Occasional Misfire (2.2 E85)

A

afraserb

Member
Hi all,

I'm currently at a complete loss with my 2.2 E85 (M54), and was hoping someone may have a suggestion...

Since owning it (last couple of years), the car has always drank oil, however in the last 12 months this has increased a lot - it's now drinking roughly 3-4L per month (daily driven ~20 miles per day). Around 10 months ago I changed all the spark plugs & coil packs as cylinder 5 had failed, causing a misfire. The plug was coated in black oil (that had baked itself on - not wet oil) and was all okay until last week.

Last week, the car started to misfire and threw up P0305 and P0015, so I changed cylinder 5 spark plug (and checked the others) again before my 100 mile journey home. The next morning I checked the plug and it was again coated in baked-on oil, so I cleaned it up and went for a ~15 minute drive - the whole drive, the car was misfiring and running rough, had a jumpy idle etc... I then cleaned the plug and travelled back down the road (100 miles) and the car was absolutely fine, no misfiring at all (bar the first 10 minutes that were a little rough). I am unsure as to why only one cylinder gets coated in oil, but the rest are fine..? And the car stops misfiring once the engine has been running for a sustained period of time?

For reference, I changed the rocker cover gasket around 12 months ago to try and limit the oil loss. I also have a fair amount of oil pooling towards the bottom section of the engine however can't find any leak at all. The coolant light comes on periodically, although the coolant seems to never deplete (this may be a sensor issue, however thought I'd include just in case).

I have read that the CCV/PCV valve could be a good start look at, however wanted to see if anyone had a similar issue first before doing it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :D
 
Not had a similar issue but that is a lot of oil.
Think I’d be cracking on and sorting the CCV regardless
 
I'd pull the disa valve and see if there is oil in the intake manifold if there is then the ccv is possibly blocked or diaphragm ruptured apparently this can lead to oil been sucked up from the pan,

Also check the oil filter housing gasket, that's a common leak, it's underneath the alternator,

The 2.2 uses 6.5 litres so to be putting more than half that in every month I would have thought that kind of leak would be very easy to find.
 
Joez4 said:
I'd pull the disa valve and see if there is oil in the intake manifold if there is then the ccv is possibly blocked or diaphragm ruptured apparently this can lead to oil been sucked up from the pan,

Also check the oil filter housing gasket, that's a common leak, it's underneath the alternator,

The 2.2 uses 6.5 litres so to be putting more than half that in every month I would have thought that kind of leak would be very easy to find.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply - I took of the DISA yesterday and there was a fair bit of oil coating it (not enough to stop the mechanism working but a good layer). Seems to be pointing to CCV so will replace that ASAP!
 
I've just replaced my ccv, original parts so the pipe work was quite brittle and the valve was caked in oil sludge.

I did the oil filter housing gasket at the same time and this gave me great access to replace the ccv that I managed it without taking the inlet manifold off,

The gasket is very cheap and you only have to remove the air filter box, belts, and alternator to get access to the housing very simple job if you have the tools and some ramps to get the car up in the air.

With the oil loss you described I recommend replacing this gasket to see if it cures your problem, or at the very least eliminates it from your search.
 
That’s a lot of oil if the car is burning it there will be a lot of blue smoke and the Cat would be clogged. As only cylinder no5 has an oily plug is it a valve guide or piston ring problem on that cylinder, once the engine oil got properly hot it vaporized more easily

Is it leaking standing or running, it may well be burning oil on one Cyl and leaking externally
 
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