We’re at the tail end of the holiday season, a time when people kick back and enjoy holiday-specific beverages. If you’re enjoying a cup of apple cider, congratulations on having fantastic taste in drinks. If you’re enjoying eggnog, well, tradition’s tradition, I guess. When mixed with a little bit of brandy, eggnog does a pretty good job of lubricating personalities, but can it lubricate an engine? Garbage Time, one of my favorite Australian YouTube channels, decided to find out.
The victim chosen to receive a dose of dairy was a Mk4 Volkswagen Golf that’s mechanically totalled due to a transmission problem. Namely, it came with a selection of forward gears, but eventually ended up as more of a two-speed. It’s also a 1.6-liter model, which isn’t exactly a desirable engine, so draining this hatchback of its engine oil and filling it up with eggnog probably isn’t a huge loss.
Oh, and for good measure, all the coolant in this Golf was replaced with Pilk. That’s a mixture of Pepsi and milk, in case you’re unfamiliar with the term because you aren’t experiencing terminal brain rot.
Amusingly, the Golf seems to start and run just fine at first, running for a whole hour before replacement of fluid. It does get concerningly noisy during this hour of runtime, but it’s still going, so hey, bring it on. In an effort to sustain the life of this four-banger somewhat, the eggnog gets swapped out for a mixture of Lucas extra-thick oil additive and, um, 40-70 mineral oil. Now that’s some thick stuff. From there, the Golf gets benchmarked with some runs from zero-to-60 km/h, or zero-to-37 mph.
Now the fun starts — Garbage Time swaps out the thick oil for more eggnog and actually goes for a drive. Weirdly, the Golf records its best zero-to-60 km/h run yet, before eventually running out of the ability to propel itself. From there, things go downhill in more or less the way you’d expect, with the engine dying a slow and ignoble death.
So, what went wrong? Well, it certainly seems like a failure of lubrication occurred, as evidenced by the fact that nothing drained out of the oil pan when the drain plug was pulled. Looking deeper into the engine, not only is the residue rather alarming, but the oil pan is full of important bits, like a connecting rod cap and a wrist pin. A deeper examination reveals that the number one and number three pistons both cracked, with the former notably shedding its skirting in addition to its connecting rod. In addition, the bore scoring achieved by using eggnog instead of engine oil seems bad, but the damage actually seems confined to the rotating assembly of the engine.
Oddly, an examination of the cylinder head reveals that pretty much everything up there is more or less fine. The rocker arms look great, which is weird because they absolutely should not. These things are extremely sensitive to lubrication, which makes you wonder if a film of oil remaining inside the engine was the only thing keeping it alive through its eggnog tribulations.
Intriguingly, despite the Pilk curdling, the use of this particular fluid doesn’t seem to have a huge adverse effect on the performance of the cooling system in this particular scenario. Does that make a mixture of Pepsi and milk a good substitute for coolant and distilled water? Probably not, seeing as how curdling might affect water pump and thermostat operation, but hey.
Anyway, let this serve as a reminder that the only thing supposed to go in your oil fill hole should be oil that’s the right grade and weight for your engine. Also, if something starts mixing with your oil, like coolant due to a failed head gasket, stop driving. Once damage is done to an engine, it can be difficult and expensive to fix.
(Photo credits: YouTube/Garbage Time)
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Meh, for Australian car channels i prefer Mighty Car Mods. They tend to fix things and make them better rather than just detroy stuff for youtube clicks. Who knew that replacing your oil with something stupid is gonna cause damage? How surprising!
most of the dude’s videos are him fixing cars that folks wouldnt bother fixing, he has a fixation on older city cars we never got stateside which makes them pretty interesting to watch! The only reason this one is getting destroyed like this is because he likes to fix stuff up before he gives them to friends who need rides, and this one was bad enough to warrant the junkyard so he wanted to have fun with it first.
I don’t know why, but killing an engine, just to do something monumentally stupid, depresses me. Like, I get the destructive testing done to understand the limits of machine, etc. But when I watch something like the nog induced death of an engine, the hoarder instinct in me always thinks, no!!!! maybe I can use that someday!!!
I’m also concerned about the waste of fuel, food and water.
was food mentioned in this article?
Egg Nog is made from eggs and milk.
That’s food.
Yeah, I can’t say this imparted any valuable lessons or that any science was had or art was created. Just a bummer.
This is a 90s VAG engine, it probably deserves it. Wish I’d tortured my Polo’s engine to death when it started to give out rather than driving around miserably for months. Wasted fuel/emissions isn’t great, but it’s such a miniscule droplet compared to the millions of idling gallons wasted in freight/transportation in any given day, and food is wasted by the metric ton by chain stores on purpose to protect revenue. Can’t really fault some ozzies for wasting some nog and burning some fuel for a bit of a youtube laugh.
The car had issues, the engine seemed to have issues beforehand and the transmission had major problems too. He says that he will put a new engine in it one day. If you look throughout his channel, he has saved cars from the junkyard (like his Renault) and puts work into almost worthless vehicles.
Wait till you hear about how car prototypes, even perfect runners and drivers, are crushed and destroyed.
Considering that eggnog always struck me as closer to Elmer’s glue than a beverage, this result is indeed shocking.
Egg Nog or Pilk. I was confused through the whole article. It’s early, coffee time.
Wade and James are always immensely entertaining. And prove exactly why you shouldn’t do any of the things you see them do. Wade had a massive risk of losing his leg when the connecting rod decided it wanted to go full Queen on the oil pan.
That said, I’m surprised the engine actually continued to run missing an entire cylinder, three pistons, an oil sump, oil pickup, all but two of the valves, and the entire sleeve cooling system.
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
You must be fun at parties huh?
Your mom thinks so.
I didn’t realize Laverne & Shirley had such a fanbase in Australia.
Came here for this
For those of that had our formative years in the 80s when cable didn’t exist in Aus, absolutely!
Happy Days and L&S were staples, along with a few other American imports but the preference was still for content (um… reruns) from the UK. 6pm was time for The Goodies, before Dad got home and we had dinner.
Two of my favorite automotive media (The Autopian and Garbage Time) crossing paths…
This makes me happy.
So I shouldn’t pour a carton of Egg Beaters in my radiator is that what you’re saying?
Unless you want a watery custard.
Really could have used this advice a week earlier.
In the early ‘50s, my parents had a very used DeSoto Airflow which they sold to the neighbor’s kid, who was enrolled in high school auto shop. Shortly thereafter, Mom saw the Airflow being towed away. Since the car had been in running condition, Mom asked the neighbor kid’s mom what had happened.
Apparently, kid brought the car to the school shop building – shared between auto, wood, and metal shops – for an oil change. He carefully measured the oil he needed from a large drum, changed it, and shortly thereafter found that the Airflow wouldn’t even turn over, let alone run. Kid asked the shop teacher for advice. Teacher looked around and said, “Oh, you didn’t fill it with shellac, did you?”
Probably could have fixed it by filling it with denatured alcohol, letting it sit for a while, then draining and repeating a few times.
Oil in dad’s ’85 Colony Park looked like that when it blew a head gasket. I did the rebuild on a college summer break.
Problem was the coolant, had they just run human blood instead of pilk, it might have worked out
The extra iron helps keep the cooling system rust free. Bonus The extra oxygen (with a fuel shark of course) will boost your MPG’s.
What are the penalties for an auto guilty of DUI?
Was that straight egg nog? If you really want to get lubed up you’ve got to mix in generous portions of rum or bourbon. That’ll get any engine revving. Of course, there will inevitably be a crash at some point.
If I remember correctly, the manual says German engines prefer brandy in their nog, but your point is still valid.
You could be right, but definitely check your manual before you make a schnapps decision.
You could be right, but definitely check your manual before you make a schnapps decision.
I would have thought Jaegermeiser would have been the preferred choice.