Blown Head Gasket

[my97blackgst]

Hello,

My mom's 98 Dodge Avenger (420a) blew a head gasket it has 138,000 miles on it. Other than that the car is great. If I was going to repair it....what kind of damage am I looking at? i.e cost, parts etc etc...

Cheers,
Ben

P.S, It still runs....just roughly, It just has that cool white/black/light blue smoke coming from the exhaust. Pretty soon I bet that will be a ricer mod.....

[kjewer1]

Depends on how much work you can do and if you get the head surfaced or not. The head work is probably around 200. The gasket for the turbo cars is ~60 bucks, yours if probably similar. It would take a few hours to swap it. This would also be the time to do a timing belt if its (over)due. If you are paying someone to do it, it gets expensive Its a good bit of labor, and you have to have some idea of what you are doing.

[my97blackgst]

I was qouted about 1k from my shade tree mechanic to fix this. So about 400 in parts sounds about right. I would do the timing belt change since the head would be off anyway. Don't see why it wouldn't be a good idea. But I'll ask this anyway...anybody wanna buy a Dodge Avenger with a blown head gasket?

Cheers,
Ben

[pr0]

What color is your smoke? You said like 3 different colors! haha.

[my97blackgst]

Hey,

I mean it comes out three different colors....I should take pics, I have a feeling it's coolent "white"/oil "black"/God only knows "blue'ish/green"

Cheers,
Ben