Mate brought his vectra GSI round and after removing oil cap i saw this sight, is this normal?

 

hg or just condensation

 

Classic "mayo" head gasket sign. Get it "sniff tested" by a local garage

 

oil cooler or head gasket failure,common on the x25xe lumps

http://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/engin...vectra-v6.html

 

cheers for the replys guys, this is the 3.2 v6

 

from the omega?............makes no difference really,same faults on all vauxhall v6

 

I wish people would stop repeating old wives tails.....

9 times out of 10 a sludgy filler cap/top end is condesation from the engine not being ran up to poper operating temperature for long enough (short journeys). A large capacity v6 will be a more prone to this due to the longer warm-up times. Go for a two hour motorway blast, it'll probably disappear.

Water vapour is a main byproduct from combustion (HC (fuel)+O2 (air)= H20 (water)+CO2) it gets into the crank case, and condenses in the coldest parts....the top! Also its the last part of the flow of gas through the oil breather system - so all moisture and other vapours end up in top of the egnine to condense and make lovely creamy sludge.

ONLY suspect head gasket if its losing coolant or the coolant tank looks mucky. Even this isn't always 100% as you can have a leak elsewhere, and coolant can be contaminated by using different brands of antifreeze...especially Vauxhalls as they should use DEXcool, which is intolerant of other antifreezes (it also doesn't like being in contact with air or cavitation, which is a major issue if the engine is ran low on coolant).

 

mmm there's quite a lot of mayo in there for it to just be condensation to be fair, looks like HG failure to me as well.

 

Looks like birds eye custard.

 

Looks like someone has got a little excited in the filler area.

 

check, i.e. squeeze the radiator hose (under normal operating temps) if it is hard - HG failure

 

The oil cooler issue is a common one on those too and certainly no old Wife's tale. They are sandwiched down between the heads and are water-cooled. I run an B308 (X30XE) in my V6-converted 4x4 Cav Turbo and run an external cooler with a bypass to avoid that issue. Try cleaning it out and putting fresh oil in first. If it comes back sniff test it. Also check that the actual cap is sealing properly to rule out water ingress. We've got a 3.2 Frontera too and don't get anywhere near that much muck tbh. Also does a lot of pointless short journeys, but she won't be told

 

Oil cooler..

Can't say I remember any HG failures on x25xe or other NA V6 tbh.

 

My wifes only does about 2 miles a week and when I checked the oil last week the oil cap looked a lot like this. I suspected it was due to the reasons that Ali-B has pointed out and took if for a good run and all is now good.

 

V6 Vauxhall engine is a head gasket failure waiting to happen.

 

My point is...9 times out of 10 its condensation and nothing more.


This is why I say only suspect a issue if a sludgy cap is accompanied with coolant loss, and/or the coolant looks contaminated. And even then, further checks need to be performed to confirm it.

This can be for HG, or cooler, or to go further - a cracked head, porous block or whatever failure that allows coolant leakage into oil or vice-versa.

 

The wife has had 3 vauxhall cars over the last couple of year's
every one of them has had this problem
she only drives around 3-4 miles per day. i was told that it is caused by
the engine not getting hot enough as said above