Rover 114 SLI Coolant Problem

Hello all,



I own a 1997 Rover 114 SLI and a 1991 Rover Mini Cooper, I am new to the forum and I would really appreciate some help as I am running out of ideas.



I shall elaborate, I bought my Rover 114 SLI in February this year to be my daily drive, mechanically it has been very good apart from when the top radiator hose split over the summer which caused the temperature to soar but luckily I was very close to home so hardly ran it with the cracked pipe, fortunately I managed to get an original Rover part from Rimmer Bros to replace it. It was an easy job to fit so I thought job done, anyway during my weekly checks I noticed that the coolant levels were dropping slightly, initially I thought no big deal and just topped it up but it kept happening so I started thinking is it the head gasket problem raising it's head (no pun intended). I took it to a garage around September time they pressure tested it and no sign of head gasket failure. So then they thought maybe an air lock due to me changing the top radiator hose, so they bleed the system and seemed fairly confident that it was sorted. A week or so later and the coolant levels began to drop again, next up I found a garage close to me that was recommended from a Rover forum, firstly they advised I get a new expansion tank cap, which I did but still losing coolant, next up they pressure tested it again and no sign of HG failure again, this time they thought maybe a few pipes needed tightening up so did that but a few days later coolant loss again. I then took the car to a friend of a friend who is an experienced mechanic and a bit of an MGF expert, he did some checks and concluded it was a cracked cylinder head but didn't strip the engine to check it. I then spoke to the Rover specialist who last pressure tested the engine and he said no he didn't think it was the cylinder head and advised that I use a bit of K Seal to stop what he believes to be a minor leak somewhere that we can't find. I did a bit of research on K Seal and found differing opinions and don't want to use it as a cheap, quick fix if I can solve the real problem. Also I have noticed a wooshing, watery sound when the car first starts, sounds like water going around the system. I am pretty lost here and not sure what to do next. Just some other bits of information, the car has 45k on it (I have done around 10k of those), a full dealer service history, no overheating problems and isn't running hot or anything like that, no problems with the running of the car at all, runs sweet as a nut, there isn't any white build up on the oil filler cap but there is a little bit of white on the oil dip stick near the bottom,no sign of a leak anywhere, no puddles under the car or anything like that.



Any help you could give me would be very much appreciated, I love my car and have already spent quite a bit of money trying to get it as mint as I can and am really lost as regards the next step.



Thanks in advance,



Thomas

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