Last weekend car broke down and just completely cut and wern't too sure why. Got towed home, popped the bonnet and scratched my head for a bit. The car wouldnt start. A week later I find the problem... The earths on the back of the inlet mani had all snapped off. So reattached them. Car now runs and idles and noticed a puff of white smoke. Drove it to workshop and had a service, oil, filter and plugs. Started it up and then it fired on 3 and massive clouds of white smoke pour out exhaust and smells mega rich on fuel, then after a few seconds it runs on all 4. Took it for a run... Car boosts fine and doesnt make any weird noises. Then smoke disappears. Filled up with fuel and started it up again and starts up even worse, barly firing but still on 3. Pouring out a huge amount of white smoke then slowly firing on 4 again. But then 5min drive home it stayed smokey. Everytime I start the car now it really struggles to start and just belows white clouds from exhaust. I had a compression test and the results were 120 120 110 110. Theres no excessive play in turbo, no oil in intercooler. No water in the oil or oil in water. No leaks around the head. Changed spark plugs, Maf sensor. Swapped coilpacks I'm getting really frustrated now. And I honestly cant point to what is actually wrong with the engine. Am I being a tard or is it pretty much fucked?
Was that test wet or dry? Not sure if it'd make a difference as in diagnostics but could it not be rings not sealing?
Yeah, thought as much. Could it be a head gasket on it way out? It hasn't lost any oil or coolant though... Or wouldn't that matter? - - - Updated - - - Dry from warm.
Could try a wet test and see how things are from there? If head gasket went you'd see water in the oil or vice versa?
Yeah drained out oil and water and there was none of either mixed, and the levels aren't dropping at all. I've got a 1.2mm metal head gasket already, so I duno how much of a difference that would affect compression.
It sounds like a headgasket though. Just because the headgasket went, doesn't mean there'll defo be water in oil or oil in water, if it just went from a coolant canal to a cylinder etc. When you turn the engine off, there's still pressure in the coolingsystem, but no more pressure in the cylinders, thus the coolant can slip through a crack into the cylinder. You fire the engine up, there's coolant in one cylinder, it runs like shizzle, runs for a bit of time, coolant gets pumped out through running, and no/less coolant can seep into the cylidner cause of the pressure inside the cylinder, so it starts to run properly again. Until you turn it off again, and it'll only get worse every time as the leak never gets smaller
I guess logically that does make sense. I'm not going to drive the car anymore as I dont really fancy making it worse. I'll do some more searching and see if I can find more evidence to back that up then go for a head gasket change. Cheers for the advice though
np Easiest way to check, is just to take all the sparkplugs out, usually you can already see it on them, otherwise, try to peek inside of the cylinders. If one of them looks to be clean/washed, you'll have your answer If you can't find the evidence through that, try to run the engine when it's cold still, with the radiator cap removed, see if you see some gas bubbling up through the coolant, that's usually a good indicator of a gasket that went
Ok mate, cheers. I'll give them techniques a try tomorrow. The more I look about the internet and from what your saying, it does defiantly seem like head gasket. But yeah, will check tomorrow just to be double sure before I start ripping the head off.
Found out the problem today as the engine got a tad bit worse. Engine is now hydro locked and cylinders 3 and 4 have allot of coolant in. So my mind is at ease now Time for gasket and a skim up.
