Head Gasket ... whats a fair price?

Driving home from work last night, head gasket blew in my 300tdi, engine overheated and had to get towed home. Massive amounts of exhaust gas being blown back into the coolant reservoir so its basically fubar and needs to be repaired properly.

Local garage as quoted me £660 inc vat as the cheapest they can possibly do. Sounds rather high to me, I was hoping it would be nearer half that!

I know a local chap who does Land Rovers who could do it for nearer £400 but not before Christmas

The garage trying to get my bushiness at £660 was trying to tell me anyone charging less than that would be bodging it.


Could someone on here possibly tell me how much it should cost (to do properly without cutting corners) and also just what is needed in terms of parts?

What I gather so far...

1. Head gasket itself ? .. presumably anything except britpart but is it necessary to go for official LR?

2. Skim head

3. Set of bolts

Then the garage said something about the pistons or valves , something has to be done with them (could someone elaborate please?)

And they also said a few other gaskets would have to be changed (which ones?) and that I should probably fit a new water pump while i'm at it.

They were quoting me around £150 to rebuild the head but i'm not exactly sure what they mean by that/what i should be expecting it to entail, however I do know a friend with a precision engineering firm can stick the head on a machine and skim it for 20quid

And as a final Q.. can anyone recommend a garage in the South Devon area who could be trusted to do this job properly but not overcharge?

300 tdi head gasket is an easy job ,genuine head gaskets a £10 ,dont necessarily need new bolts and a skim if needed £30-£40 ,you wouldnt expect to have to strip and rebuild head usually £300 would be nearer the mark

jamesmartin said:

300 tdi head gasket is an easy job ,genuine head gaskets a £10 ,dont necessarily need new bolts and a skim if needed £30-£40 ,you wouldnt expect to have to strip and rebuild head usually £300 would be nearer the mark

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+ 1

Full top end gasket sets can be got for around £10 upwards + VAT
Labour for some one in the know with decent facilities shouldnt be more than a few hours.
Personally I would re-lap valves and change valve seals as they are cheap and its only another couple of hours but for straight forward head gasket change, £300 maybe £400 absolute tops.

Only £300 incl VAT?...less than a days work then plus the cost of replacing fluids and a bit for consumables.

to be honest mate if you have a haynes manual a torque wrench angle guage its easy enough to do yourself.

i done mine for 200 that includes buying a recon head and tools for the job.

discool said:

Only £300 incl VAT?...less than a days work then plus the cost of replacing fluids and a bit for consumables.

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a lot less,bearing mind you and others may take time to make it a bigger job they are just changing a head gasket,not difficult to do in a few hours