Good Evening All.

So i've got a 51 Plate Brava, in April it started loosing power and gave me an engine warning light. Took it to the garage and they said i ran it out of oil (i found this strange at the time, i topped it about 9 weeks prior to this).

The repairs cost me £550, had to have the head gasket skimmed and a cambelt change. They then advised me to top it up with roughly a litre of oil a month. I don't do that many miles, so i topped it up with a litre roughly once every 6 weeks

I haven't topped the oil up for about 5 weeks, and had a long journey today (About 150 miles). I was on the A1 for about 35 miles before i noticed the temp gauge was at maximum. Pulled into a garage and bought some coolant, didn't check how much was in there but figured that was the issue.

Carried on after letting it cool down for a bit, although the temp gauge wasn't any lower. Got to a hilly part of the journey and i noticed the car was struggling up hills, loosing power and the engine light came on. Similar to what i had experience in April. Then, the car stalled and wouldn't restart, so i pulled over. Smoke everywhere under the bonnet, mostly from the oil reservoir. I checked the dipstick and there was literally no oil in the car again.

This p***** me off, this car drinks a ridiculous amount of oil!. Waited til it cooled down and managed to coast downhill to a garage and put another litre of oil in. Once it cooled down the car went for the rest of the journey, almost. Like i said the area was hilly, the car was struggling a lot, at one point i heard a loud bang underneath the car like i hit something, the engine light kept flickering on and off. I broke down again right outside where i was supposed to be going, like the oil made no difference!

I've left the car outside for the night, hoping it'll fix itself by the morning once it's completely cool!.

What could the problem be? Why does it get through so much damn oil!?.

I didn't have breakdown cover before, but certainly getting some now!.

Oil reservoir?

As in oil in coolant tank?
Headgasket install failed or bad quality part.

If it doesnt smoke, but oil disappears quickly, it is the propable fault.

I think you may have ruined the bearings alredy.

Edit:
Have you checked the waterpump and thermostat are ok?

Sorry if i was unclear. There was no oil mixed with coolant, i meant there was a lot of smoke coming out of the engine block out of the dipstick hole and oil top up thing in the engine.

I wouldn't know how to check the thermostat and water pump tbh!, is it simple?

I forgot to mention that the second time it broke down it had sprayed coolant everywhere and the water cap was loose

hi,
it sounds pretty bad,
check oil + water levels before trying to start it today..,

you should be checking the levels weekly.. so you can gauge how quickly things are being lost.

what engine - 1242 petrol?,
how many miles has the car done total..??

Charlie - Oxford

Face it... you've fried your engine and basically wrecked your car. It's not going to fix itself and your garage won't do it either.

You don't check the oil based on time and amount... you use the dipstick and add as much is required. These engines should not use much oil so there was obviously something wrong in the first place when the garage said you ran it without oil. They must have fixed the headgasket and skimmed the head last time assuming you had cooked the engine, but when they said to put oil in very regularly this means they thought there was a basic problem anyway and you should have recognised this. You didn't check the oil levels even knowing there was a consumption problem and when your car misbehaved yesterday you ignored the oil and topped up the coolant. Then you drove the car further and blew it up.

These engines can last very well but the oil capacity is fairly low in the first place and they need regular checks and changes to keep them running sweet.

I doubt you'll find a good replacement engine and someone reliable and reasonable to fit it for you. Shame really... these are good little cars.

As Bluejohn says.

The original failure was probably due to an overheating issue, which caused the head gasket to fail, and probably the pistons to start to seize in the bores, leading to immediate high oil consumption. Without enough oil your bearings will be scored.

Likely to need rebore and new pistons, crank regrind and new bearing shells, if the head has withstood this latest overheat episode as skimming second time is probably not possible. After all this, you'll also need to identify the cause of the overheating, or it will all happen again.

Really you now need to find a crash damaged car that can donate its engine.

portland_bill said:

Really you now need to find a crash damaged car that can donate its engine.

Click to expand...

they paid £380 for the car, and have forked out £550 fixing it once,



it's the sort of car you could buy another MOT failure for @£100 / £150,


BUT if you need to pay a garage to do the work of making 1 good car..
it's not really viable,


Charlie