[olenka1983]

Hi am new this this and even that am girl I have some idea about cars so not cheeky answers plz . I have a corsa sxi 1.2 57 plate and under my engine cap there is butter like mass which could indicate glown gasket although the oil on a dipstick is clear and there is no pressure in cooling tank. The engine light is on. The clogs in all pipes has been cleaned and it lasted two weeks. I had that chacked with a mechanic he is yet to do head gasket check for damage seal and any leaks. There is no decrease of engine cooling level in the tank. And ideas ? Thanks

 

[gb33]

If your coolant level is not going down, and your engine oil on the dipstick looks fine, and the car drives fine otherwise despite the engine check light, then there's a 99.5% chance that your headgasket is OK. You should still get the car checked for codes to see what the check engine light is about.

The problem with the butter gunk under the oil fill cap is most likely that you are doing short trips in the car which prevent the engine from reaching its full operating temperature (should hover between 92-98 degrees in regular driving).

Or now that its winter, perhaps you are driving around with the heat on as soon as you start the car, which means that any heat generated by the engine is being sapped away as soon as its available, and this means that it takes nearly forever for the engine to reach full temperature, if ever.

If you do either of these, then there's the problem. What happens is that when fuel is burnt, the exhaust is made up of mostly carbon dioxide and water vapour. A little of this water vapour makes its way into the engine crankcase instead of going out the exhaust. The water vapour mixes with the oil vapours in the engine to form a mayo emulsion, and condenses on the coldest part of the engine which is anything plastic like your oil filler cap. If this happens too much, then the mayo stuff buildup will get excessive until it covers the entire underside of the plastic rocker cover and blocks up the breather hoses like it did on your car. Once the breather hoses are blocked, the problem gets even worse because there's no way for the water vapours to evacuate anymore.

The solution is to clear out the breather hoses, and then make sure that you drive the car for a longer time at least once per week, to allow the engine to get hot enough that the water that is collected in the engine from short trips will boil off and the vapour sucked out through the breather hoses. You can run the vents on the cold setting to keep the windows from fogging up, but ideally keep the heat OFF completely until the engine gets up to full temperature. If you can't stand driving without heat, then that's fine, just realize that instead of driving the car nonstop for one full hour per week to boil off the water in the engine, you might have to drive the car for two hours instead because the engine will have a harder time boiling off the water when its having half of its heat sapped away by the heater matrix.

Another thing you can do to keep the engine and its oil in good condition is have the car serviced a bit more often than Vauxhall suggests, except you can save a little money by using a cheaper oil then. For your car, Vauxhall says to use fully synthetic 5w30 oil (which is more expensive) and run it for an entire year or 20,000 miles, which saves on service/labour costs but is virtually guaranteed to cause expensive repairs later on because of a known timing chain oil sludge issue with these corsa engines.

If you want your car to run more years without needing expensive repairs, you can run a cheaper 10w40 part synthetic oil but have it changed more frequently -- every 5000-6000 miles (or once per year, whichever comes first) with a new name brand oil filter. The engine won't notice any difference with the cheaper part-synthetic oil for these more conservative service intervals. The advantage is that when the oil gets changed more often, then the detergents in the oil get replenished which prevents tar-like sludge from forming in the engine. If the engine is kept free of sludge, then the likelyhood of premature timing chain issues goes down considerably.

 

[olenka1983]

Thanks ALOT for taking your time to reply , much appreciated! ! The gunk has already been cleaned from the pipes but has not been cleaned from entire engine. ( light came up after two weeks ).Twice when connected to computer it came up lambda sensor. Its been deleted then went on very next day. I do drive kind of short distance every day -maybe around 15m and its usually back roads to miss the traffic . I had it checked over today by a good friend who knows abit about cars and he suggested to buy that red stiff you put in the petrol tank and give it a good motorway run to see if it clears the gunk , then delete the fault and see if it comes up again and if it does then time to change lambda sensor and give engine a flush and oil change. I had my oil and oil filter changed in September so not that long ago really. What its your opinion ? Thanks in advice.

 

[gb33]

I wouldn't flush the engine. The weakness that these engines have is a couple small passageways on the side of the cylinder head where oil splashes onto the timing chain to lubricate it. If the engine gets sludge built up in it, and a chunk of this sludge breaks off and clogs those small passageways, then the oil flow stops to the timing chain which causes it to wear out the chain tensioners, chain and timing gears in very short order. Once this happens its £100-200 in parts and at least that much in labour to get a new timing kit fitted.

The problems with flushes is that they work so aggressively that they very often loosen sludge as described above. Flushes can have their benefits, but for these corsa engines, the risk far outweighs any potential benefits.

Its better to just stick to a shorter oil change intervals with cheaper 10w40 and allow the fresher oil to gradually dissolve any sludge instead. If you stick to 5000 mile intervals, then in 20,000 miles it will have accomplished what a flush would have done, without such aforementioned risks.

Also, the lambda sensors do certainly go bad sometimes on these cars, but the computer oftentimes throws a lambda code when the problem is the MAF sensor. Only way to sort this is to first change out the lambda sensor (since its the cheaper of the two, plus you can get away with using a generic part).

Then, if you still have problems with lambda codes, you know what the real culprit was and replace the MAF sensor. Unfortunately, the available cheap MAF sensors do not work well with these corsas. In that case, get a genuine replacement MAF from Bosch, which is where Vauxhall sources their MAFs from. The Bosch MAFs seem expensive; they are half the price of the identical Vauxhall MAFs, but cost three times as much as the generic MAFs.

 

[Walksall]

I Completely agree with the above remarks on flushing oil, I would never use it for the stated reasons.
You seem to be talking about putting something like 'Red-Ex' in the petrol, this probably won't do any harm, but it isn't likely to do much good either - try a few tanks-full of Shell V-Power instead - You may not notice any difference on the first (or even second) tank full, but after that, you almost certainly will find that the engine is smoother and has more power.
The easy way to check the MAF sensor, is simply to unplug the existing one and drive the car, this will almost certainly put the engine warning light on, but just ignore it.
If the car drives better with the MAF disconnected, then you need a new one, if there is no improvement, then the existing one is OK.

Regards

 

[olenka1983]

I went to my mechanic today and he seemed kinda angry that I suggested to just to change the lambda sensor and flush the engine ( that was before I read the repky from yous guys ) I think he thinks it's head gasket as he asked he cheeky question like - so why the women I know who has a ***** and drives it very rerly and short distances doeant have all that gunk - which i politely asked what size of engine it is? , he said 3.0 l - so i said because it more often happens in a small engine size. But anyway... I got him to delete the fault again, got some Red-ex put in and took it on a motorway for a run and put my foot down to give it a kick. If the EML will come up again I will change the lambda sensor and I will take it from there. But... I will be back .

Besides that yous maybe have idea where is f the use for interior lights as every time I google it it tells me the different layout. Like for cigarettes lighter google said 16 or 23 but mines was in 31 . Vauxhall can be difficult .

 

[gb33]

Actually it isn't the size of the engine that causes it, its just that some engines are more prone to certain problems than others (though he probably didn't know enough to argue anyway). The late corsa Bs with the 1.0L 12 valve and 1.2L 16 valve engines have an aluminium rocker cover, whilst the corsa Cs and Ds with the nearly identical engines have plastic rocker covers. Guess which one is more likely to have the mayo problem? Yep -- the plastic ones.

All car engines have their strengths and weaknesses. Vauxhalls will run happily on nearly any type of motor oil as long as its changed often enough, for example, when compared to some diesel VW/Audis which love to eat their camshafts when given the wrong oil, and sometimes still destroy the camshafts even when they have a flawless service record with the correct oil.

Anyway, it sounds like your mechanic doesn't know much about these specific engines and is used to applying his general knowledge, which is not ideal. The fact taht you are not losing coolant is a good sign for this engine -- it generally means the HG is ok and the timing cover gasket (another potentially weak spot where coolant/oil can mix if the gasket fails) is ok on your engine.

For interior lights, try removing the old light bulbs and just bring them with you to a shop that sells replacement bulbs and ask for an identical replacement.

 

[olenka1983]

Thanks alot for all the information . My knowledge about the cars are getting greater by a day . About the light I thought it mite be a fuse blown as none of them work neither when I open car door , press the button above my head , the boot light or glove compartment light either and I don't have a manual so it's like a guessing game. THANKS