V40 T4 head gasket failure
 

Sadly, I think the head gasket on my T4 failed tonight on the way home from work.

Engine is misfiring, small droplets of water from exhaust. EML flashing. I limped home say 8 miles, dipstick is covered in mayo. Not had a good look as too dark and no garage. I let engine cool down (temp gauge was on normal) for 2 hours or so, car restarts but still missing at idle, clears some if you rev to say 2,000rpm.

Car is quite low mileage, 95,000. Main dealer history for first 8 years and then enthusiastically serviced by me since, oil & filter change every 3,000 miles.

Anything obvious I can check myself to confirm HG failure?

If I remove the spark plugs will they be wet on affected cylinder? I don't have a compression tester unfortunately.

thanks
Martin

the head gasket is damaged, there is no question if the oil is different, like a thick mixture of cappuccino

If there is mayo on the dipstick and none under the filler cap, that is fairly normal if the car does short journeys. The location of the dipstick tube on the front of the engine means it takes a long time for it to warm up and burn off the condensation.

I had a 2.0lt V40 that suffered from mayo on the dipstick from when I bought it - 50,000mls - and continued until I scrapped it at 370,000mls. The dipstick mayo never got any worse and there was never any mayo under the filler cap. Oil changed ever 5,000 - 7,000mls.

T4 all now fixed and back in action.
Helpful local forum member read error codes - misfire on cylinder 4.
Bought 2x new coil packs, plus plug leads and spark plugs.
Car now runs better than ever, so assume that the one coil pack that had failed was already weak/compromised.
In daylight the mayo on dipstick was only minor, cold weather period? Nothing under the oil filler cap.
Thanks for pointers and advice.

Glad it worked out well for you.

FWIW I've had mayo on my T4's oil cap a few times recently due to short journeys in cold weather with not enough time to get up to operating temp.