N46 engine of doom.

[St. Anger]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 26 July 2014 at 13:00

[t8cmf]

I think the Mayo takes a while to form and build up so if this issue has only started happening you won't have it just yet. I had an old knackered Land Rover Freelander that ran for weeks/months with coolant leaking into the sump and it never formed the mayo build up.

Can you take it somewhere local to get a compression test done to check the head gasket?

[8Tech]

There are a number of ways a headgasket can fail.

Cylinder, oil gallery, water passage and atmosphere, and only the oil gallery to water passage will mix the oil and water.

If the gasket has failed between the water passage and cylinder, then there is no reason to get water in the oil although you can get steam out of the exhaust.

If the water leaks before or after the combustion chamber, ie into the inlet tract or exhaust port, then you will get steam, if it is after the inlet valve, then you usually get combustion compression pressurizing the cooling system.