Head gasket diagnosis ???

To All,

I have a 1997 Aurora w 115k miles. I've owned it for 2.5 yrs and got it with only 59k, the rest are mine and mostly highway.

Curious if head gasket problems are very common, and what are the diagnoses that indicate a busted gasket. I am aware of the obvious - water in the oil, water from the tailpipe. But what else would I look for - poor performance or gas mileage, rough idle, steam clouds out the pipes?

I have had several issues since I've owned the car but none I could not remedy myself. A blown gasket would be beyond my skill and pocketbook. Is a blown gasket something that starts small and gradually gets worse, or sudden and significant?

Thanks in advance.

Brian.

I'll give my condensed story again for you. My '97 with only 80k mi started blowing small amounts of coolant out the cap when climbing a hill or exceeding 4k RPM. It got progressively worse over a year and a half with no loss in power, mileage, or smoothness. No coolant in oil either. I carried premixed coolant and a bunch of rags in the trunk to refill and wrap the cap with a rag so the coolant would'nt spray everywhere. Anyway, the headgasket is actually the last thing to go. The aluminum begins cracking around the headstuds and expand under high cylinder pressure allowing exhaust gases into the water jacket. Eventually burning through the gasket. The only way I know of checking for this is using a smog machine probe inside the coolant recovery tank after warm-up to detect hydrocarbons. In my case, the car began overheating and soon could'nt make it two blocks before going into limp home mode. Some owners have successfully replaced the studs with a factory recommended Timesert kit(like a Heli-Coil fix). After some research I found these repairs to not last very long and GM admits the aluminum engines they produce are not designed to be rebuildable in any way, so I chose the brand new engine with a 3 year, 100k mi warranty. Good luck!