Mayo under oil cap?

[Hendry]

Looking for a wee bit of advice here guys, now I'm not freaking out that my head gasket is gone because I realise the above could be a symptom of short runs, but looking for honest opinions based on these facts.

 

For a couple of weeks now the cars felt like it was pulling all over the road like cars do on open windy roads so I had a look to see if I could see anything and decided to check the levels etc while I was at it and found the mayo under the cap, it is only a blob on the bottom of the cap, there was no signs of it on the engine where the cap screws on, the dipstick was showing full and the oil on it looked nice and clean, (knew it was full anyway as Renaults have an oil level display on the trip computer which was showing the maximum 6 OOOOOO marks) thought maybe it was because the car hadnt been serviced in a while by was fairly certain I'd only serviced it not long ago, its now done 43,800 miles and was last serviced 25/7/13 at 35,848 miles. Checked coolant reservoir and its a ball hair off maximum, looks a healthy "piss yellow" colour. Runs wise the car gets a 17 mile motorway trip between 50-7mph twice a day usually 9 hours apart so its not exactly stop start town driving which is the usual cause of mayo on an oil cap but 17miles isn't exactly a long run either, plus when it rains I can see smoke coming from under he bonnet and when i pop the bonnet its coming from the coolant reservoir, and its fucking roasting hot after just a 17mile/30min drive home at about 60mph, and there's a really strong smell of coolant, i cant understand why its get so hot when its raining outside, not like we live in a hot country with constant 20degrees weather, I checked the Haynes manual and the owners manual and it says coolant reservoir boiling is a sign of head gasket, now I don't know if what I'm describing constitutes a boiling coolant reservoir, not noticed huge amounts of white smoke either from the exhaust, just smoke like you get when you start any car on an icy day.

 

Ps according to the Haynes and owners manual oil capacity on the 1.2 Clio is 4.0 litres, but all the service invoices from new from Renault main dealers have listed 5 litres of oil charged for (fixed price servicing so not like I or previous owner have been charged extra for it) so is it likely they've put 5 in instead of 4 and overfilled the oil by a litre and going to cause major damage?

[derskine]

Overfilling oil can blow gaskets but probably not a head gasket, more likely sump gasket I would think.

Have you tried wiping the mayo off and seeing if it returns?

If it comes back then its probably the head gasket as I think whats meant by short runs is to the shops a couple of times a week.

[Cavcraft]

17 miles at 50-70mph shouldn't cause it, that should be getting plenty hot enough for long enough I'd have thought.

 

I would have a pressure test done and see what throws up, it could be something as daft as the coolant bottle cap being knackered. Without wishing to sound all 'prophet of doom' though is the Clio a circa 200-2004 one? I've seen shit loads of them with HG problems.

[seacow]

I had this on the Montego but it was short runs and a hole in the oil pipe badly taped up.  Hoping that its cured as its never lost significant oil and water is spot on too

[Hendry]

17 miles at 50-70mph shouldn't cause it, that should be getting plenty hot enough for long enough I'd have thought.

 

I would have a pressure test done and see what throws up, it could be something as daft as the coolant bottle cap being knackered. Without wishing to sound all 'prophet of doom' though is the Clio a circa 200-2004 one? I've seen shit loads of them with HG problems.

Mine is the post 2005 "mk3" shape although I believe these still have the same D4F 1.2 16v engine as the older shape.

 

I've just had a look on "cliosport.net" and there's shitloads of posts about this, apparently its common, almost normal on these engines due to a poor design of the breather system, long plastic filler neck and plastic rocker cover, still not convinced though.

[jbz2079]

I would not bother about the head gasket, it's still freezing out there and if the filler cap is on a long plastic spout it will not gor hot, so any moisture rising out of the oil as it warms will condense on the cap.

 

Check the expansion bottle cap as it might be knackered and leaking, or worse still not relieving the pressure properly and the excess pressure

could be making the heater matrix weep coolant.

 

HGF is usually quite sudden and fairly dramatic, hoses pumped up hard, oil in the coolant and water pissing everywhere, so I don't think you have that.

[mrcitroen]

BX petrols do this as well if not taken on long runs.

[Split_Pin]

Our Chevy which is just over a year old and does about 200 miles a week has plenty of Mayo under the oil cap, although it's dark brown. My Corsa does short runs too and it's been like that for years, clears up in the summer.

 

If the heaters are hot, the cars start ok, doesn't produce shitloads of white smoke and isn't loosing coolant I would not worry about that at all.

[trigger]

My Acclaim also suffers from this, It could be due to all the dampness in the air recently.

[Junkman]

Rover of doom has this constantly and also on top of the dipstick tube.

It never gets really hot, not even on a long run, hence thermostat changage would be performed, if I wasn't too scared of the revenge act.