Quote:
Originally Posted by 8gv
What maintenance task prevents a head gasket failure?.
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Keeping up on the oil and coolant services, moreso the oil due to exposure from the combustion cycle.
The engine arrangement is generally known as a flat 4 or "boxer" (technically speaking, it's an H4 design). This means the cylinders/ pistons move horizontally. Once the engine stops running the oil drains to the low spots and one of those low spots includes the head gasket area of each of the cylinders as there are oil passages to lubricate the cylinder head. The acidity of the oil might react with the layered head gasket at which point the gasket sort of delaminates slowly over time.
The effect will hardly be noticable at first and it could go years or thousands of miles like this however, keeping up with the coolant service would almost certainly show oil contamination in the coolant and early detection of the failure can easily be determined.