1989 325i coolant and headgasket problems

My 325i has been leaking coolant for a while and now it's pretty much just running straight through. It's also started hissing and has a rattle to it when it runs. I had a friend tell me that I have a blown headgasket. What should I do????

Ummm . . . Stop driving it?? Get it fixed!

I did manage to figure that out. So far (I've had the car for 3 years) my dad and I have done all the maintinance on the car. I don't live by them anymore so I don't have a lot of tools or space to work on a car. Is this something that is fixable, do I need to take it to a machanic or should I just sell it as a parts car?

I didn't mean to be sarcastic, just meant that if you keep driving it you'll really screw things up beyond reasonable repair. If you're sure it's a blown head gasket, the top half of the engine has to come off. Not sure how much it is, but I'm guessing about $1000, and you definitely can't do it with limited tools. I guess you'll have to weigh out how much the car means to you.

Thanks!!! it's at least a blown head gasket and there is currently a debate about the likelyhood of a ruined head. It's my first car and I really love it but I just don't think I can deal with that kind of headache right now. thx for the info!!!

its very easy to replace on a 4 banger. Some wrenches, sockets, braker bars, torque wrench, and it will come off in 2 hours. (gasket is fairly cheap) I have done on v8 cars.

$1000 noone will pay that.

what do you mean it is running right though.. is it coming out the front of the motor??? if it is then you just need a new water pump... we will work on the rest after we fix the water problem...

By running right through I just mean that it's going through coolant very quickly. I can top it off before I go to work (I am not still driving it but when I was) and by the time I'm there it's empty. And I can also see a stain on the block where liquid has been leaking down from the head. That would indicate either a head gasket or a warped/cracked head, right????

No not always,you may have a leak somewhere else like a pipe or rad leak.Fill up with water then run engine and see if you can see the water leaking out with the bonnet up.The hissing and rattling noise are symptons of running hot with no coolant.When a headgasket leaks it will heat up very quickly and your temp gauge will go into the red.

I've done that already. I should prolly do it again but thats what I did before I was told it was the head gasket. I thought I was having radiator problems so I checked all the hoses and such pretty thoroughly. I haven't seen the temp in the red yet, I usually keep a close eye on my gauges when I drive. I've had too many friends drive obliviously and ruin their cars. However, there has been a couple of times that friends have taken it to the store etc so there is a chance it overheated. I did have the lower radiator hose explode on me about 2-3 weeks ago. I had been driving and it was definately not in the red. I had actually just turned the car off when it happened. Everything sounded normal after I got the hose replaced so I didn't really think much of it. Kinda just wrote it off as a bad hose because the car was fine, then 3-4 days later the leaking started.

Burst hose if split along the length of the hose can mean too much pressure caused by a leaking h/gasket but there are many other problems that can cause your symptons like w/pump or just bleeding,if your in the AA call em,they are brillant at fault finding,best of lick.

My daughter's car had a problem like this where the heater hose had a small crack in it and was spraing the antfreezes on the block, which would then burn right off. Every time I would try to find the leak I would just see the color of where it looked like it was leaking. One day I had my head down near the motor and I was working the gas from on top of the carborator. I finally saw it(the heater hose was cracked)... I would bet this is the same problem you are having..

head gasket

1 Coolant in oil (milky stuff)
2 Coolant outside
if this happens the engine will overheat in several minutes (real fast)
3 hard miss (low copression or no compression on 2 cylinders)
4 It will hardly run if running at all
5 sometimes there might a tinny crack in the head or block or gasket that opens up when the engine is hot causing overheating with no compression loss.
6 Comression test is the answer