Corsa B 1.0 headgasket failing?

[IainL]

My Corsa has the wonderful X10XE fitted, 79k under its belt.

I looked at the headertank as I always do every week when I also check the oil, and I thought the coolant level had dropped a little. I'm not sure if its because my wife has started parking it on the other side of the drive which is level.

Anyhow, I immediately took off the oil filler cap to check for mayo and there was, I'd say, a lot. A lot more than the small amout of milkiness that sometimes appears on the underside of my Astra Coupe's filler cap due to low usage.

I looked inside the rocker cover and there is a film of it on the inside, although the cams look clean.

My wife always checks the temperature guage and its stayed put where it should when driving and the heaters are working fine.

I phoned the garage and have booked it in for them to assess it. The chap I spoke to was familiar with this engine and said that all in, including the chain and tensioner kit, it might come to about £650. We talked about a replacement engine and that seemed an option.

From the description, is it likely the engine has suffered head gasket failure and secondly, how much would a replacement engine of the same type cost me to buy? If there is any other engine I could use that is cheap to buy without having to upgrade brakes etc then I would be interested in that too.

Please no replies about XE's and the like, I am totally broke just now and am looking for a practical, budget solution to this. The car is too good to scrap, being bodily very good and I've spent a lot of time getting it looking decent.

[scorpiotn1]

£650 is waaay to much, you may as well add some more money onto it and buy a whole different car with less mileage.
my X12XE has just done 56,000 miles, and im planing on replacing all the engine parts, seals, chain etc for around half the price your garage is charging ( £300ish )
this of course only includes parts, as i will be fitting them and doing the work myself.

£650 is far to high personaly. then you dont know how good a job he is gona do, he could do the least amount of work and not even clean out the gunk in the engine as he goes along.