain point.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 08 Dec 2009, 16:30

The normal progression is overheating that causes the head gasket to fail, not the other way around. There really is no failure point on the gasket without external forces like overheating that work on it. It isn't the type of thing that falls into a preventative maintenance category.

...Lee

FCPEURO · Post by **FCPEURO** » 08 Dec 2009, 18:11

+1

You should never have to replace a head gasket if the car is in tip top shape. I would worry more about getting that small coolant leak taken care of because like Lee said, overheating is what kills the gasket.

57buzzard · Post by **57buzzard** » 09 Dec 2009, 17:04

That is what I had suspected.

I won't have a chance to get under the car to check for the leak until the weekend. I do have a a clue that it may be partly the heater core or the o-rings on the heater core hoses on the firewall. There is a minor odor of glycol after it warms up.

I have ordered a V70 shop manual from E-Bay. This should help me with the B5254T. After I had studied all I could on the 850.

I jumped from the 240 series to the 850 series in April. Never had to do a head gasket on theses ever in the 20+ years of driving and maintaining those. I had to ask the head gasket question as it seems to be a common topic.