[toby2449]

....i only do 5 miles to work, which takes about 5mins, so the car never gets properly warmed up (especially at the moment).

so i ask you good folk, would the lack of running time of the car & the severe weather at the moment cause the mayo stuff, or is it always head gasket failure??

 

[David C]

so i ask you good folk, would the lack of running time of the car & the severe weather at the moment cause the mayo stuff

yes

 

[toby2449]

cool ta for that, hopefully milder weather might come along one day, although according to the irish met service its gonna be this cold for at least another 10 days!

 

[philoldsmobile]

i'd not sweat it. the twin spark is especially prone, but any engine will do it.. even had it on an air cooled bike!

 

[0of0]

Shat myself when I first saw this on my V6, but was down to relatively short journeys

yes

Gotta love the no nonesense approach of DC :lol:

 

[ScottT1974]

I used to get this on my old A6 2.8 V6 and done the same as OofO! It must have been okay as I ran the car for two years like that and never experienced HGF.

Strangely though I do even shorter journeys to work now (under 2 miles) and have never had any on the 2.5 V6.

 

[Icheb]

Am I right in that its just a build up of moisture due to the engine not reaching full op temp?

 

[Avocet]

Yes, there is always air in the crankcase. It has moisture in it. When the engine runs, an oil mist is also sharing the space with the (now warm) air. As warm air can hold a lot more moisture than cold air, the mixture of oil mist and moisture floats around in there until it touches a colder surface - whereupon it condenses into that nasty "mayonaise". A good long thrash should get the temperature high enough, and for long enough, to evaporate a lot of the moisture (which will go through the crankcase breather and eventually get burned). Unfortunately, a series of short runs just absorbs more and more moisture and condenses it on the underside of the cam covers etc.

 

[Icheb]

Cheers Avocet :thumbs:

 

[toby2449]

you just don't get this sort of detail anywhere else!!