C280 Blown head gasket or condensation?
Thread Starter
Newbie
Joined: Sep 2019
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2012 C63
C280 Blown head gasket or condensation?
Hi everyone, I’m looking to purchase a 1998 C280 Sport. It has 231000km on it. The car runs and drives smooth. However there is a bit of milky stuff formed on the oil filler cap. The oil on the dip stick is clean. There is a little bit of smoke coming out form the tailpipe when it was idling, but the temperature is cold outside, so I think it’s normal. Everything was normal until I merge on the highway. I gave it a bit more gas, there was a huge cloud of white smoke coming form the exhaust. There is less smoke after a minute of drive, and it the exhaust seems normal after that. The coolant temperature was going up and down between 79 and 83 degree Celsius during 30min highway driving. Just wondering if the car has a small head gasket leaks or just condensation in the oil. Cause the seller told me the car had been sitting for quite a while.
Thank you so much!!
Thank you so much!!
Senior Member
Joined: Oct 2019
Posts: 277
Likes: 73
From: Perth Australia
12 C200, 12 C180, 10 Fuso Warrior crew cab, 08 RTV ute, 05 Smart Fortwo cabrio, 09 Smart Fortwo
You will get condensation on the cap when a car is not used regularly, the car might just need a good drive.
Does it have good service history?, might be advisable to have it checked pre purchase as a car with that sort of ks will have some issues and might be a bargaining tool to get a discount
Does it have good service history?, might be advisable to have it checked pre purchase as a car with that sort of ks will have some issues and might be a bargaining tool to get a discount
Thread Starter
Newbie
Joined: Sep 2019
Posts: 6
Likes: 0
2012 C63
Thank you for the replies. Confirmed not the head gasket. However, the car still make a lot of white smoke when doing a harder acceleration. There was ticking noise from the engine, and then it went away when I let go the throttle. No more white smoke after a 20sec of normal driving. The valve cover is leaking, my friend told me it might be oil goes in to the combustion chamber through the spark plugs. It could also be the clogged PCV or bad spark plugs. There were couple trouble code: P0301 P0305 P0300 and P0460. Basically some cylinders were misfiring. Does anyone know what seems to be the issue? Thank you!!
