2013 hyundai, failed mot for an excessive oil leak, do we bother trying to save it?

ceb1995

Soot2006 said:

ceb1995 said:

Stubod said:

..problem is both finding another car and the costs involved as 2nd hand car prices are silly at the mo.

It doesn't sound like the car owes you any money, (based on £1k / year depreciation), but if you are basically happy with the car, and the cost is likely to be no more than £1k, then it may be worthwhile considering getting it repaired?

Even if it only lasts another year it will still be money well spent as it will probably never be worth less than £1k (assuming MOT), and it gives you time to look for an alternative?

Where the difficulty is, if we spend the 1k and anything else major goes wrong, we'd have to scrap it and can't have an alternative till 2024 but otherwise happy with it. 

But this could easily happen with the runaround that you buy. Better the devil you know, sometimes. I am in a similar position but given the second hand car prices, have now essentially committed to repairs until further notice as I just can't actually afford a decent replacement that is less likely to give me trouble. With my own car, also a 2013, I know what's been repaired and replaced and maintained ...

I think we're going to have to take it to the garage and get their opinion on the repair, and if it has an issue again, that's that as we just can't afford much past a few hundred after this .
 
We do have the full history but only the tyres, gearbox and 1 headlight has ever been replaced on it so who knows if we fix it if anything else will go wrong. 

facade

Ectophile said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

Get the engine & tray Steam cleaned.

Put through a new MOT.

Keep an eye on the oil level.

Job sorted.

If it's leaking badly enough to fail an MOT, then steam cleaning will only make it easier to see where the oil is leaking from.

The failure criteria is creating a pool of 75mm diameter in 5 minutes, presumably this would be when the engine was running for a while to do the emission test rather than when parked.

You'd definitely notice that on your drive, and the oil level would go down quickly

If the leak is nowhere near as bad (put an old tin tray or something non absorbent under the leak and run the engine for 5 minutes) it would be worth cleaning the oil off and going elsewhere for another test.

£1000 sounds about 3 times what the job is worth though, a clutch replacement is around £300 including parts, and to do the seal requires 5 more bolts undone and the seal pulling out, 15 minutes more work. 

It does depend on why it is leaking though, if there is a wear groove on the crank the new seal won't work unless the mechanic uses some common sense and doesn't knock it fully home. (or fits a speedi-sleeve, chances are they don't keep them though, and they won't want to leave a car with no gearbox in the way whilst they get one).

Take it somewhere else for a quote.

 

Grumpy_chap

Last year, there was a slight oil leak.
This year, the oil leak is excessive (sufficiently so to fail the MOT).

In the course of the past year, how many times has the OP had to top up oil?
how many times has the engine oil light illuminated?
how evident is the oil leak from wherever the OP parks the car?

If there is an excessive oil leak, either the OP will have had one of the symptoms just mentioned, or the OP was very luck that the MOT tester just happened to spot the excessive oil leak before anything major happened to the engine.

If there has been a slight leak for a year and there is still a slight leak, the evidence of gungy oil might be high and an enthusiastic tester might just tick the "excessive leak - fail" box.

If the OP has had to top-up oil within the year, is it possible that some oil got spilled and therefore makes a leak look worse than it is?

Can the OP establish how bad the leak really is?
The steam clean mentioned above might be a way to assess the severity of the leak.

If there truly is an excessive oil leak, then the OP won't want to ignore that.

EDIT - there are around 100 Hyundai i10 cars from 2013 on Autotrader from 2013 listed form £2k upwards.  Given that the OP's car is seemingly a sound one, then fixing the oil leak seems like the way to go.  The thing is to get a proper understanding of the severity of the oil leak and the cost to repair.  This certainly does not sound like an end-of-life car.

ceb1995

facade said:

Ectophile said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

Get the engine & tray Steam cleaned.

Put through a new MOT.

Keep an eye on the oil level.

Job sorted.

If it's leaking badly enough to fail an MOT, then steam cleaning will only make it easier to see where the oil is leaking from.

The failure criteria is creating a pool of 75mm diameter in 5 minutes, presumably this would be when the engine was running for a while to do the emission test rather than when parked.

You'd definitely notice that on your drive, and the oil level would go down quickly

If the leak is nowhere near as bad (put an old tin tray or something non absorbent under the leak and run the engine for 5 minutes) it would be worth cleaning the oil off and going elsewhere for another test.

£1000 sounds about 3 times what the job is worth though, a clutch replacement is around £300 including parts, and to do the seal requires 5 more bolts undone and the seal pulling out, 15 minutes more work. 

It does depend on why it is leaking though, if there is a wear groove on the crank the new seal won't work unless the mechanic uses some common sense and doesn't knock it fully home. (or fits a speedi-sleeve, chances are they don't keep them though, and they won't want to leave a car with no gearbox in the way whilst they get one).

Take it somewhere else for a quote.

 

There's certainly hasn't been any puddles on oil on our drive. We shall give that a try and it ll be going elsewhere for a quote on Monday. 

born_again

Ectophile said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

Get the engine & tray Steam cleaned.

Put through a new MOT.

Keep an eye on the oil level.

Job sorted.

If it's leaking badly enough to fail an MOT, then steam cleaning will only make it easier to see where the oil is leaking from.

OP said >>last year they mentioned a slight leak but we've never seen it leak ourselves and they weren't concerned at that time <<
If it was leaking that bad, then I would expect to see oil on the ground & a serious drop in level & need to constantly top up. OP has never mentioned anything about that. Or servicing come to that..

So it could be as simple as the leak looks a lot worse than it is due to the length it has been leaking, not that it is really bad. At least steam clean would show if it is bad or not.

Stubod

Ectophile said:

You could buy a newer car.  If you paid £3k for that then that's three times the cost of fixing your current one.  And for all you know, the newer car could be one major fault away from being scrapped.

If the cost of fixing a car is less than the car is worth, then it's probably worth fixing it.

...exactly this....

onejontwo

I've never actually tried it but there are products on the market which claim to rejuvenate worn seals that are leaking. Just add it to the oil, steam clean and you never know. Example:- https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/wynns-engine-stop-leak-325-ml-555770400?gclid=Cj0KCQjworiXBhDJARIsAMuzAuwsFiGLR7h6_uGn7EcFzEWgek6ynsz-gPlUOlukDfO4mEc5yWg8LiYaArhFEALw_wcB 

Bigwheels1111

Like I said before steam clean, look for leak, wipe clean if not to bad.
Then go to a no pass no fee mot.

photome

how often have you topped the oil up, for an excessive leak you would need to be topping up regularly and you would see oil on the ground where you park it, 

Alanp

Why not try the Hyundai i10 forum, I’m sure there’s something someone can suggest on there, it may be a common fault with an easy/ not too expensive fix, you never know