spanner light and foam in coolant

[Slick_richie]

heya guys first time posting and thought i would start with giving you guys a problem and tell me what it could be.

got a vectra 54 CDTI 150 and everytime it starts it has a symbol on the little screen that has a spanner over a car. thought it was a service thing so thought nothing of it for a while but on my way home tonight, i had a symbol that looked like a radiator with water half full on it.
wasnt long till i got home but i looked at the resevoir and found the water was at a reasonable level and opened up the cap and foam was coming out of the overflow and roam was resting on the top of the water. anyone have a idea what this could mean?

[kenp]

Oil in the water

[Ben50n]

Blown head gasket??

Take the oil filler cap off and look for cream cheese on it. thats water in the oil. Normally points to a blown head gasket, unless you do lots of very short journeys and its condensation in the engine, but I would guess head gasket failure or failing.

[andrew e]

Get a garage to do a pressure test on the cooling system, a pretty fair indicator of wether you have head gasket failure (gasket separating cooling water from engine oil breaks and lets the oil & water mix.

[MrDerv]

Head gasket failure on a diesel is rare, and is unlikely if it's not overheating. It's likely to be a coolant leak somewhere like the radiator or the pipework.

[Slick_richie]

well i looked under the cap and couldnt find any "cream cheese" should i take it to a vaux garage to get a tech 2 on it to see if it would come up with the reason?

[Big Sig]

You haven't changed the anti freeze recently and used the blue stuff and not the red stuff did you? If they mix they can foam up.

[Slick_richie]

no still have the red stuff in there

[Slick_richie]

ok took it to a dealer and had a tech 2 taken to it. apparently the only things that came up (that i can remember)
air mass
something to do with swirl control
as far as they can tell its nothing to do with faulty gasket