Well, I took the car in last night to the MB service center because of loosing coolant, about a pint every 500 to 1000 miles. No external leaks, but it was going somewhere.

After sitting all night at the dealer's garage, they said there was so much pressure in the overflow tank, they were surprised the cap didn't blow off. Definitely a head gasket problem.

The quote on the phone said 17 hours of labor would be involved. That really seems excessive, does it not? At $80/hr, that adds up rather quickly. Also, that didn't include the machining of the head which is done by an outside shop.

Since the head and gasket were replaced about 70k ago, what could have caused this to happen? It didn't ever heat up excessively, at least not to the point of reaching the red area on the gauge (no warning light either)...


Am I being fed a line or does this sound about right?