No Compression In One Cylinder

[JimGood]

Hi Guys,

I need your expertise. My 97 960 has 0 compression in number 5 cylinder & 35# in number 4. I'm assuming the rest are OK as the garage where I had it towed just told me about number 4 & 5.
The car has 192K on it. I bought it with 148K in February 2009. It has been a great ride and I really would like to keep it, but my wife along with a few mechanics & frfiends say it's not worth swapping the engine or doing a rebuild. Just to costly for a 97 with close to 200K on it.
The garage thinks it's a bad valve. They want $1800 to do a valve job. I'm thinking it may be a ring. I haven't done a leakdown test yet. The car did use about a quart of oil 3-4 thousand miles between oil changes. I have been using Castrol Edge full synthetic. I ran a can of Seafoam through the intake to see if it might help. Not sure what to do at thins point.
The sad part is I just put new ball joints, tie rod ends & 4 new Michelin Harmonys on it a month ago.

I appreciate any & all advice.........

[lummert]

Head gasket blown between number 4 and 5?

[gmtgmt]

Im thinking burnt valve these have been known for this and headgasket i have replaced them on all my 960s. its not hard to, takes about a day.

If you like the car and have the cash to do it Fix it

[JimGood]

Head gasket is something I might try to change. As far as a burnt valve, does that mean taking the head to a machine shop for a valve job?

[JimGood]

Getting ready to take the head off. I was going to order a new head gasket set from FP Groton. They have a brand called Elwis for $125. I did see I can get a Victor Reinz set for $165 at another store. Is one of these better quality than the other?

Thanks

[Fred760DC]

Elring gaskets are good Reinz are better, original.
I did the whole head gasket, water pump, balancer and she started right up. Touched the gas a clouds of smoke. THEN found a tiny match head sized hole in the #1 I never even saw because of the way the engine angled away from me. Dern!