Mayo in oil cap and rocker cover...

[Finn]

Hi there, a bit of a cheeky first post in here.

I went to see a saxo 1.1 to buy for the missus as her first car. For the age and mileage (MY00 119k) it was actually a cracking example. Until I looked under the oil cap and saw this:

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p230/puntokris/2D0034D0-36B6-462A-BD36-DD61A8E64092-864-000000E9FE5C5661.jpg

Looks like classic headgasket failure to me, but wanted your guys opinion in case the 1.1s are prone to condensation etc. Didnt think about checking the rad or anything at the time. Was also hard to tell by looking at the dipstick as the colour was a browny shade which didn't really look out of the ordinary. Any thoughts would be great.

[christoph]

mine does condense pretty bad, but its no where near that bad!!! I'd say go have another closer look at it if i were you. And if your not 100% happy walk away!

[jones91]

My opinion at looking at that would be head gasket, I'd of thought theres far too much there for condensation tbh

[jasonmayall]

Thats quite bad, most probably the head gasket though.

I remember going to view a Metro last year for my mate. 20k miles, 'absolute minter' the advert stated.
Got there, was rusting quite bad and had the normal HGF of a k-series, it was 100x worse than the one you're looking at!

I'd stay away unless you plan on fixing it, it will only get worse, and quickly lol

[Finn]

Thanks, I was just looking for a bit of confirmation of what I thought. I must admit its too much to be condensation!

[wadoryu]

If its not on the dipstick, I'd give it a oil change and some Steel seal. Just in case.

[Liam_]

If the coolant and oil checked via the dipstick seems fine, I'd just put that down to condensation above the rocker cover baffle plate. Could remove the cover and clean it off if you really wanted.

[AlexB]

clean it off the rocker and baffle
see it ifs back in a few days if it is then head gaskets fuuucked

[Finn]

Thanks for the input everyone. Seen as its a car I haven't bought yet I unfortunately can't really ask the seller to start cleaning the rocker baffle out (although that's his parogative if he wanted to) so I don't really want to run the risk on a car that's only worth 500 quid! I could always go back tomorrow and inspect the rad etc.

[wadoryu]

I can see where you're coming from mate saxos are dirt cheap at the moment. But tbh it's not "that" bad if the shell is tidy I'd take a punt.

[Fatboi168]

as said look on the dipstick, if not mayo colour its just condensation(quite bad), take off rad cap as sometimes can tell if its a diff colour, or look at water level put ya finger in and see if there is oil and water mixed together

[Gandi699]

I'd expect mayo in the colder months if its not used very much but not right now to be honest, plus thats rather a lot to be condensation. Its probably done the usual trick of a slight HG weep. If its in really really good nick otherwise then i'd consider it, but if not find another one