head gasket

[Silver Ghost]

The above is not for me, its for a friend, and its not a fronty, its a vauxhall corsa, im not into engine stuff, so thier problem was oil warning light came on, and they stopped the car, oil leaking all over the floor, the RAC came and and said head gasket, and got them home..I have not seen the car as its to far away. I was just wondering, would this happen if head gasket had gone, a full leakage..or is it more likely to be something else before they scrap the car..
she is lady driver, so not tech minded.
many thanks

silver

[dazza]

not a lot of info to go on, but i would of thought if head was gone enough to pump out all the oil, the car would have been running like a bag of hammers

[Silver Ghost]

[dandan]

What model Corsa is and what engine does it have?

[Drift]

Could be anything from split pipe to oil filter fell off. it happens

[bobbinsjob]

never heard of a headgasket failure dumping all the oil. more like sump gasket

[tws7501968]

Personally i'd suspect a head gasket failure would be a bit more spectacular than just the oil light coming on if it had managed to blow the oil out of the engine. Especially if it is just oil and not a white gooey mess.
That said i guess it could have pressurised enough to find a weak spot in a gasket or seal somewhere.
Hard to make anything other than guesses, but if it needs some work most corsas are fitted with relatively simple engines to work on.

[meooo]

Some info of engine type would be good, but for reference, the 1.2 8 valve engine (2.0 Fronty in miniature) has an oil gallery passing from the block to the head. I have known the gasket to fail at that point and dump engine oil (as its under pretty high pressure with engine running). I think from memory that theres' a pressure relief valve in the back of the head, which is closed off with a core plug, that could be leaking also.

As said it depends on engine type.....could be loose/rusted/holed oil filter or crankcase breather pipe

[jmc]

Sounds a bit obvious and I'm hesitant to suggest it but was(is) the filler cap on properly and is the dipstick pushed home?

[tws7501968]

I would think the dipstick got a lift with the rac too.....