Hi all,

I'm a newbie here and I was just hoping for some advice.

I bought a second hand Skoda Fabia I 1.4 8V MPI (2002 with 130k km on the clock) a couple months back.

All is good and has been a great travel horse but I have a small issue, she misfires when cold. When she is warm, runs perfectly fine.

OBD says misfire cylinder 2. It is always cylinder 2.

Compression test shows 15, 15, 15, 14.5 bar. Manual states: new- 12bar with 3 bar difference between cylinders. I assume the gauge might be a bit off, but its close enough to assume the compression is fine.

 

I replaced the spark plugs, she ran great for a while, but then, when I didn't drive too often, same issue. The spark plug condition is fine from what I can tell.

What I have noticed is that the coolant level drops over a while. I also get some "brown mayo" on the oil cap.

 

Hence I am assuming that its the head gasket on the way out.

 

Can anyone advise if that is probably correct? Is there anything I can do to confirm this? How hard is a head gasket change DIY style. Can it be done with the engine in place?

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated!
 

When are you measuring compression? if its when the engine is warm then there is a chance the "gap" in the head gasket is sealed due to the expansion of the head. IIRC these engines have an aluminium Head which expands at a different rate to the steel block. So when cold, it isnt delivering the same amount of pressure on the top of the block, allowing for coolant to leak into the combustion chamber, however at temperature there is enough expansion to essentially plug this leak.

 

I suppose you could measure the compression at cold  and compare the readings, all the readings would be lower than at hot, but Cylinder no.2 would be obviously lower than the rest.

 

To confirm if it is a head gasket failure, i'd take it to a garage and get them to do a "hydrocarbons test" or a "sniffer test" , they put a little tester in the expansion tank which changes colour if there are traces of exhaust gases etc in the coolant. If there are then the Head gasket will have failed Coolant -> Cylinder. but again for you this may have to be done on a cold engine to find if there is a serious leak.

 

 

Im no expert but i hope ive been of some help and welcome to the Forum

Hi Taylor,

 

Thank you very much for your input, yes you have been of great help . I didn't know that there was such a test; I'll check it out and take it from there.

 

Regarding testing when hot or cold, I tested when cold to "recreate the initial conditions". I'll also compare when hot next weekend.
Also, I'm avoiding going to the garage as her in Norway the prices are extortionate. Was quoted over 200GBP to do an OBD code read.

Thanks for your help!