Some yellow gunk

[Dave1971]

I went to see my mechanic the other day about this, with the car being new to me I was a bit concerned.He told me he thought it was fine and I had nothing to worry about. If you have any doubts keep an eye on your coolant level as long as it stays the same your ok.

 

[bigdog]

I'm still puzzled by this mayo thing though - last car I saw that on was in about 1985......I thought with modern engines and oils etc.. it was either a thing of the past or a cause for concern....

Personally I wouldn't be subjecting a car to such short journeys if its causing that....clearly means the engine isn't reaching operating temp and will be wearing big time, almost as bad as staggering around in too low a gear!

All down to atmospherics. Hot air can hold a lot more moisture than cold air can. That's what causes your sunglasses to fog up when you come into a warm house after being outside on a sunny cold day. I had this very thing happen to my window glass in a truck. I was driving in -10F in Wyoming. Suddenly within a few seconds my windows frosted over. 70MPH in a 80,000LB truck and I couldn't see a damn thing. Turns out I hit a temp inversion. Went from -10F up to +30F. The warmer air hit the super cold glass. Same thing happens inside the engine. A hot engine will draw in outside air as it cools down and the moisture will condense.

 

[robodob]

Had my car into BMW today to check this yellow stuff out (pics above) and indeed they do say it's "normal". Did a pressure test also and appears "normal". I beg to differ, out of all the cars i've owned i've never had this sort of crap in my oil. Why would they lie? Well it's about 2 months away from being out of warranty. However more to the point any prospective buyer would quite rightly be turned off by this sort of mess in the oil. I'm gonna ask for it to be cleaned and have an oil change regardless. Not totally happy.

 

[R26Andy]

My Golf Gti used to get this sort of thing quite bad due to lots of short trips from cold. it must have caused wear on the engine because it was using more and more oil over time.

 

[Nova2k7]

ive always thought this was normal as well, seen it on a few cars! due to short jurneys and nothing to worry about, take it for an Italian Tune up and it will be fine ;-)

 

[Dev]

I dunno about 'normal', I've never had that on any of my cars, past or current - but then I don't really do little journeys.
As the others have stated it's probably nothing to immediately worry about if you know the car has been on a number of very short journeys (not great for the engine long term) and your oil level stays the same, but if you notice oil in your coolant then start thinking there's something a little wrong. If the coolant is clear and the level constant, all is well - as the others say, give the car a bit of a blast.