V-Man wrote:Alright, time for an update......... as a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks.
Two and a half weeks ago I stopped to make a quick phone call and the cabin fogged up, after the call I started driving but the windows had fogged up a bit as it was freezing cold and I was drenched. No biggie, I turned the heater to high and turned on the A/C to defog the cab.
I drove for a few Km's and the heater was blowing freezing cold air. Something's not right here I thought, another Km or so down the road the heater kicks in and its bloody sweltering hot. I look at the temp gauge and it's almost in the red, I turn the heater off and the temp gauge drops
So I head to the nearest dealer, only to be told that it's my fault because I haven't been topping up the coolant properly and that is why the car is
overheating.
Off I drive again with my topped up radiator, this time I make it home and the temp gauge is back in the red and coolant is pissing out of the overflow. I drive back to the dealer, throw the keys at the service manager, who looked somewhat surprised to see me and said "I told you before that it's f****d, now fix my f****n car".
After checking the thermostat, the water pump and pulling out the radiator again, the mechanics still had no idea what was going on. They called the Mitsu techs, who advised that they (lucky for all you other
MN owners) have only had a handful overheat, and the problem has been rectified by replacing the thermostat.
As this was not the problem, the head was removed and inspected. No apparent problem there, but on inspecting the block, my problem was found - at last.
There must have been an issue at the time the block was cast, which was not picked up by Mitsu quality control. In between pistons three and four was a groove that was very visible to the naked eye. This was allowing exhaust gas into the cooling system and coolant into the piston. The exhaust gas was apparently boiling the coolant which made it overheat and spew out the overflow.
The solution, (without any arguments from Mitsubishi)I finally picked her up today with a brand new motor. I'm so damn happy that Mitsubishi actually stood by their warranty.
To celebrate I took her out and bought her a shiny new set of tyres and put her through the car wash.