AGW

OK so this must go down as one of the stupidest things to do EVER!

Yesterday I was topping up my oil, made sure it was all nice and level to the top line. Shut the bonnet down went inside and settled down for the evening. Everything seems normal so far.

Drove to work this morning, it's about 14 miles. I started to get a funny smell in the cabin like petrol or OIL So I got to work, lift up the bonnet and guess what? I hadn't put the oil filler cap back on..!!!

Luckily it was still on top of the airbox cover, so what do you think the damage will be, I will check the oil level later when it gets light. There didn't seem to be much oil about, I think most of it was soaked up by the sound deadening/insulation on the under side of the bonnet.

Will this have done any damage to the engine? I did manage 2 bits of short VTEC.

Cheers

Andy

cheshire_carper

I`m sure someone will be on extolling the virtues of a Mugen cap now...........





On a more serious note, not good really. It all depends how much oil has been lost. Plus the oil pressure effect it had whilst driving.

I imagine not a great amout will have been lost. Find out what the levels are and get back to us all.


(edit: plus, do not admit this to your dealer. If he knows who AGW and visits this site then I advise you delete this message)

Frisky

If you are lucky the worst that will happen is a really horrible smell for the next 6 months! Did the same with our old Citroen Xantia, everytime the engine warmed up a few drops of oil fell on the exhaust manifold.

Hope you did not lose too much and the engine is okay.

- Adam

Turtle

Wait till you've checked the level. It's likely that you've lost little so no particular worry about damage from lack of oil. What you have to worry a little about is oil contamination. Clean all the excess oil you can see off, especially on hoses, or seals. The oil attacks and weakens the material a lot of hoses are made from. You won't notice immediate damage, but the life of the hoses will be reduced quite a lot.

AGW

OK here's the update, I have just been outside now we have more light to see what damage has been done and......

Not alot, there was not much oil around the engine bay I cleaned off what I could see and checked down the sides of the block and on the manifold and could see any oil. This was either a good thing or a bad thing, so next job was to check the oil and that was spot on.

So there seems to be very little oil loss.

Any more thoughts?

Can you have the engine steam cleaned, and if you can is it worth it?

Andy

gaddafi

I wouldn't recommend it. You are just asking for an electrical problem.

Tonky

The smell of oil in the car will last for weeeeeks, unless you do as good a job as possible of washing it off the engine. Lots of sudsy water with Fairy Liquid or similar will break down the oil. Any you miss will eventually burn away in the heat, but it takes yonks and you have to endure the stink in the meantime.

SilverShark

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gaddafi

Kobe

the mugen cap would have prevented this unfortunate incident..as you would never forget to screw back on such a nice cap

AGW - mine blew off due to my incapability to screw on the "standard" cap satisfactorily..drove for a few miles without the cap..no issues with the engine apart from the mess on the sound proofing and the smell.

BigTed

Yeah, had this happen to me a few weeks ago when a dealer either forgot to put the cap back on or left it loose so it fell off. This was right after a service too!

You'll need to change the air filter to really get rid of that smell as oil is more than likely to have gone into the ventilation aperture at the base of the windscreen.

Also, you'll need to change the hood liner if it's stained badly.

You probably won't have lost much oil as any oil coming out the top will be a spray - i.e. it looks worse than it is.

Oil contamination could be an issue but I doubt it. Steam cleaning is a possibilty although I'd be careful where you go - don't want them shoving a steam nozzle anywhere/everywhere without having first properly taped up certain bits, mostly electrical.