Corsa Head Gasket Advice - I know this is a Fiat Forum..!

[zigleon]

Hi guys.

This forum has been so helpful to me and my Punto...
Hope this is okay to ask here.
Mods....please move or delete if not.

My mom has a 52 plate 1.2 Corsa Comfort. There is brownish/yellow mayo under oil filler cap and signs of oil in the water reservoir. Symptoms pointing to HG faluire...right?


It's been like this for about 3 months and hasn't got any worse...

It doesn't loose water
It doesn't drink oil
It doesn't misfire
It doesn't lack power
No white smoke
Heater works as it should
It starts and runs fine

Temperature rises a little in traffic but not excessively high

It only does short journeys

Mom has been quoted £525.00 for new HG..... but I'm not entirely convinced that is the problem..

Any advice would very much appreciated...

Thanks

 

[jimboy]

Get a gas test at the reservoir. This will tell you for sure.

 

[Azzam]

give it a compression test. There maybe a broken channel in the headgasket where the water and oil channel through.
follow on with a compression test and like jimboy said above aid give it a gastest.

 

[colinf1]

May be down to loose fitting oil cap, and the condensation thats got in there has turned to mayo.

Just take off rocker cover and clean it, then clean oil cap and see how it is after a while.

As long as its not loosing oil/water/power it should be ok.

 

[DaveMcT]

Every litre of petrol males a litre of water some of which condenses in cold engines & dribbles into the sump. It may simply need a proper journey to clear moisture out of the oil.

Compression test will prove it with the exhaust gas sniff test as backup.

The price also seems silly high so even if HG has failed go elsewhere.

 

[Dragon Man]

It sounds like it could just be a case of having lots of short runs.
its common to have this problem.. if you were to take a day trip out in the car it should clear it up.

the fiat panda we had (few years back now) had this when we first got it as well as really bad over run. a trip to brands hatch race track (to wach BSB.. track day in a panda.. lol!) soon cleared it up!

next time the weather is nice, take your mum out for a day trip in the car.. would be a nice day out and fix the cars problem.

 

[dronenrs]

its definatly lots of short runs. it needs a really good blast down the motorway

 

[zigleon]

Thanks for the replies everyone.


I took it up the M5 for a good run. Car is running fine. No loss of water. Fan kicked in when expected. Temp stayed steady at 80.

Checked under filler cap and was surprised to see some improvement. There was still some slight traces of mayo type stuff but quite a lot less and certainly not as thick.

Doesn't make sense that there was some signs of oil in the water reservoir, although I did find out that daft old mother let the reservoir run down to empty by not checking regularly. Not sure how long it was empty for as the car never overheated so I think it was caught in time.


Thanks again everyone...