stu200

iTrader: (1)

My girlfriend's Ford Ka went in to a local exhaust/MOT type place for a standard service, which ended up with the cylinder head having to be removed as two spark plugs had corroded in situ.

We were stung with a bill for 250 quid, but ever since then, the car has been going through oil like there's no tomorrow. Since the start of May, it's needed topping up with six litres over less than 3000 miles.

Some blue smoke is evident on startup, and when pulling away from idle when the engine is warm. No puddle of oil is ever seen underneath the car, it just all vapourises

The outfit concerned has offered to look at it on Monday and quote "drain the oil, put in a special additive and new oil, which should help the situation, but won't necessarily stop the problem".

I don't think this is acceptable, but my knowledge of auto mechanics stops at filling the washer bottle

What kind of "additive" would they be putting in, and would this be likely to bugger things up further down the line (a bit like RadWeld) ?

The outfit concerned has to be offered the opportunity to correct the problem, but this strikes me as a bodge. I'd rather they didn't do this and replaced whatever seal/grommet/widget is causing the problem, but suspect they're unlikely to do this as it would cost more than a fiver.

If they don't fix it, however, I'll have to take it elsewhere for a full report on the problem and a quote to fix it, which I shall then claim against them and my credit card issuer (who are jointly liable).

So, after all of this rambling, does anyone have any useful advice to help us out ?

Cheers,

Stu.

rich101

mmmm . . .

Sounds like they want to use something like STP/?Wynnes? engine which compensates for engine wear/internal engine oil leak. Check the water filler cap for a mayonaise type substance which will be indicative of a failed head gasket. Did they replace the head gasket when they removed the head ?

Same think happened to our pool car a Ford Escort 1.8 diesel the cam belt let go taking several valves with it. Head was reworked and put back on but kept using 1lt of oil every 500 miles !!! Garage not interested as they said the bottom end was knack'd. p/x'd the car 2 months later and got a call from a guy 3 months on asking why it used so much oil and he had paid top price from a trader !

rich

Rollerskate01

If they removed the inlet /exhaust valves they may not have fitted the new valve stem seals correctly. The symptoms are a puff of smoke on start up and also a puffer of smoke when accelerating after a period of having the throttle closed. (This is due to high inlet manifold vacuum.)

A compression check can be carried out to ensure the pistons / rings are in good condition.

Also using poor quality engine oil can cause this and there can be other causes if the engine is turbocharged.

Stick to your guns if the engine was ok before the work, be polite but firm.

Good Luck !!

Nodiggidy

i know as little as u as far as engins go, but like what was said above, stick to ur guns matey. is it a ford garage? or sum dodgy, behind a cake shop affair? and is it still under warrenty?. Methinks whatever the problem, everone always says avoid blu smoke! (not that i know the difference )

Best of luck sincerly mate , not much worse than ur car being mashed.

Dirty_Den

Do NOT under any circumstances put anything in your engine like Wynns, Slick 50 and all the other 'miracle' additives out there!

The majority of these additives claim to reduce engine wear by coating components with teflon. What they fail to mention is that eventually the components in your engine get clogged up with tiny teflon particles and actually hinder lubrication, not aid it. It's also possible it could block the filtration system.

The other point to bear in mind is that synthetic oil (or part synth) is just a blend of chemicals, created by very clever people in laboratories. These people put additives in to create the best oil possible. I'm sure that if teflon worked, they would add it to their oil. Also, as synthetic oil is chemical based, I doubt very much that the additive manfacturers will understand the impact/reaction between their additive and the chemicals in the synth oil. They may do more damage than good!

On the other hand, if they mean an engine flush like Wynns, then you're just going to remove the deposits in your engine, the vast majority of which should have come out if it was a decent oil and they changed it when the oil was warm.