Hi i own a 1998 punto sporting and over the last few months i have had some trouble with it. First the car was miss-firing because of a blocked injector (i think) and my friends dad fixed it for me. Two weeks later i was drining down the motorway and my temp gauge went sky high and i had to pull over in the hard shoulder to refill my water. The car was blowing white smoke, i had mayonaise gunk on my dipstick, fairly obviously the h/gaskett had gone. I took it to the same man to fix it which he did. But when I got it back it was making a very strange noise which he said was terminal, and it was probly caused by over heating. Two days later= siezed cam-shaft. I am in the process of having a new(ish) engine fitted which has done 40,000 miles but do u think these faults have merely happened all together by coincidence or is he messin my car up????? Thanx :bang:

Sounds like a lack of looking after the car and bad luck.

I have a mk1 Sporting on 103k and its mint, still on orignal engine and never had a headgasket.

As for the camshaft going after the headgasket how many miles inbetween are you talking, possible he didnt do something right.

Well, ur right about the car not being looked after, if im honest i lokked after it really badly the first year i owned it as it was my first car and i didnt have anyone to help me look after it. thats changed tho now lol. But i did about 10 miles max in between heagdgaskett and cam shaft :bang:

Maybe he put the headgasket upside down its easily done that will block oil to the camshaft maybe caused it to seize...?

there you go

I know a guy who put a gasket upside down, and totalled a volvo penta 16v head (penta is the marine varient, so imagine a marine engine wiht a massive turbo, and the uber uber uber rare 16v penta head, 1) very powerful torque mastro 2) the entire volvo commuinity wept when we heard the news, they are THAT rare).