Technical White gunk under the oil cap... head gasket?

Currently reading:
Technical White gunk under the oil cap... head gasket?

Parr

New member
Joined
Jun 2, 2006
Messages
97
Points
44
Did my weekly check today, oil, coolant, and oil cap.

Under my cap is this white gunk, I took a picture:


So I took it down to the garage and had him look at it, he said that it wasnt the head gasket and that it wasnt anything to worry about and probably just the cold air going across the cap and a head gasket is much thicker. He also said he didnt think it was the HG because I didnt have any smoke out the exaust and there was no water loss...

One thing that may have contributed to it was about a week ago I went through a BIG puddle way to fast and got water everywere, on the way home the car was spluttering and juddering as it was pulling then stoped then pulled again then stoped. It went away after awhile however.

Can anyone shed any light on this or should I take it to another garage for a second opinion?

Also is a full server for £108 expensive?

Cheeeeers!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
the juddering was because the leads/plugs got wet, i would have said hg but water might have got into the engine when u went thru the water but i doubt it, i would take to another garage just to be sure. £108 for full service not bad if you did it yourself would be about half that.
 
My friend recently had the same symptoms on his astra. People are quick to point it as headgasket problems whenever they see the white stuff on the cap. Anyway we took the car to a garage to double check. The mechanics's opinion is that it is not the head gasket. Apparently it is quite normal to have the white stuff when you do alot of short journeys.
Try doing an oil change and see if the oil also contains this 'mayo'. If it is HG problem the colour of the oil would probably be light brown. if its not HG, your oil would look fine and the 'mayo' only being at the top from condensation.

Some points to look for is:
Does your car overheat?
Does your coolant look oily?
white smoke?
lost of coolant?

If your answer is yes to all then ask your mechanic to do a compression test to verify.


Toad101 is right about the juddering. It was just your ignition leads being wet. Best just to service the car yourself. Not too difficult to change oil, filter, plugs. DOing your own service would also allow you to monitor the condition of your car by looking at the condition of the oil, plugs..etc
 
Last edited:
Nothing to worry about. I find the FIRE engines (1.1, 1.2 8v, 1.2 16v) are prone to this build up if they are used for short journeys every day (under 5 miles).

My 55s and my sporting always had this build up, it would disapear when i took it on a long journey.
 
Phew, dunno whats going on with the picture, not suppose to be that... lol
Took that picture today after I gave it a clean, nice and sunny, car gets cleaned, second i finish drying it, BAM. Pisses with rain for 5 mins, then goes back sunny.

Going to edit, proper picture up in a second...

Glad everyones giving me the answer I want to hear.

The coolants fine and clear, just got a blueish tint which smells like antifreeze, exhaust to my knolege is fine, dont see any smoke floating up while im reving it at standstill.

Most of my journeys are under 5 miles... 0.3 to work, 0.1 to my other job, 4 to college, 4 to G/Fs...

When I hit the puddle I assumed that my clutch got drenched and was slipping because when I got out the car to see if anything was wrong you could smell a strong burning and iv been having problems with my clutch, like it takes a second or so to fully grip ones iv engaged it, took to garage but they said clutch was fine.

One thing someone here might shed some light, is the Sporting 16v's first gear really as short as mine seems to be, its basicly enough to get you rolling and its straight to second, its like foot down, 1 second later and you're on 3000-4000 revs going 10mph and you can properly hear it giving some...

All my mates which have a Corsa 16v, Megane and New Corsa can stick in there first for along time and the car doesnt whine annoyingly telling them to change to pull over.

THANKS!
 

Attachments

  • Cap oil.jpg
    Cap oil.jpg
    123.1 KB · Views: 545
Last edited:
From the picture, your cars fine..in fact my mates car was way worse than that! Its most probably just the short journeys you are doing.

Yeap the sporting really does have a short 1st gear! in a way its annoying and i end up being slower than other cars on take off because i have to shift to second pretty quickly.. which takes me sometime because it tends to refuse to get into gear!! thats the problem with fiats..notchy gear change...it tends to be difficult to engage 1st and 2nd at times and alot of people here seem to experience the same problem.
But once it clears to 3rd with 3500rpm, it starts to flyyy..weeeeeeeee
 
Just got a quote for a full service from a garage i use regularly and he quoted £80 which isnt too bad i suppose.
 
Back
Top