When an older car has more than one leak at once
Plenty of cars around the terraced streets of Broad Green and the roads near Grangewood Park have passed a hundred thousand miles and are still doing solid daily work. The catch with a car of that age is that its seals are all the same age. Once the cam cover gasket starts weeping, the sump gasket, the filter housing O-ring and the front crankshaft seal are usually not far behind, so the honest finding is often not one leak but two or three at different rates.
That makes order of work the real question rather than capability. Oil reaching a cambelt, a clutch, an alternator or a rubber suspension bush gets dealt with first, because those are the components a leak destroys rather than merely dirties. Oil dripping onto an exhaust comes next, as a fire risk. A gasket that only films the surface and never forms a drop can usually wait. Local driving does not help the diagnosis either: the 20mph terraced streets, the hospital traffic on London Road and the queues on Thornton Road and at the Lombard roundabout mean a lot of heat and very little airflow.
We price each source separately so the decision is yours and visible. After a steam clean, a dye dose and an ultraviolet inspection you get written findings that say where each leak is, what it threatens and what it costs, and we will tell you plainly which ones we would leave if the car were ours. Spending serious money on an engine that needs it elsewhere is not a service to anybody.
Coming over, take Thornton Road from the Pond to the Lombard roundabout, then the A236 west across Mitcham Common and the A237 south into Hackbridge. If the car is losing enough oil that you are topping up every week or two, ask us about collection rather than adding another five miles to it. Repairs are road tested, rechecked on the ramp and carry our 3-month workmanship warranty.