head gasket

Hi all not very good when comes to engine but found a cream substance under my oil cap ive been told this could be my head gasket or condensation what best to do help needed

Take it for a long drive.

If its condensation it will disappear.

Yomp said

Take it for a long drive.

If its condensation it will disappear.

X3…..

Cars that are driven without warming up or 5 minute hops will have this happen, it is quite common on round town cars that are driven 2 miles, parked 20 minutes, then 2 miles, parked,,,then 2 miles home.

Cars that the oil temp is above 100 degrees C will boil this condensate off in a few minutes…..

Will she b o.k. to drive still or will this cause more harm than good

richard fleetwood said

Will she b o.k. to drive still or will this cause more harm than good

As long as you have coolant and oil in it then no. If it is the head gasket or a cracked head then you will be losing coolant at some point. if its losing any coolant then it will be obvious that its not just condensation and is fubared anyway. How is the car driven usually?

Oil level fine n coolant good mate use car daily to and from work n drive her with care and dont really put foot down but have gave it a blast once or twice n she runs fine.

But how far is work?

Work is about 7mls from home anout 20 min so 14mls and 40 min daily

You are probably not running long enough to burn the condensate out, then you stop the car for 8 hours, and the cycle repeats... As when you are at work everything cools down again and adds condensate back.

It might dissappear naturally once the weather warms up.
Or for piece of mind take it on a 40 mile run to get the oil properly warmed up.

Ill give it a try. Would you say in your honest opinion does it sound like my head gasket? An thanks for your time n abvice.

You should notice the head gasket going because you'll lose power and have rough running.

mayo on cap and in breather system 99.9999% means no problem, just not getting engine hot enough.

If you got mayo on the dipstick though, then you need to worry

99.9999% sounds pretty confidant na nothing on dipstick just on oil cap mate but admit not very clued up on my engines.

stop worrying, drive more

With these critters, a head gasket failure usually puts oil in the coolant system and not coolant in the oil.

I have had a diesel head gasket go.  No noticeable indication other than the oil leaking out of the head to block between 3 and 4 cylinders, and the hoses pressurizing.

I drove my blue cabby 300 miles with a blown head gasket. Pretty much the same as my diesel.

On the older cabbies that is 89-82 they had the VW oil cooler tied to the coolant system, and when that would leak the oil would intermix with  coolant and the hoses would pressurize mimic a head gasket failure.

When I parked one of my Cabbies I had the same thing you did.  So I started to drive it every other week to work for a day or 3….

Like the guy said "Just drive it…more".

Here is the quick test.
Cold engine.
Remove the Expansion Jug cap.
Tie a latex glove tightly over the open jug.
Start the car, and run under the hood and rev the thing to 3000 rpm for 30 seconds, if the glove inflates and gives you the finger blown head gasket.

After 30 seconds the heating coolant will inflate the glove.

Agree with all the other options, take it for a longer drive, damp cold conditions and your journey to work is just a little to short.

Thanks to everyone for the great advice hopefully take her for a good run out the weekend fingers crossed this will be a cure 

Have this all the time at work (bmw) on town cars, can literally scrape huge blobs of the gunk out from around the oil filler cap, 99 out of 100 times it's never an issue, blocked breather systems doesn't help but just sounds like condensation in your case if the head gasket was gone you'd most likely have had running issues by now on a daily driver even with short journeys, just take it on a good 70mph blast for a hour