Sugar-coating wet engine's malfunction (10)

I believe the answer is:

sweetening

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'sugar' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'wet engine's malfunction' is the wordplay.
'malfunction' indicates an anagram.
'wet'+'engines'='wetengines'
'wetengines' is an anagram of 'SWEETENING'.

'coating' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for sweetening that I've seen is " Adding sugar to".)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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