YACT: Flushed radiator... a half a quart of oil is in the coolant...

[phantom309]

Originally posted by: Red

Originally posted by: phantom309
Something doesn't sound right about this. If you've got oil in your coolant, it wouldn't just look a little dark, it would look like chocolate milk. I doubt it would seperate out much either, unless it sat for a looooong time, or if the car wasn't run since the oil was added. Theories:
1) Blown head gasket. Symptoms - white smoke out of tailpipe at startup, runs hot, classic "chocolate milk in radiator".
2) Moron added oil to coolant reservoir thinking it was oil filler tube. It happens.
3) Mechanic added oil to your coolant at some point to rip you off for expensive unneeded engine work.
4) Cracked head. It happens, but like the blown head gasket it's rare in cars that weren't massively overheated.
5) Dealer gave you used coolant from other car with blown head gasket. Anything's possible, but that seems very unlikely. Dealerships cheat you by selling faulty cars that appear to run correctly, not the other way around. In other words, if your car had a cracked block or blown head gasket, you can bet there would be nice fresh coolant and oil in the car before it even hit the lot.

Well, as for #1... I drove the car about 35 miles from the dealership to my house on Saturday morning. The alternator died when I got home so the car had been sitting since then (4 days) so maybe the oil/coolant had separated by then? There was nothing chocolate-milky about the oil/coolant mix. The oil was a translucent dark gold color on top of green coolant. #4 is what my mechanic/friend thinks is probably what the case is (cracked head) but is hoping for something like number 2 or 5 (just some idiot put oil in radiator or dealership put nasty coolant in the radiator).

Honestly, if I were you, I'd put away the wrenches, photograph and document everything, go directly back to the dealer and demand a full refund. Even if the car is still under warranty - if it needs major engine work now, who knows what else might be wrong with it? It doesn't look like you can trust that dealer to tell you. No matter how you look at this, it's trouble. Unless you bought it "as is" there's absolutely no reason for you to be working on a car you just bought.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: Eli
It's almost certainly a bad headgasket.

Man, you really bought a lemon, didn't you? 🙁

I would highly suggest looking into your states lemon laws, and if you can, ask for every cent back.

Lemon law is for new cars in every state I have seen the law, that is why you sign the AS-IS statement when yu buy a used car so you know it is "AS-IS"


1. Could be a bad headgasket
2. Bad tranny cooler in Rad.
3. They put in some stop leak and some stop leaks do use oil as a carrier

A half a quart? 😛

Does it smell like engine oil?

If you don't know, take out the dipstick and sniff it. If it smells different, smell your transmission dipstick(assuming automatic).

 

[Red]

Does it smell like engine oil?

If you don't know, take out the dipstick and sniff it. If it smells different, smell your transmission dipstick(assuming automatic).

I'll try that when I get home today. I took pictures of the oil/coolant combo, I'll post those later on as well.