so I took my Octavia VRS for a service today and received a phonecall from the dealer telling me they'd found water in the oil!!!

my first thought is head gasget

any one else come across this???

the car is 18mths old and has done 40k

Head gasket most likely. Otherwise it's condensation from multiple short journeys/cold starts, but given the mileage you've done that sounds unlikely...

My money's on the gasket. Petrol or diesel?

Diesel

journeys tend to be 20miles minimum with a few short ones

Not condensation then.

Only likely contamination point is the head gasket. Suppose the other (less likely) alternative is that the oil system has a breach somewhere in a position that isn't causing the engine to lose oil, but is allowing water in - like throught the dipstick channel or the filler cap. Pretty unlikely though.

At least you're under warranty for investigation/repair. Would be interested to know what the cause is because I have a vRS PD of the same age, and do similar mileage/journeys to you.

Good luck!

thats crap news but at least youre still under warranty. just hope it isnt a porous head thats been reported before but I think that was with the PD 140's

Yes sounds like a head gasket and i hope you sort it out

Not condensation then.

Only likely contamination point is the head gasket. Suppose the other (less likely) alternative is that the oil system has a breach somewhere in a position that isn't causing the engine to lose oil, but is allowing water in - like throught the dipstick channel or the filler cap. Pretty unlikely though.

At least you're under warranty for investigation/repair. Would be interested to know what the cause is because I have a vRS PD of the same age, and do similar mileage/journeys to you.

Good luck!

Also a possibility in the oil cooler which can allow water in if it's faulty.

Also a possibility in the oil cooler which can allow water in if it's faulty.

Just about to say this, will more than likely be oil cooler

when the dealer phoned she said they were starting with the oil cooler

I would have thought that a faulty oil cooler is much more likely to put oil into the coolant rather than coolant into the oil, as oil runs a higher pressure than coolant. When the oil cooler on my Transporter failed I got lots of (black, "dieseled") oil in the coolant, and no noticeable coolant in the engine oil. On Transporter R5 motors if the water pump seals fail you can get coolant in the engine oil (coolant pushes through to an unpressurised area in the motor).

Certainly needs to be fixed, whatever the cause.

Water in the oil or oil in water???

the latter is pretty common and can be due to the oil cooler or pourous cylinder head.

have you lost any water ? or has the water changed colour?

you could be right the coolant water didn't look right, but I just never thought anything of it