Tall Tale or Plausible Explanation?

CrazyWater

Registered User
Messages
135
I'm in the market for a small 2006 car and today I find myself in a main dealership for a Japanese brand that is highly regarded for reliability. The object of my attention is a 2006 with 22000kms on the clock. As part of my examination I remove the oil cap for a little look (as I always do) and much to my surprise I find a very fine layer of white calking. Ok so now I'm a little concerned so I put my finger into the engine for a little rub around and sure enough on my finger is a small but noticeable amount of white goo. Now we are talking a very small amount.

The sales guy who is watching me closely has no idea what I'm at so I explain that white calking is a sign that moisture is getting into the engine and that the most likely cause of that is that the gasket is gone. So the guy says hang on a sec and goes and gets the service manager. So now we get to the crunch.

Service mangers explanation: Yes your right it is caused by moisture getting into the engine. But this is perfectly normal. There is moisture in the air thats how it gets into the engine and if I were to take off the oil cap of even one of the new cars we would probably find a small residue. These engines never give any trouble and you still have one years manufactures warranty.

So is this a plausible explanation? Now I'm no mechanic but I have my doubts, my current car of the same brand is 5 years old with 60000 miles and not a sign of any white. Not only that I recently sold my beloved jalopy of the same brand. This car had 240000 mls on the clock and not a sign of white calking.

But over to you: Tall Tale or Plausible Explanation.
 
In cold damp weather (do we get any other kind?), engines take a while to warm up and a car that does short journeys in cold weather will have this "mayonnaise" around the oil filler cap as the engine never get a chance to warm up properly.

The good news is that a decent spin (20-25 kms) should clear the goo; if its still there or worse, run away, fast!

I'm surprised that the service manager adopted the defensive attitude you experienced, in itself that may be reason enough to look at another car in a different dealership.
 
have to agree with dealership i find alot of cars with small amouts of custard under oil cap seems to be more from cars never reaching good running temp ,just short trips and school runs and the likes
 
In cold damp weather (do we get any other kind?), engines take a while to warm up and a car that does short journeys in cold weather will have this "mayonnaise" around the oil filler cap as the engine never get a chance to warm up properly.

The good news is that a decent spin (20-25 kms) should clear the goo; if its still there or worse, run away, fast!
This makes sense given the location of the previous owner (I was showen the Reg Cert) and a couple of other signs (so to speak) I would not be surprised it the car in question spent its entire life thus far doing journies or less than 10k. Until you guys raised this point I had not thought about the car just being used for short trips. Thanks for the comments
 
Back
Top