i got my oil changed the other day, and the guy at the place told me i had what he thought was oil mixed in with the coolant in the radiator. he took off the radiator fill cap and showed me and there was a level of oil sitting on top of the coolant, or at least what looked like oil (black liquid, similar viscosity to oil). it hadn't mixed w/ the coolant which is good, but where could this be coming from? the guy thought some of it was being pulled from the overflow reservoir, so he unhooked the hose running from the radiator to the overflow (that shouldn't be a problem driving w/ that off until i can get it looked at should it?). they sucked out the oil that was there but when they started the car you could see some start to surface again. i'm gonna get it checked out when i go home for christmas break in a week...any ideas on what it could be? also, are there any dangers w/ driving it like that? thanks for the help.

 

How many miles do you have on your car? Could just need to be flushed. The dex cool looks like diarrhea when it needs to be flushed.

 

car's got 90k on it...i just had the coolant flushed less than a year ago, and when the guy at the oil place sucked some of the coolant out that was right below the oil level it was good and clean.

 

anyone else have any ideas?

 

its your headgasket..... water mixing with oil usually means a headgasket


-- Mike

 

I'm gonna back up the head gasket idea. That was first thought on the problem.

 

yeah, that would make sense. thanks for the response. now, assuming it is the headgasket, how much is it to have something like that fixed? never had any work done on the motor like that since i've owned it so i wasn't sure...thanks again.

 

no clue but i'm sure its not cheap. I'd do it myself if i could.... :-p

 

one more question about the head gasket...if oil were getting in through there would i be seeing it being burned (white smoking)?

 

its possible

 

definately sounds like your headgasket...same thing happened with my car about 3 weeks after i bought it.. don't drive too much with ur headgasket like that, it'll mess up your car. my car got a really bad rod knock because i kept driving it..so now i'm putting a new block in my car which is costing me about $3,600 after installation. it's a jasper block with a 5 year/100k mile warranty. headgasket will cost you around $1,300..

 

Lets hope it isn't your headgasket but it sounds like it is...

...not a cheap fix. Not at all.

 

thanks for the input...unfortunately i have to make a trip back to houston (i'm in denton) in a couple days which will obviously involve a lot of driving...how big of a deal will this be if the headgasket is the problem? thanks again.