Anyone ever use...

...Bar's or Blue Devil or any other type of head gasket stop leak with any success?

And before anyone says anything...I know full well that these things are stop-gap measures that (somewhat) work by clogging up leaks with gunk and that it's not a long-term solution. The situation is that my beater 95 Civic seems to be on it's last leg with bad idle and coolant leak problems, but I don't have the time or motivation for tearing the engine apart right now and I'm certainly not paying a mechanic thousands for a rebuild or head gasket job on a 21 year old, rusted out Civic with 250k miles.

I'd really love it if it just lasted a few more months or Hell, even just a month so I can put my commission check and/or some tax refund money in to a new(er) piece of shit winter vehicle. Thoughts?

cant you swap the whole engine for like... 300 bucks?

Yeah, maybe. I haven't really looked in to it. I personally don't have the tools or a spot to do it right now, so I'd be paying someone.

Really, I'd like to get a slightly newer beater car anyway. This one has developed a lot of weird and annoying problems over the three years I've had it. I was just hoping that this one would make it through the winter.

I've sure heard a lot of bad things about those kind of products, but if you just need another month out of the car I guess it makes sense to give it a crack.

Ya know, I've tried various 'head gasket fix' solutions on friends' buckets of shit that are on their last leg, engines that I know are fubar'd, when I was working at used car lots a while back - Bar's, other brands of pour-in, various 'block tablets', etc, and I've never EVER even seen one work...and that's with reading the instructions.

Complete and utter waste of money IMO. Send the $6 to me instead.

civicious said:

Ya know, I've tried various 'head gasket fix' solutions on friends' buckets of shit that are on their last leg, engines that I know are fubar'd, when I was working at used car lots a while back - Bar's, other brands of pour-in, various 'block tablets', etc, and I've never EVER even seen one work...and that's with reading the instructions.

Complete and utter waste of money IMO. Send the $6 to me instead.

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I feel like we should all probably send you $6 for all the entertainment you've provided us over the years, LOL.

But yeah, I decided to give it a go since the bottle of Bar's was only $10. It helped for like a week and then it was right back to overheating. I parked it for a week or so, and then went to move it, and now the throttle is unresponsive too. All I can do now is go in reverse and roll around in the parking lot in drive slower than molasses.

I actually bought a 2000 EX sedan last week as a new winter beater, so I think I'm just going to send this car to be scrapped because no one's offered me more than $150 for it.

take the 150! yard will only get your 50 bucks probably, and charge you 150 for the tow

Briansol said:

take the 150! yard will only get your 50 bucks probably, and charge you 150 for the tow

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Actually, I found a local charity that will haul it away for free and issue a tax deduction receipt. Even for a broken down car, you can deduct $500, possibly more if they fix it and sell it.

The 500 comes off your AGI. it's no where near $ for $. if you pay 25% tax, do the math.

Oh, yeah, I realize that. I've done charitable donations before. I did some quick math and I think I'd be on top.

you only get a deduction for FMV of the car, or what they sell it for.
If they do work on the car before selling it you do not get to take the whole selling price.
The 8283 is a fast track to eyes looking over your return.
Better off selling the car outright and donating the cash.
The IRS may not bother digging too deeply into this issue unless they think they can collect on you, dollars per hour like any other business.