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Originally Posted by occb2
I then got the call. They told me that the head had cracked. They also asked me who had changed the head gasket in the past. They told me that it seems to just have been changed. I told them that I had just got the car a few months back and I did not know. Ended up that the head gasket was just done and that the mechanic chiseled the head bolts out and reused them. They also used an after market head gasket. It doesn't end there. The head wasn't torqued right. I was getting bad compression. The timing chain was streched and shouldn't have been re used.
I went by the Bendz, mech and looked at the head. The crack is about a 1 and 1/2 inch crack right by the valves. The head showed where the head was over torqued and under torqued, just by the discoloration, and the head gasket looked real crappy with a copper color.
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Sorry to hear of the major trouble. However, I'll take a different tack with regard to the cracking of the head. The previous mechanic knew of the problems with the head and decided to replace the head gasket. The new gasket bought him some time because he certainly didn't want to address the cracked head. It's highly unlikely that he caused the cracked head by over-torquing the head bolts. They will stretch and yield and the torque will falloff quickly.
The aftermarket head gasket is also not the culprit. Some of the aftermarket gaskets are made by the OE manufacturer. I would bet that all of them will go at least 50K miles.......no matter how poor the original construction.
This has the signs of an overheat well before the previous mechanic got into it. And, always be aware, that the passion of most mechanics is to trash others in the same profession..........thereby raising their own status and allowing a blank check for repairs.