Hello everyone...I have a 1.6 petrol 2006 8P. It has started putting oil all over the boot lid and rear bumper so must be burning oil. There's is white goo in the oil cap so thinking head gasket. Hasn't lost water just oil level goes does. At idle it goes really lumpy and has on one occasion kangarood really badly  let a big cloud of black smoke and then was fine.....any help

Hello Steve, and thanks for being in touch.

Taking this one step at a time, the presence of ‘white goo’ in the oil filler gap, is not really an indicator that the head gasket has failed - and certainly not, if the car is not losing any coolant ( as in your case) - since white goo will either occur due to coolant mixing with the engine oil, or equally likely, from condensation due to short runs etc. 

Having said all that, the HG can fail and allow combustion gasses to pass between cylinders (rather than between a cylinder and a water way) or between a cylinder and an/the oilway. 

If this were mine, I would first check/ have checked, the compression pressures on each cylinder to establish whether there are any issues in line with those mentioned in the last paragraph. If so, you know you have some HG failure, or if the compression pressures are acceptable then you don’t. If you don’t, I would be checking the engine breather system, and first considering an oil and filter change using quality oil and filter. 

Perhaps you could let us know how you get on. 

Kind regards, 

Gareth. 

As Gareth said, start with a compression test. In addition to a damaged head gasket, your problem may be a broken ring or a damaged valve or faulty EGR.

Hello, as above start with a compression test! My 2004 1.6 petrol was burning oil like yours and the compression test showed varying results across all four cylinders, plumes of blue smoke! Turned out the bores were glazed and one of the exhaust stem seals were leaking.