Hi folks!

I've been having a few small problems with my 1.4 EVO GP recently, would love some advice on monitoring and some next steps.

1) Slow coolant loss - Have to top up the coolant tank ever 4/5 months with coolant as it slowly goes down, this has been happening since owning the car. Possibly down to bad seals on pipes, but maybe not.

2) Rough idle - Usually when sitting at lights, the revs seem okay but you can feel something isn't happy. HT leads look like they could do with replacement after checking, but anything else I could check?

3) Milky residue on oil cap and breather pipe - Only noticed today, and I do check this quite often. Some mild milky residue on oil cap, it wasn't thick sludge, and oil was changed a month ago. Car hasn't been doing long journeys recently, so I understand it could just be moisture build up, as this is the first time I've noticed this.

I know these are common head gasket failure symptoms, but I've had no loss of power or smoke blowing from the exhast.

Only recent work done on the car was timing belt/water pump replacement, about a week ago, mechanic did the road test with me in the passenger seat and we agreed everything was fine afterwards.

Any advice would be appreciated

If you are concerned Ask your mechanic if he can do "sniff test on the header tank " this test can detect if exhaust gases in coolant. If test doesn't show any problem the don't worry carry on like normal . If he doesn't have the equipment it maybe cheap on ebay or he may know someone in the trade who has it. Test only takes a few mins. Look it up on Google, very smart.
I agree any moisture on inside of oil cap very likely caused by short journeys.
Current cv19 thing is making a lot of people worry about all sorts of things.

jackwhoo said:

If you are concerned Ask your mechanic if he can do "sniff test on the header tank " this test can detect if exhaust gases in coolant. If test doesn't show any problem the don't worry carry on like normal . If he doesn't have the equipment it maybe cheap on ebay or he may know someone in the trade who has it. Test only takes a few mins. Look it up on Google, very smart.
I agree any moisture on inside of oil cap very likely caused by short journeys.
Current cv19 thing is making a lot of people worry about all sorts of things.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I managed to get a longer journey in and so far no more residue, so hopefully it's just moisture from sitting.

Will be looking at replacing the coil pack and leads soon, inspected the leads and 2 out of 4 show more wear, so that may help, although no codes read to indicate a misfire.

It will be ok.
1, That white **** on oil cap is because of short trips. Normal behavior.
2, Regarding "poor" idle, check at night on idle if you see some spark jumps on engine's body from one of HT leads. You can also measure HT leads with Ohm meter, but this is not 100% measurement. And if you remove HT leads, check spark plugs and compare their colors (all electrides should be like white coffee) + gaps must be correct. Looks like only minor issues. If everyting ok and issue persists, take a look on engine mountings...one of them can be tired and whole car is shaking on idle. If you notice whole car shaking, try to turn on A/C. RPMs will go little bit up when aircon is ON and shaking shoul go away. If yes, it's 99% bad only one of engine mountings

Rado77 said:

It will be ok.
1, That white **** on oil cap is because of short trips. Normal behavior.
2, Regarding "poor" idle, check at night on idle if you see some spark jumps on engine's body from one of HT leads. You can also measure HT leads with Ohm meter, but this is not 100% measurement. And if you remove HT leads, check spark plugs and compare their colors (all electrides should be like white coffee) + gaps must be correct. Looks like only minor issues. If everyting ok and issue persists, take a look on engine mountings...one of them can be tired and whole car is shaking on idle. If you notice whole car shaking, try to turn on A/C. RPMs will go little bit up when aircon is ON and shaking shoul go away. If yes, it's 99% bad only one of engine mountings

Click to expand...

Thanks! HT leads seem cheap enough to replace anyway, so I'll do that. I'll give the mounts a proper check too.

It seems new HT leads have sorted my rough idle, and no residue on the cap, so I've just put that down to short journeys as suggested.

Annoyingly though, I've noticed a louder than usual ticking noise after the timing belt and water pump was done. The car has always had a slight tick at certain intervals, and I've always dismissed it as a minor annoyance, but it has been louder since.

I've replaced the oil with a higher quality oil as it was suggested elsewhere that this could help. My mechanic suggested that it was the hydraulic dephaser pulley making the noise, and this should go away over time. Any thoughts?