Head gasket replacement/oil leak

sithmaster

Somerset_La_La_La wrote: »

It uses (and leaks) a ridiculous amount of oil, to the point that I have a 5L bottle in the car.


I don't drive a great deal, and he said if I were to drive it I could just put plenty of oil in and it'll be ok, but keep the oil topped up. fail???

you might be ok doing this, but i wont later on when i hit your oil on my motorbike


i would advise not to use it until its fixed.


oil on the road can kill

Norman_Castle

Somerset_La_La_La wrote: »

"Oil level low rocker cover gasket appears to be leaking. Make sure oil level topped up and monitor oil loss."

!

The rocker cover gasket is not the head gasket.

bazster

Somerset_La_La_La wrote: »

"Oil level low rocker cover gasket appears to be leaking. Make sure oil level topped up and monitor oil loss."

!!!!!! that's a doddle. On my cars I'd do it meself but even so a garage shouldn't charge you more than about an hour plus the (cheap) new gasket.

bazster

facade wrote: »

The rocker/cam cover gasket always weeps oil on a Corsa

Doesn't on mine.

bazster

facade wrote: »

400 miles to a litre isn't much above the "normal" consumption of a BMW Mini or a VAG 1.6, and you don't see much smoke from these.

Seriously? If I bought a new car that gobbled that much oil I'd consider it a fault and keep taking it back 'til it was fixed!

facade

bazster wrote: »

Seriously? If I bought a new car that gobbled that much oil I'd consider it a fault and keep taking it back 'til it was fixed!

BMW think 1000 miles to a litre is brilliant. 600-800 is typical, and you will be able to google a fair few cases where people have been trying to get BMW to do something about it, but without a gold plated BMW service history they won't.

Trouble is, the sump only holds 4 litres, and the service intervals are about 10,000 miles.

Quite a few are run until they get hard to start, by which time the sump is virtually dry. (I know of 2 that have been)

arcon5

There are a lot of so called DIY jobs on cars which carry serious potential of spiralling in to something else. But rocker cover gasket isn't one of them. It's really a very simple job, not exposed to rust and corrosion or seized parts or anything like that. A dirty job yes, but could be done yourself for very cheap. Nip up + a tad the bolts though, don't overtighten, they thread very very easy indeed

Axial

Whilst the rocker cover is off I'd suggesting checking the tightness of the bolts holding the camshaft and timing chain runner (between the two sprockets)

There's a known problem with these engines that these can easily work loose.

bartelbe

Look in coolant? If the headgasket has gone it will be like mayo.

thescouselander

I'd be surprised if that much oil was escaping from the rocker gasket - it would be dripping all over the floor quite noticeably. Likewise, I'd be surprised if the oil was escaping into the coolant as, at that rate, the cooling system would quickly overflow.

I strongly suspect the oil is being burnt by the engine - the question is why. First off it's probably best to check for worn/damaged piston rings and bores. Ideally it would be best to do a compression test on each cylinder but in the absence of that you could check for blow-by gasses which might indicate a problem. To do this take off the oil filler cap while the engine is running and check to any positive pressure from coming out of the filler hole. Also if there was significant levels of blow-by there's probably a lot of oil being pushed up the oil breather pipe - should be easy enough to take that off to check.