The Estima
Motoring Community cannot be held liable for any
damage to engines or cars; or for any personal
injury caused through following any advice, opinion
or recommendation shown on this website. The
decision to follow any such advice is solely your
own.
Which
Headgasket
should I use?
ALWAYS
use a genuine Toyota head gasket specifically for
the Estima.
There are other
gaskets which fit the same engine but have the wrong
holes in and are intended for applications which
have the water outlet from the other end of the
cylinder head, such as the Corolla and Picnic.
There are also
people selling gaskets for the Estima which are
copies of the
wrong
gasket.
Don't be misled by a Supplier who says their
product is definitely a gasket for an Estima unless
it is a genuine Toyota one. These third-party
"copy/pattern" gaskets alter the flow of coolant
through the engine and are a probable cause of a
lot of cracked heads.
To illustrate this
point, note the
variation in the two gaskets (items circled in red):
GENUINE TOYOTA
HEADGASKET
THIRD-PARTY "COPY"
HEADGASKET
On the Third-party
gasket:
All of which leads
to incorrect coolant flow within the head when using
a Third-party Gasket.
It might be possible to tell which
gasket is fitted to an engine by looking at the edge
of the gasket between the head and the block. If
anyone can work out exactly what to look for, please
let us know as being able to check the gasket on an
Estima you're thinking of buying would be very
useful.
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