Please identify this fluid leak

[martc]

From your description of the effects of Dr. Magic™ oven cleaner from Asda (£1 a can), fantastic degreaser that smells delightful*, and looking at it's MSDS, I will downgrade my apocalyptic statement about it as it only contains 5.5% sodium hydroxide and is therefore more snake oil than alloy killer.

 

It will eventually eat it's way through the alloy but you would have to get through gallons of it. Having said that I'd still keep it away from the inside of anything alloy because even the mild etching this stuff does would be enough to ruin bearing surfaces etc.

 

The white stuff is probably sodium aluminate.

[bunglebus]

Well I applied it liberally to the greasier areas of my Passat engine and it's done a great job - now I just need to find where the oil is actually escaping from in the first place.