Quote Originally Posted by alex16 View Post
Actually head gaskets on many engines have gotten the repretation to blow head gaskets. Toyota 7mge, 3.0 v6, 3.4 v6.

It's ironic you mentioned the ford 4.0 as it had numerous head gasket issues. North Star Cadillac / Oldsmobile had numerous head gasket failures , also modular 97-03 ford 4.6 v8s have frequent head gasket issues. One of the most highly praised engine Toyota 22r has a very weak head gasket. Where as some vehicles such as my 1991 Cherokee I drove with no temperature gauge (idiot light didn't work either it turns out) and I didn't realize it was overheating until it stopped running. I let it cool and over heated it a few more times, off roaded it often (high rpm and oil starvation often) and never had any issues with a head gasket. Yet if you look at a 00-01 xj 4.0 they are notorious for heads cracking.

So yes in some vehicles head gaskets do just blow, from poor design, improper torquing, head bolts stretching, gasket flaw. ive read manufacturer tsb service bullitens that stated head gasket failure is common.
But those head gaskets are still blowing for a reason, it just happens to be built into their design. It was not my intention to suggest that going past a vehicle's design limits was the only reason a head gasket could blow. My only point was that there are reasons other than poor design and overheating.

The 2.9 Ford was much more prone to head gasket problems than the 4.0. The 4.0 had a bigger problem with cracked heads. It was such an issue that in the late 1990s Ford created a new head casting to help with the problem, and retrofitted these newer castings on vehicles that came in needing warranty work for head cracks. The Mazda I owned had already had these newer heads installed, which solved most of the problem.

I knew why the head gasket blew on that truck...I exceeded the truck's design parameters.

It sounds to me like what has really got you down is the fact that your new car is now a well-used car by any reasonable definition of the term. And I can understand that.