MG ZT Breather Holes
 

Evening Guys, Hope everyone is having a good night. I have a 03 MG ZT CDTi and doing my daily coolent and oil check tonight I noticed my coolent tank is completely empty. My first thought is I might have a leak but nothing underneth the car so I opened up the engine cover and noticed oil along the top rocker cover so I am now thinking head gasket (this will be my 6th head gasket to go on 4 different cars)!! We started up the car to see whether there was any coolent going back into the tank and there was plus it was clear with no mixed oil. Also there was oil shooting out of the breather hole on the left hand side to the engine. The inlet holes were blocked about 2 months ago which were fixed but has now pressursied the engine and caused the head gasket to blow as well!

Any ideas why or what this can be? Any help or suggests would be greatly appreciated :)

I have never heard much about head gasket failure on the diesels, now it cannot be impossible but I would think very unlikely.

Can you clarify what holes were blocked up - and what breather hole is emitting stuff now? I was not aware of any breather to atmosphere on these that could leak anything...

While daily checks may seem good - how often have you been topping up, mine has never had coolant apart from a day or so after a thermostat change, and has (touch wood) never needed oil top up between changes - so if you have been regularly using both something deeper may be going on..

Good luck

It's most unlikely to be HGF. From the general description, I'd say the pressure control valve (PCV) is kaput/blocked. This relieves crankcase pressure, which will blow oil everywhere if not controlled. The low coolant sounds like a separate issue. Probably a leak has developed somewhere.

TC

breather hole
 

hi Mike. is the oil spraying onto the p.a.s pump and area. if so I had a simular prob` recently. on the dipstick yellow locater are 2 `O` rings. check them. my bottom one was very manky, swapped with top good one. if you look at the dipstick tube 1 inch from the top facing the p.a.s pump there is a very small hole. it lines up between the 2 `O` rings swapping thr rings stopped the oil spraying out hope this helps.

My previous car was a 2.0l diesel Freeloader, same engine as the CDTI. When I had it serviced at a Landy dealer I questioned the extortionate cost and was told that they had to service/clean the engine breather system at 12000 rather than 36000 as there had been problems with it, although what these problems were was never explained.

Regards

I was told by my local garage that the engine breather holes were blocked about 2 months ago which was fixed under warranty. He didn't go too much into detail as i really haven't got a clue when it comes to a diesel.

When I removed the large engine cover the oil was resting on the top of the cyclinder block. There was about 1mm coverage over the whole length of the block. Also while on tick over the oil has sprayed over the PAS pump (left hand side of the engine). You can see and feel a mixture of air and oil coming out of this hole.

I have never topped up the coolent or oil on my ZT plus it only had service when the breather holes were fixed. Having a better inspection today in the daylight there is no visual oil around the engine apart from the cyclinder block mentioned above.

The car is in the garage tomorrow for the thorough inspection so I will keep you guys updated in what this could be as it's a strange one to be honest.

So it sounds like the pcv filter has already been changed - although how the cost could be exhorbitant for a filter kit and 15 minutes work is odd. But if they changed it why is it still blowing oil out?

I Wonder what they actually changed and what holes they unblocked? If it was the PCV that was changed did they re-fit properly?

Any chance of photos ?

Mike

Sorry guys I can't get any photos as I am still without the car. The problem seems to have the garage stubbed as they don't have any idea what it could be. They are stripping out the engine and as yet haven't found any possible causes. Starting to get annoyed as the garage don't know and while they are rubbing heads I am still without my car and paying for a rather pathetic Vauxhall Corsa hire car.